Have laptop makers ruined touchpads?

[sdubose99]

Am I wrong or are these single unit touchpad/button assemblies crap? Windows units I've tested are not responsive, and resting my thumb where buttons used to be, affects the cursor movement. To top it off, they make a CLICK noise when you press them. I've looked at Lenovo, HP, Asus, Dell... you name it. Currently I have an Inspiron with separate buttons and touchpad, and the feel is great. At least for me. Just wish it was more powerful. I edit photos and videos using the touchpad. Just give me something responsive and quiet.

 

[corkyg]

Since about 1996 I have always disabled the touchpad. I have always found fingertips to be too fat and inaccurate for photo editing. I always use a mouse with my laptop. For all the reasons you cite as well as the fact that it just suits me better.

 

[Yuriman]

Most Chromebooks I've tried are much better than cheap Windows laptops, strangely.

 

[Mushkins]

I'm not sure what you mean by "ruined." Touchpads have always been mediocre at best.

 

[sdubose99]

I guess it's the single unit, no separate buttons, that really bothers me. Thanks guys for listening to my rant. I'll still look to find one that works like I think they should.

 

[mikeymikec]

I've always preferred touchpads with separate buttons, they're a lot quicker to work with when doing more advanced functions than say web browsing.

The problem I find more often than not is getting a consistent result when attempting to right-click on a single-surface touchpad. Having said that, I have encountered some nicer single-surface touchpads than others (usually ones that require less pressing to invoke a 'click'), but I can't remember ever encountering one that I preferred to an average touchpad with separate buttons.

 

[sdubose99]

+1

I was shopping last night in my local stores... they first need to pass the click test. If I can hear the click, no go. Lenovo Y70 Touch was pretty good. But it's 7.5 pounds.

 

[ninaholic37]

I also hate the newer single-unit things, and always buy older laptops which have the separate left/right mouse buttons. My Dell Latitude D410 and Thinkpad T42 (both from 2004) are both still in pretty good shape and have the trackpoint and trackpad so I can use either (I find the trackpoint/stick better most of the time).

 

[Nashemon]

You're not wrong or alone on this. Everyone's trying to mimic Apple. Lenovo had apparently heard enough complaints about their T440 touchpads (where the touchpad lost its 5 separate buttons and became one big button, that sensed, terribly, where your finger was at the point of pressing it) that they completely redesigned it on the T450. It now has the three separated the buttons above it, and though the bottom buttons are built into the touchpad, it's worlds better than the T440 was. WORLDS.

 

[Ziptar]

No. Because they've always sucked from day 1.

 

[kommisar]

The problem with touchpads these days is that they are too big. A big touch pad means I'm constantly unintentionally clicking with my palms or base of my thumbs when typing which is really really annoying. My best typing machine is an old thinkpad t61 with a comparatively tiny touchpad. The tiny touchpad on the t61 is still useful for clicking and yet I never accidentally click with my palm or thumb. Go figure.

 

[Raduque]

I can't stand touchpads OR the little nubs in the keyboard. At least the nubs are out of the way, though. I am so thankful I can disable the touchpad in my Lenovo Y50.

 

[Sabrewings]

Hmm, the Lenovo we bought at the end of last year has the separate buttons. They're loud when clicked, so I usually just tap the pad for a click or two finger tap for right click.

 

[Commodus]

Am I wrong or are these single unit touchpad/button assemblies crap? Windows units I've tested are not responsive, and resting my thumb where buttons used to be, affects the cursor movement. To top it off, they make a CLICK noise when you press them. I've looked at Lenovo, HP, Asus, Dell... you name it. Currently I have an Inspiron with separate buttons and touchpad, and the feel is great. At least for me. Just wish it was more powerful. I edit photos and videos using the touchpad. Just give me something responsive and quiet.

They're fine... on Macs.

That's one of the things that drives me nuts with Windows vendors -- so many of them stiff you on trackpad quality that people assume it's trackpads themselves that are the problem. You do find some good examples, of course, but they're in the minority.

