On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 10:29:41AM +0100, Brett Parker wrote:
On 12 Sep 09:42, Chris G wrote:
I'm considering a new laptop/netbook and, having a selection around belonging to other members of the family, I'm still convinced that the standard traackpad is a truly awful pointing device. Are there really *no* laptops/netbooks available with other pointing devices?
Is this a being convinced by never using one?
I did say that I have used several in the past few years, my wife had a Fujitsu laptop and now has a Dell laptop - shee hates the Dell trackpad too. I currently use an EEEPC (I'm using it now) nd really don't like the trackpad.
I must say that dislike mice too, on my desktop at home I have a trackball rather than a mouse and I've used a trackball for years. Mice really don't do it for me.
But never the less, the current "alternatives" to a trackpad are: * Touchscreen * Nipple
There are a number of Lenovo laptops that are available with nipples.
Personally, I really rather like my touchpad, but then I've been using it for more years than I care to remember, and the only time I miss a mouse or other pointing device is when doing anything heavy on graphics... at which point the mouse gets involved.
I have a very nice little wireless keyboard that we use with one of our computers that has a trackball in the keyboard and that works beautifully, can't manufacturers put one in a laptop?
Yes, they could, but the world moved on from the laptop trackball. That used to be the most common method of giving mouse style input on a laptop, unfortunately this is no longer the 80s...
I guess I'll have to buy a laptop and add a trackbll of some sort but even then there seem very few which are aimed at the portable market.
Any USB trackball should work. The world has come on, and now most USB devices just provide a HID layer and so it's plug, play.
This isn't *just* a rant, any pointers to useful devices would be very welcome. (Linux friendly of course)
It's difficult to make small trackpads that aren't shit, due to the need for the ball to have a good weight for control purposes, I'd just get a desktop logitech USB one (except, actually, I'd rather use a mouse if I really have to use a pointing device...)
The desktop Logitech trackball is what I currently use in preference to a mouse but it's too big for a netbbok/laptop really. I really like the trackball in our wireless keyboard and that would actually be rather easy to implement in a laptop.