You can always add a usb numpad, but you can never remove one that is already there.

True. Why do they sell laptops with screen built in?

They do sell them without built in screens too - Mac Mini for example.

They don't call them laptops though.

A long time ago I used to own a laptop that I bought from a friend after someone stepped on it and broke the screen. I removed the screen and installed some version of Linux on it.

It turned out to be quite fun and useful. Not a very good laptop if you want to use it where you don't have a screen, but it was kind of like a modern TRS-80. You could treat it like a keyboard and not have the laptop screen get in the way of the larger desktop monitor (back then it probably would have been a CRT) I actually wanted to use. In a sense it was actually less awkward than a normal laptop for the way I usually wanted to use it.

Excellent idea! Then you can reposition it so that the useless numpad doesn't force the main keyboard to be off-center. ;-)

A large number of laptop users just use them on the desktop, tethered to a big screen, in clamshell mode. This includes almost every vlogger setup one can find...

Except the primary design goal of a laptop remains portability to some extent. And not having a screen would make it an incomplete device.

I use it like that 80-90% of the time, but the on the rest I just use it purely as laptop on the couch. I like to have both options.

Surely this is just due to a lack of knowledge? If you're never going to use the portability, then you can get a much more powerful desktop than a laptop given the same amount of money.

Having a built in UPS is pretty sweet for some use cases though.

That's what my original argument stated,

> Because all laptop users make use of the screen.

If they wanted less bulk, they could buy an Intel Nuc or similar form factor device.

The screen and portability are the compelling feature of the laptop design.

Im not a top tier user of blender but I get by via remapping some of the relevant keys. I don't use all the features, but I feel like having no numpad is well supported in blender, and is irrelevant in Unity and Godot. Can't speak to unreal.

Using a mouse is very bad for my shoulders if it's too far away from my center. Numpads are simply not an option for me, unless I had an external one in a special location.

I think the numpad users are outnumbered by the indifferent and numpad haters. I'm in the latter column.

I did think that for the first few weeks of using Blender, but I find I don't use it any more. I think perhaps once I was using Blenders verb / constrain / snap model I stopped using the ortho views. So for example (G)rab / X / (10)units. (S)cale, Y, 1.5. (E)xtrude, Y, Snap.