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The nub on the ThinkPad is quite nice. What I really can't stand are the laggy touch pads found on some laptops. They make me wanna smash things.
I try to use a mouse whenever possible. After years of FPS gaming I'm very proficient with the mouse, and feel handicapped even with good nub/touch pad.
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Trackpad (trackpoint) are the best. Our company uses Lenovo Thinkpads and whenever I get one, I turn off the touchpad in the bios straight away.
When I was looking at buying a laptop for home, the first thing I wanted was a trackpoint laptop. That's one of the reasons why I will never buy an Apple cause they don't have a trackpoint. All of the commercial laptops from Dell, HP, ASUS that you see in stores all have touchpads. I would walk straight past all of them and look at other computer gear.
So I went online. A number of the business models from Dell, HP have trackpoints but the other specs were not up to my standard so I ended up buying a Lenovo Thinkpad. All Lenovo laptops have trackpoints.
One of the benefits of a trackpoint is that it is positioned in the middle of the keyboard so you can type and just use your index finger to move the mouse and thumb for the buttons by just moving a few centimetres, if that.
So a BIG thumbs up for trackpoints for me.
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I agree fully. I've been using IBM/Lenovo laptops for the past 5 years. At first I hated the TrackPoint, but once you get acclimated with its use, you'll NEVER go back to a touchpad. Maybe Lenovo's design is what rates supreme, or maybe it's due to the scroll button. I have yet to find a laptop, other than Lenovo, with the scroll button feature. (It works just like the scroll wheel on a mouse.)
As stated by "MAVLegend", I love the fact that you don't have to move your hands off of the keyboard to move the pointer. Just move your index finger a centimeter to the left and off you go. Very quick and simple to get where you need to go. Also very helpful when traveling on a plane; your elbows don't need room to manuever.
TrackPoint Rules!
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Good to know - I'll definitely be looking at Lenovo laptops for my next replacement.
-----
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
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I had a Lenovo for a year in college. The "nub" was by far my preference over a touch pad. It was easy to reach. After accidentally dragging and dropping a folder into another folder on the web server with a touchpad (without noticing), I stopped using touchpads altogether.
Maybe with a lot more practice the touch pad would be better, but if I have room to bring a laptop, I have room form my mouse.
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All Lenovo laptops "used to" have trackpoint. Watch out for the cheaper lines (Y series for instance), they don't have trackpoint. Stick to the T or W series.
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Totally agreed. I use a mouse whenever I can, but if I can't, I much prefer a "nub".
I'm looking at the little netbook devices now, where space/size really is important and I'd expect to use it under conditions where a mouse isn't an option, and all of them seem to waste an inch or so on a touchpad that I don't want. I may even end up paying out for the Sony Vaio P just so as NOT to have a touchpad.
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i HATE those little nubs. i find them completely unusable.
to each his own, i guess.
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I use a Microsoft Optical Trackball 1.0 (sadly no longer produced, so I snap up any I can find)
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Sounds like an external mouse then.
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Since it is an upside down mouse, maybe it better referred to as a dead mouse!
I tried using one of those several years ago and never got on with it. I did however get one of these http://pen-mouse.com/index.htm[^] which I found to be comfortable to use. The only downside is lack of wheel which I used a lot. So now I'm back to using a mouse!
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You may like this thing, then: http://www.wow-pen.com/eng/buy/showroom.htm
I use the "eco" one, and find it really nice.
///
Looking for a challenging job?
Ellisys is hiring.
Discover your next challenges at
www.ellisys.com/company/jobs.php
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I checked the "external" option. I always use a Logitech Cordless Optical TrackMan. I have one for every computer I use.
When I am in the office though, my laptop is connected via Synergy - so really I'm not using a mouse on the laptop - I am using a TrackMan on another computer. There's no option for that!
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If it wasn't for web browsing, I would never even use a pointing device. Unfortunately, web is not keyboard friendly at all.
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Ouch! I think the mouse is much quicker than the keyboard for navigating. I do use lots of keyboard shortcuts.
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if you are using Firefox, you can try Hit-a-hint[^], although it requires some tweaks to make it work with FF3 (see comments there)
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Nemanja Trifunovic wrote: Unfortunately, web is not keyboard friendly at all.
Very much. There is a glaring violation of the guidelines posted over here (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/[^]) on the note near 1.4.2 section.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep!
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