Laptops all moved from nipples to trackpads a long time ago, surely if analog sticks could provide higher resolution then that wouldn't have happened, or there would have been a move back?
Not all. Lenovo still provides eraser nub-style pointers on many models. I personally find them to be more accurate at high speeds than a touchpad.
I actually have no idea how people can use touchpads. You need a huge one to be able to go corner-to-corner in one swipe and still have reasonable accuracy.
I hate touchpads. I use an external mouse with my Macbook. I have a Dell D830 with the nub pointer and it was so much easier to use, especially considering that you don't have to remove your hands from the keyboard and your finger doesn't need to cross 3 inches of space to move across the screen.
I've always been confused by this argument. I can reach my trackpad with my right thumb without moving any of my other fingers off of the home row. Is this an unusual amount of flexibility?
Maybe. I have long fingers and decent dexterity but find thumbing a trackpad way less accurate than using a trackpoint. This may be a matter of practice, but there's still more hand movement required even to get my thumb over the trackpad.
Not sure where that argument comes from -- it's certainly not one I've ever made. I personally really prefer the nub over touch pad, but it has nothing to do with not having to move my fingers away from the keyboard.
I mean, given the option of a physical mouse, I will always prefer that over both nub and track pad -- and the physical mouse requires the most movement away from the keyboard (of course, to avoid all three mouse input methods I use keyboard shortcuts when possible).
Anyway, my reasons for preferring the nub are:
* Less movement required on the actual input device. Just a slight tilt of the finger can move the mouse cursor from anywhere to anywhere else.
* Higher accuracy. This one may be subjective, only personal applicable, and/or biased, but I think the nub just makes it so much easier to navigate compared to the touch pad.
I don't get that argument either. My main case for the eraser-nub-mouse is that I don't have to physically move my finger over and over again. It goes like this, put finger in one corner, drag finger, reach end of touch surface, lift finger, put finger again on the opposite side, drag again... until you reach destination.
This is one of those use cases that I'd be interested in seeing some research on. Personally, it depends a great deal on what I am doing, but I often use my thumbs to do minor navigations when within a document. Particularly because I have some RSI issues and using my thumb seems to less of an aggravation. Milage, I'm sure, varies, but I suspect that there is a subset of folks that at least use their thumbs a bit.
But if you're using two finger scrolling this doesn't work so well. Also, while I can use my thumbs they aren't long enough for me to easily be able to access all corners of the trackpad with one thumb.
I've played 1000+ hours of Minecraft on my Thinkpad. That would be torture with a touchpad but it's a joy with the nub (which is basically a very small joystick). Why they went with touchpads over traditional dual-joystick input with community managed zero configuration mouse-keyboard emulation I really don't understand.
And I've played a fair amount of Minecraft on my MacBook. I find the trackpad to be quite nice. I've gotten to where I can play most FPS games and feel like I'm very close to where I would be if I were using a mouse.
Yeah but to be fair the lenovo track pad is bad compared to a macbook trackpad and they are made by the same manufacturer. So on the thinkpad it makes sense that people use the nub when the trackpad experience is pretty bad.
I was a nub user. Then I got a Macbook Pro. So far this is the only touchpad I can use. The IBM and Lenovo Thinkpads are the only nubs I can use also. Everything else feels terrible and unusable.
I'd have agreed with you once, but I broke the trackpad on a ThinkPad a couple of years ago and out of apathy i switched to the nipple mouse and I haven't looked back. It takes more practice but it has excellent precision and infinite movement. The trackpad remains broken and unplugged.
I've had several ThinkPads, and I've always disabled the trackpad in the BIOS as soon as I got a new one - it's totally unnecessary when you have the TrackPoint. It's so much faster and more precise. Like amalcon said, I have no idea how anyone can use a trackpad. Whenever I watch a friend use one, or use one myself, it's like the mouse is moving in slow motion compared to me using the TrackPoint. It does take some practice, but it's well worth the investment, just like how learning to touch type pays off in the long run.
Trackpoint is great, but I've been trying to move away from its use. I've found after frequent use, my finger tip gets irritated- I suspect mechanics similar to the development of a blister are at play- and they haven't been good for my hand overall. I've forced myself to use trackpads and mice now, because they are much lower impact on my hand. I can keep my hand completely relaxed when using a trackpad.
> On thinkpads you can press the middle mouse button (below the spacebar) then press the trackpoint up or down.
Yep, and you can also click and release the middle mouse button, then separately mouse up or down. Interestingly, I have only been able to get either this OR the press then scroll behavior you described working on Windows (by toggling a setting), but in Linux you can have both enabled at the same time.
Bizarrely, Linux seems to support much of the trackpoint/trackpad stuff on thinkpads better than Windows does. I use to not be able to configure the trackpad how I wanted on Windows, but the Synaptics driver for Linux gave me plenty of possibilities.
I have a T61 thinkpad, and love it. I use Linux on it solely. I have compiz bound to those forward and back arrows as cube_rotate_left and right. And I also run 8 desktops. Makes my world so much simpler in terms of organization of programs and flow.
I was assuming the opposite. Keyboard and Mouse is usually regarded as superior to joysticks for FPS so I assumed they were trying to bridge the gap and come up with something more mouse-like?
If it were me doing it, I would use the trackpad and the trackpad buttons. (I'm not sure, but I believe each trackpad is "pressable" and has multiple buttons, replicating a d-pad)
I would tap and drag for little and precise movements, swipe for fast movements, and press the button for default movement. With some training, it can become pretty natural.
I have, and I strongly prefer the TrackPoint--by a whole order of magnitude. I never have to keep my fingers off home row.
I do use a tiling window manager and bindings like Vrome/Vimperator, so my use case is probably atypical. My mouse usage is limited to when I deem it absolutely necessary; I hate physical/mental context switching, and bringing my hand from keyboard to TrackPad/mouse/whatever is a huge context switch.
I have always felt that the TrackPoint (on a HP Elitebook here) is difficult to access from the right or left index because of its place between G and H.
I would use it so much more if it was between H and J.
How do you stretch your finger towards the middle of the keyboard with no issue? Stretching just to type a letter is fine for me (think Y, H or B), but staying on the TrackPoint is hard.
I used an Apple one (one of the large ones) on a 2010 MBP. It was error prone and made my fingers numb after a while. Not only that, the full pad depression to click is awkward and configuring sensitivity for tap to click was never just right.
Possibly a shocking statement here but I went from a top end 2010 MBP to a 2009 T400 running windows 7 and am much happier as a whole, even though I have my head in UNIX machines a lot.
Strongly disagree. If you're just browsing or clicking on things, sure, the Apple trackpad is great. For playing games, the trackpoint is better. For coding or doing any sort of mixture of typing/pointing, the trackpoint is better.
