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…
Amen! Dislike trackpads with a passion. My thumb is always dropping on it and whereever the cursor is, is where it starts typing. This caused so much re-typing and unique use of swear words. My TC1100 keyboard has a great little nubbin.
This is interesting. I have always hated those little nubs, I could never get the hang of navigating with one, it’s always too slow and or too fast. I love trackpads, they work as well as mouse for me, BUT… I hate the trackpad on my MacBook Pro it is too big. I am constantly resting an extra finger or other body part on the pad and getting unexpected results. I just think it’s interesting how some thing one or the other is the best, and how hard it must be for the notebook manufacturers to make everyone happy!
I’m just gonna say one word.
Trackball.
If you’ve never tried one, you don’t know what you’re missing out on.
Thank me later.
Do you leave “Tapping” enabled on all of the touchpads that you despise?
I find that if tapping is enabled, the touchpad seems much more inaccurate, the process of lifting the finger and bring it down means that the trackpad registers movement, just because the finger is not a single point on the pad.
I dislike nubs, simply because they always manage to leave marks on the screens of the laptops. The sometimes also cause the mouse to start creeping on it’s own.
I’m 100% with the TouchPoint crowd, and think it’s criminal that they’re so hard to find–even Lenovo doesn’t offer them on their IdeaPads. I’d happily pay a $50-100 premium to get a TouchPoint instead of, or in addition to, a trackpad. And when input real estate is at a premium, as in the case of netbooks, they make even more sense, and I’m thrilled to see that Sony figured that out in their Vaio P.
How about the Toshiba Libretto nub.. on the BACK of the LCD? Man I loved some of those devices. Regarding netbook trackpads – most are too small, and lack multifinger scroll (like Mac) which I’ve grown quite accustomed too. One reason why I unloaded the MSI Wind. Though the Eee 1000HA has a larger and more functional pad.
Yeah, touchpads can be a pain, but those nubs… on my Dell, it went haywire and got stuck in always-just-slightly on, so my mouse pointer was constantly drifting! That was so annoying it wasn’t even funny.
I definitely carry a small mouse when at all possible, and it pays great dividends to learn keyboard shortcuts instead of constantly going to the mouse pointer. Most people simply do so many operations with the trackpad for no reason whatsoever when a quick and easy key combo could do it instead.
James:
As a trackpoint fan, I hear your complaints. Simply put, there’s too much backtracking on small trackpads.
For the HP netbooks, there’s a partial workaround with the EdgeMotion feature. Basically, what this does is create an area around the edges where, if you move your finger into that area, the mouse continues scrolling in that direction. If you want to try out the feature, it’s located under “SettingsPointer Motion”. Hope that helps.
Pro-trackstick people only think they have it bad; they always have Lenovo in their corner. Like Luscious, I prefer the now dead trackball mouse. :)
Yep, nubbins are great. They shoot around the screen but can be finely controlled, and you don’t have to move you’re hands from the keys. Trackpads never felt right to me, so I’ve always used a small mouse with laptops.
I’ve just come back from the future and let me tell you, things don’t get any better! Until humans can learn to concentrate on one thing at a time, thought control isn’t going to work.
By the way, I love the nubbin on my OQO 05.
Thanks for the article, and everyone for the comments! I thought I was the only one that prefers the nib instead of a trackpad! I don’t like having to use multiple swipes to move across the screen, and I really hate (like Pam says) having the cursor jump where I don’t want it. If you are working on something important, it can bring you close to some serious damage. I’ll take the nib anyday, and I love it on my ThinkPad tablet.
But I have to admit, the trackpad is better on my HP laptop than my older Dell laptop because the trackpad is in a little depression which helps protect against palm taps. I don’t see any way to fine tune the settings on it to disable tapping, but that might also be sufficient. (Is that common these days in trackpad drivers?)
Even better, the HP has both a nib and a trackpad. Now we’re talking! Except that’s not really an option (I suppose) on a netbook…
Him from Quantum Leap- can you give me the next winning numbers from the Texas Lottery? :)
Hah, I thought I was the only one that liked the nub too. My first was an AST Ascentia => Toshiba Tecra => Toshiba Dynabook SS => Vaio Picturebook. My first trackpad was on my Dell Inspiron, but I didn’t like it much. I do like the trackpad on my current 12″ PowerBook, because of the two finger scrolling.
The cool thing about the nub, that companies can build tiny computers around it… like the Vaio PictureBook and now the P-series.
Honestly, I’ve never met anyone that had anything good to say about the nub, but I’ve always thought it was easier to use than a trackpad (sans my experience with my Powerbook – IMHO it blows other trackpads and the nub out of the water).
Bob Russell: If you have a Synaptics touchpad (check in the Mouse options for a Synaptics-related tab, or something in the System Tray) pop into the menu and you can do a bunch of things with tapping, such as adjusting the strength of tap needed to trigger it.
I agree with the posters who appreciate the trackpoint rather than the trackpad. The only complaint I have is that the first joint of my index finger starts to hurt during a long browsing session. Anyone else notice this, or is it just my own personal affliction?
+1 for bringing back the trackpoint! I will not buy a netbook until I find one with it fitted. Touchpads are awful and I don’t want to lug a mouse around too.
I think trackpoints suffered from being not entirely intuitive. Many people I’ve seen complain about how difficult the trackpoint was were trying to move on top of the trackpoint like a retarded trackpad. For some reason, the joystick-style control didn’t occur to them.
Furthermore, the other companies didn’t implement it well. IBM/Lenovo trackpoints are very good to use. Dell trackpoints tended to be very slow, so they were frustrating to use.