Comment by old-gregg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by old-gregg | Hacker News Reader

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> Why can't PC manufacturers get it right?

They do get it right. In fact I find Macs very limiting since they lack this: http://notebook.pconline.com.cn/testing/0504/other/we1net_ib...

A laptop without this is not worth buying. See? Who knew than another guy's opinion can be so different...

I can type and operate "mouse" without moving my palms from the typing position. I can do all three types of mouse clicks with my thumbs! Moreover, Thinkpad's touchpad provides the most direct feel when moving the cursor [more on this later]. Having the central "pin" for quick cursor jumps (while typing) is absolutely invaluable.

Now, about the directness and precision of the touchpad. It's all about drivers. Early white Macbooks had a terrible lag of cursor movement but Apple fixed it later in software. My Thinkpad had somewhat inadequate "cursor feel" under windows 7 which came with it, but under Ubuntu it has the most satisfying "mouse" money can buy, called Ultranav.

Lenovo gets it right.

I've owned several laptops that only featured "the nipple" and I had one where it every so often would get stuck in a single position whereby it would always go off to the top left. This seemed to happen after having owned and used it for a year or so.

I have also owned several laptops, both Windows and Mac OS X based and my MBP's trackpad is far superior over any other trackpad I've used.

The best feature of the trackpoint is scrolling. You can scroll with it by pressing the middle button and move the trackpoint around. I'm using this all the time and i like it more than two finger scrolling.

Yep, you are not the only one. I've had a laptop with a nipple, and it started to move around all on it's own.

The same is true for my brothers old dell laptop and my dads not so old dell laptop.

Lenovo has pretty good trackpads but they are tiny. The trackpoint is nice but not for everyone. If you want one you obviously have to buy a Lenovo laptop.

I’m not exactly sure, though, why you seem to be so outraged about someone else’s opinion.

I’m not exactly sure, though, why you seem to be so outraged about someone else’s opinion.

I think this is a dramatic exaggeration of his opinion to illustrate the existence of opposing perspectives.

I use the trackpoint exclusively, so I always buy a Lenovo without a touchpad. It's much better in my opinion, because you never have to move your hands away from the keyboard position.

I couldn't agree more. The above pretty much expresses why I've been a serial Thinkpad user for years now.

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