Why is the keyboard of most laptops on top, with the mouse below the keys?

A mystery. Maybe the laptop manufacturers believe that users want to “rest” their palms on the surface below the keys; but that is not how I type. Did either manual or electric typewriters ever have a strip of surface below the keys to “rest” the palms so that one’s hands might be periodically crooked awkwardly?

To type on a typical laptop one must extend one’s hands in a way that I don’t find convenient or natural. For that reason and partly because even with a desktop I always put the attached keyboard on my lap (the wrong place to put a laptop) rather than on the desk, I type on laptops with an external keyboard, the larger keys of which are also easier to depress. With the keyboard slung on my lap, my hands are relaxed. I occasionally hear about how to position one’s hands ergonomically as one types to reduce strain, but I never have a problem. My hands are always in the laziest, most comfortable position.

Many smaller laptops or quasi-hand-helds like the MobilePro 900 lack the awkward strip of space below the keys. But on the typical average-sized laptop, the placement of the keyboard seems to have escaped any discipline of market process. A default layout has emerged from whatever historical design or engineering considerations, and now no thought ever is given to enabling the customer to type more comfortably. But it can’t be that outre an innovation to have models with keys at the bottom, mouse at the top. And once it becomes an easily available option, the world may find that I’m not the only typist who prefers it that way.