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Cordless ones always go dead at the most inopportune moments, usually just as a bunch of death-dealing aliens have leapt out of a cupboard behind you.
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I don't mind TouchPads in general but the ones I've used (two Dell laptops) tend to be really flaky.
I had to turn it off completely because it would click by itself which was quite alarming.
I'd get a prompt and be reading it and all of a sudden the touchpad had clicked the OK button for me.
Less serious but annoying was constant cursor drift. The cursor would slowly drift rightwards so I was always correcting the position.
Otherwise it was good.
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I use my good old IBM USB mouse when I have the space for it. Ten years and still doing well.
Otherwise, I'm kinda forced to use my laptop's touchpad. Ugh.
I miss the time when laptops had trackballs. Those were effing nice to use and were as good as mice.
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Thanks god!
When I read your subject... I thought you had a terrible accident...
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The pun was intended. 
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I like the touch pad best - I even looked for a regular keyboard with a touch pad (didn't find any).
One of my early laptops had a multi touch drag and three finger right click. It was the best I have used, but have not seen one in a long time.
Melting Away
www.deals-house.com
www.innovative--concepts.com
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Can keyboard bindings be treated as pointing device? As I know, keyboard can't move mouse pointer over the screen. At least it's true for Windows and Mac OS X. Correct me if I'm wrong.
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...but if I have to I will use a touch pad. I just really hate where they are located, right under the space bar. It's far too easy to hit it with your thumbs as you type and before you know it you are typing all over the place.
I wish they would maybe give you one that flips out from the front edge, or perhaps one that ejects out from the side of the laptop like a PCMCIA or SD card.
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I find that small hard to control devices and requirements to "hang" the hand over a device aggravate Carpal, rsi etc. I like a mouse where I can rest my hand and not accidentaly touch one of the mny buttong the new ones come with
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I use it to point at numerous things.
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It is not polite to point your finger you know?
Why do you think "they" invented mices?
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Indeed. At least use pen pointing device.
There can be only one.
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My wrists hurt if I use an external mouse for a while  but I find the touchpad far easier on my hands when I use my home laptop. The only exception is when I play AoE3 - I use a mouse then.
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Pen screens and touch screens are very different. I like pen screens for laptop (tablet), but I'm fine with a touchscreen/stylus for my phone/pda.
The touchscreen laptops (where you can use your finger to point) seem like a great idea until you set your hand down to write and accidentally start pressing buttons.
For bigger surfaces, though, touchscreens might be better than pen screens, especially as those tend to be vertical and are used for shorter periods of time.
When I'm not using my pen, I use a touchpad. The "EPD" (Eraserlike Pointing Device, as I was told one manufacturing team was ordered to call it, since management didn't like them referring to it as a portion of the female anatomy) works fine for basic business apps, but I've never had the manual precision to use one for fine positioning.
Also, I have an intermittent fine motor tremor as a side effect from medication; it can make my whiteboard writing noticeably messier at times. If that hits while I have my finger on a cli^H^H^HEPD, I have no idea where I'll wind up. For me, it isn't worth the savings in footprint.
I wonder how disabilities of various sorts affect this decision. Muscle twitches from tourettes, palsy of several kinds, prosthetic/mechanical fingers, muscle weakness, vertigo, and others all seem likely to become more relevant when we move to a smaller pointer. Is there any general rule that one answer is more likely to help someone with a physical (or psychological) issue affecting their laptop use? If so, I'd think a pen would be the likely candidate, since it requires the least precision. An external touchpad (like a Wacom tablet) might be second (or even first). Or maybe voice command (not that I've had any success using that).
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Unfortunately, they are very difficult to find anymore, practically everything just has a touch pad on them now. The only thing that is nice about the touchpad is the scroll region. Other than that, I've yet to have a touchpad that was worth a crap (using mostly Dell's and HP's).
-----
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
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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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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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