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Comment by hcarvalhoalves | Hacker News Reader

Ouch. They still make notebooks with the "nipple" mouse? I actually thought it was a Thinkpad from the 90's on the first pic.

BTW, who invented the term "ultrabook"? It's cheesy as hell. Reminds me of the "laser disc" days.

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I love the nipple mouse. I find it much less irritating on my wrists than a trackpad. Plus, it allows for a rapid transition between keyboard and mouse.

I agree and I have disabled the trackpads in the bios settings for both of my Lenovo laptops. I just wish they could solve the slight movement drift you experience sometimes when using the ThinkPoint.

Oh. You echo my very pet peeve with the trackpoint. I hate the slight drift.

I have a script that disables the trackpad. I will figure out how to do it in the bios.

I've found that pressing directly down very hard on the stick will sometimes kill the drift.

The trackpoint always auto-calibrates itself when you let go of it. If you begin to get a drift, let go for a few seconds and it'll fix itself.

The drift I see is when your finger is off the stick and the cursor keeps moving. And it goes more than a few seconds.

Yeah, it'll do that because it's used to your finger being on the stick and thinks that's the neutral position. It's supposed to stop and recalibrate itself eventually, especially when it reaches the edge of the screen. I've never had that take more than a dozen seconds on my Thinkpads (X31, T60) but of course YMMV, yours might be actually buggy.

I'm a fan of turning the entire trackpad into one giant scrollwheel (and cranking the palm-detection up). Might as well use it for something I figure.

They never stopped making laptops with the trackpoint and frankly, I don't know why they would ever consider stopping. I have never met somebody who had a thinkpad and did not like it; the only people it seems to annoy are people who have not had one.

I'd be glad to pay extra to get rid of it.unfortunately they don't offer that. The only time when I use it is when I push it by accident along with one of the keys.

You could just disable it.

Interestingly though, on some thinkpads you have the option to pay less and only have the trackpoint. I've seen a few cheaper R-model thinkpads without trackpads. You are right though, the opposite doesn't seem to be an option. My guess is they think it is too much of a signature touch to be excluded.

Edit: Apparently the reason is that they don't want to alienate all the thinkpad users who have been using it for years: http://www.techradar.com/us/news/mobile-computing/laptops/th...

Honestly I think it is exactly that sort of attitude that has secured their place as a corporate laptop supplier.

Ouch. They still make notebooks with the "nipple" mouse? I actually thought it was a Thinkpad from the 90's on the first pic.

I don't get it - I quite like the "nipple" mouse - I find it much quicker to use than the touchpad, both in the "I don't need to reach away from the home row" sense and the fact that its pretty sensitive so I can move the mouse really quickly.

I second the love for the "nipple" that others professed. In fact, I keep the touchpad on my Thinkpad disabled entirely...

But even if you don't use it personally, why does that make it "ouch"? Isn't it good to have the choice?

Well, setting aside that laser discs actually were optical disks read by a laser, "Ultrabook" is an Intel coinage for parts assembling OEMs to use so that they don't have to fess up to the existence of the Macbook Air.

Intel. And the nipple is awesome. Much faster than swiping a finger across a trackpad.

Ultrabook is easier to say then "Mac Book Air competitor".

My Dell E6500 has one. I love it. You can still buy them on some of their higher-end machines.

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