This isn't to say that a MacBook trackpad is perfect, but it's responsive and tends to be good about rejecting unintended input. Models with the Force Touch trackpad (which uses vibration to register clicks, not downward movement) are also relatively quiet if you just can't stand typical button sounds.

 

[readymix]

seen and had lots of atrocious touchpads though I'd say my zbook 15 has the best I've ever used. never glitches. very smooth.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Touchpads are amazing on Macs and (at least in my experience) the majority of programmers who use Macs use it exclusively instead of a mouse.

And yes, I've found that the touchpads on Windows machines to be complete crap.

Weirdly enough, it also has to do with driver implementation. My Asus UX32VD has pretty bad trackpad performance in Windows 7. In ElementaryOS (Ubuntu) I can fly on the trackpad. Two finger scrolling up, down, sideways, two-finger "right click", whatever all work perfectly and very very Mac-like. And it all seems to disappear in Windows...

 

[Puffnstuff]

In general I hate touch pads and prefer a mouse to point and click with. On my asus tablet it allows me to just touch the pad to click which I do like along with the two finger scrolling in conjunction with the touch screen. In the end it comes down to personal preference and if you started out using a laptop with a touch pad then it would be normal to you, whereas I started out with desktops and a regular mouse.

 

[bruceb]

I hate touch pads as well and I prefer the 2 seperate buttons for Left and Right click below the touch pad. I looked at some yesterday at Best Buy and laptops without the buttons are horrible to use.

 

[hans007]

Touchpads are amazing on Macs and (at least in my experience) the majority of programmers who use Macs use it exclusively instead of a mouse.

And yes, I've found that the touchpads on Windows machines to be complete crap.

Weirdly enough, it also has to do with driver implementation. My Asus UX32VD has pretty bad trackpad performance in Windows 7. In ElementaryOS (Ubuntu) I can fly on the trackpad. Two finger scrolling up, down, sideways, two-finger "right click", whatever all work perfectly and very very Mac-like. And it all seems to disappear in Windows...

i'm a programmer and use a macbook.

the touchpad is a lot better than windows. but its still no mouse (i actually use a trackman marble) and real keyboard. i honestly have no idea how programmers that prefer the laptop's keyboard and touchpad get by, laptop keyboards and touchpads are awful for our wrists and fingers repetitive stress injury wise. my hands / wrists get sore inside of an hour whenever i have to use just the built in keyboard / touchpad on my macbook

 

[Commodus]

i'm a programmer and use a macbook.

the touchpad is a lot better than windows. but its still no mouse (i actually use a trackman marble) and real keyboard. i honestly have no idea how programmers that prefer the laptop's keyboard and touchpad get by, laptop keyboards and touchpads are awful for our wrists and fingers repetitive stress injury wise. my hands / wrists get sore inside of an hour whenever i have to use just the built in keyboard / touchpad on my macbook

That's pretty much it. They're not going to replace a mouse for precision, comfort and speed in certain tasks, but a MacBook's trackpad is at least one of the best implementations.

 

[Blue_Max]

My first laptop in the 386/486 days had a trackball! Dang that was nice!
ASUS laptops are notorious for their trackpads going insane and your cursor glitching all over the screen. I hate trackpads. Just... HATE 'em.

 

[Kaido]

Most Chromebooks I've tried are much better than cheap Windows laptops, strangely.

Oddly enough, I've noticed this too - my Chromebook's touchpad is way better than the last 4 or 5 laptops I've setup at work.

 

[It's Not Lupus]

touchpads are a technology that should have been perfected years ago.

 

[Piano Man]

Still a nubbie person myself if I only have my laptop available (thinkpad or Elitebook), but if possible, I always use a mouse.

 

[Oyeve]

Only apple has made a decent pad. Too bad the rest of it stinks. I use a wireless mouse for all my systems. I do have a nice wireless logitech trackpad that is as good as a macbook pro one but it only works on hard flat surfaces as the left and right "mouse" buttons are on the bottom.