Little trackpads drive me nuts!
HP Mini 2140 trackpad
There, I feel better having said that. I have the great opportunity to play with use a lot of different netbooks and notebooks and one of the common features that most share is the trackpad. The trackpad is that small slippery little pad that replaces the mouse on mobile computers. They haven’t changed much until recently and they are all pretty much the same, and they all drive me batty.
I have never been a fan of the trackpad as they’ve never felt right to use. I’m one of the rare users who actually liked the old ThinkPad nubbin, that little stick of a mouse that moved the cursor all over the screen. I could use those with a fair bit of precision and it always felt right to do so. That’s just not the case with trackpads, especially now that they’ve shrunk to ridiculous sizes.
I don’t know if we blame the netbook for the shrunken trackpad or if they were just evolving that way anyway. Look at any netbook and many notebooks today and you see a sliver-like trackpad beneath the keyboard. Not much bigger than an inch wide and even shorter in the up/down direction, these little trackpads don’t feel right to use at all. Maybe it’s a mental thing, my mind just can’t make the jump from the 1.5 inch trackpad to the 10, 12 or even 17-inch screen where the cursor lives.
I feel like I am constantly swooping my finger over the trackpad trying to move the cursor over, over, over to the edge of the screen. Throw in an up/down swoop on top of the side-to-side dance and it just isn’t normal. Give me a nubbin any time and I’ll show you a cursor that practically leaps all around the screen. Oh yes.
Lenovo W700ds trackpad
The bigger the laptop the worse the little trackpad affects my usage. I can’t express how frustrating it has been using the giant Lenovo w700ds with the itty-bitty trackpad it has. I try moving the cursor over the 17-inch screen and it’s a nightmare and then throw in the extra 10.6-inch screen on the side of the other one and I am rubbing my finger raw swooping the cursor all around. Thank goodness Lenovo includes a nubbin on the beast too.
That’s something I’d like to see done more often, leave the trackpad for those who for some reason like that method, just give me a nubbin too. I know I’m in the minority, most folks seem to like the trackpad for an input method. That’s fine just not for me. I never have liked them even before they started shrinking to ridiculous small sizes. In fact the oversized trackpad on the MacBooks are the first I have liked to use, probably because they are big enough and proportional to the screen size. Plus they have that cool multi-touch stuff going on.
MacBook trackpad
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Amen, James! My first Toshiba laptop had the trackpoint mouse and I wish I had that now.
My problem with trackpads – as evidenced on my hubby’s HP laptop last night – is that sensitive ones send my cursor to places I don’t want it to go in the middle of typing. Last night, after 15 frustrating minutes of typing, I gave up.
Yes, I could have locked the trackpad out, but then when you DO need to navigate, you have to unlock it.
Give me a trackpoint mouse anyday!
My vote goes to having the netbooks sans keyboard and trackpad and having a touch screen. Microsoft’s Origami project was a nice start, but the machines were too bulky. What we need are thin and powerful touch screen tablets with on-screen keyboards.
Two words..
Bluetooth Mouse.
Gordon
Amen!
I always preferred the IBM TrackPoint because I didn’t have to take my hands off of the keyboard to use it, and it was much more accurate.
I’ve been using trackpads for 6 years now, and I still dislike their inherent problems.
If a laptop has both devices, then the user should be able to disable one in favor of the other, not be forced into having both active at the same time like some manufacturers do.
I still say get a Microsoft McMouse and use your jeans.
I can’t stand touchpads. Way too much moving around. When IBM/Lenovo did studies on how a person uses the TrackPoint, they found that the movements necessary were very little, keeping fatigue at a minimum. Combined with the legendary keyboards, it’s easy to see why I love a ThinkPad over any other laptop.
Ron loves the IBM Trackpoint. Have used on Toshibas, IBM I think NEC had it on a few of the VERSAs. Gateway had it as well. I liked it so well I remember buying a keyboard that had the Trackpoint Mouse on it for my desktop. Wore it out and they are hard to find. They reposnd to movement, period. No variance due to my skin having better or worse capacitance then some other person.
I can go on about this isue , but I think you get my point. Trackpoint is the ticket. Funny thing is it seems so easy to install both as IBM does on many of their current ThinkPads. Except for licensing $$, HEY MANUFACTURERS! CAN YOU HEAR US?
BTW, it seems SONY has heard the word, as it is what they used on the P.
My own touchpad is fine with the sensitivity all the way up, acceleration turned on (“enhance pointer sensitivity” in Windows), and palmchecking calibrated right. I can sweep across the whole screen (1280×768) in one go and still make teeny movements. There’s a function that makes it auto-scroll if I hit the edge of the pad too. I think this may vary by machine though – I didn’t like using my Toshiba’s Alps touchpad for more than a couple of hours, while my HP’s Synaptics is just dandy.
However it’s just not a comfortable way to mouse for long periods, having one hand that far away from the home row so I keep a Mogo Mouse in the PC card slot. I can swing my arm in an arc from the home row to the mouse so it’s much more acceptable. Although my last one wore out after a year because I was using it near-constantly, it’s a good compromise between portability and comfort.
I hate both forms of input and have always felt hostile towards them both… they both require too much calibration and sensitivity adjustments to make them work for individual preferences and there is rarely a happy medium for people.
That’s part of why I like the touch/tablet form factor so much. It’s truly a natural way to interact with a device. I just wish companies would start producing models with anti-smudge coatings instead of glossy ones or the matte ones that seem to absorb grease like a sponge.
Anyway, I never liked trackballs either, so that basically leaves mice and tablet/touch methods as the only practical input methods. Why is it so difficult to develop friendly, natural input methods?
Trackpoint powaaaa :)
The most powerfull pointing system ;)
Love it when I first tried it on my JVC7230…