First ThinkPad *WITHOUT* trackpoint (ThinkPad 11e)

[pianowizard]

Wow. Smug, much?

This accurately describes my reaction to the attitude of most (though not all) of the trackpoint lovers on this forum. They can't operate touchpads well, and instead of admitting that they can't learn, they say the touchpad is inferior, and call touchpad users stupid.

I have never, and have never seen anyone do anything half competent using a touchpad, all it does is make accidental clicks and move the mouse around at random, whenever it's enabled.

This just confirms what I have been saying dozens of times: the touchpad is much harder to learn than the trackpoint. It took me a couple days to master the trackpoint -- in fact that was my preferred interface when I started using laptops -- but I needed about 3 months to master the touchpad. Why did I work so hard to learn the touchpad? Because I acquired a laptop without a trackpoint.

I don't oppose to people preferring the trackpoint, but I dislike these people's attitude. Let me give you an analogy. I have seen few people who thoroughly understand string theory, and I myself certainly don't understand string theory. But I don't go around claiming that string theory is bad science, or that people who know string theory well are pseudoscientists. Instead, I admit that I am not smart enough or educated enough to understand it. So guys, please stop saying that the touchpad is for novices or idiots. You may not have said it in this thread, yet, but hundreds of people have said it elsewhere on this forum.

Wow... I would've never thought that the trackpoint would b such an insane convenience for the touch-typer. That makes total sense...

The trackpoint helps in the sense that it takes the user less time to move an index finger to the trackpoint than to the touchpad or touchscreen or external mouse or trackball (I too HAVE used all these, BTW). But I can move my finger to the touchpad area very darn fast, and once it's there, I can easily make up for the lost time by manipulating the mouse pointer faster and more accurately than trackpoint users. If the task in question involves alternating between typing and moving the pointer extremely frequently, a highly skilled trackpoint user might still beat me and my touchpad, but I rarely find myself doing such a task. For what I usually do, which requires me to jump over to the pointing device no more than several times a minute, the touchpad wins. Also, I think the fact that I continue to type with my left hand while my right hand reaches for the pointing device helps quite a bit. Experienced touch-typists like myself don't always type the same key using the same finger or hand.

[Tsunade]

Honestly this doesn't surprise me, the elimination of the 7 row keyboard was already one of the last few straws for me, now no Power Manager in Windows 8, no Trackpoint that eventually will unknowingly find its way to all ThinkPad models, no thanks, I will continue to buy only older ThinkPads.

[Adda]

This just confirms what I have been saying dozens of times: the touchpad is much harder to learn than the trackpoint. It took me a couple days to master the trackpoint -- in fact that was my preferred interface when I started using laptops -- but I needed about 3 months to master the touchpad. Why did I work so hard to learn the touchpad? Because I acquired a laptop without a trackpoint.

I don't oppose to people preferring the trackpoint, but I dislike these people's attitude. Let me give you an analogy. I have seen few people who thoroughly understand string theory, and I myself certainly don't understand string theory. But I don't go around claiming that string theory is bad science, or that people who know string theory well are pseudoscientists. Instead, I admit that I am not smart enough or educated enough to understand it. So guys, please stop saying that the touchpad is for novices or idiots. You may not have said it in this thread, yet, but hundreds of people have said it elsewhere on this forum.

So using a touchpad on a daily basis is not enough? I never did, the trackpoint is more convenient.
But I know people who struggle with touchpads same as me, even though they use them every day, and somehow prefer them to the trackpoint

The debate is heated, and attitudes follow, don't read too much in to it, you are not the one who don't have any options left on the laptop market, and have to debate with people who don't care one way or the other.

String theory is all well and good, but nothing but imaginative math until it makes a verifiable prediction, which it has yet to do.

[ToniCipriani]

I myself had 3 laptops in between my 240Z and X120e that only had touchpads. My X120e I actually bought it specifically because of the trackpoint. So yes I do have lots of experience with touchpads, and yes touchpads are inferior IMO, never got used to them.

[pianowizard]

So using a touchpad on a daily basis is not enough?

Absolutely not, and I will give you another analogy. In my lab, the main experimental method that we use is technically challenging, and many new students and postdocs struggle to learn it. I always tell them that they must not just keep doing things the same way (i.e. "practice, practice, practice") and expect to get better at this method. Instead, they need to think why things aren't working, and adjust their approach accordingly. Same thing for learning to use the touchpad. During those 3 months that I trained myself how to use it, I didn't just "practice, practice, practice". I changed the amount of force that I applied, the angle that I held my fingers and wrist, played around with pointer settings, etc. etc. Prior to mastering the touchpad, I too told friends that the trackpoint was superior and the touchpad was inferior. But after those 3 months, I realized that the touchpad isn't intrinsically bad; it's just not everyone can learn to use it. You may argue that a good device should be easy to learn, and I would agree to some degree. But so far, no one has brought up this valid argument in this never-ending debate. In fact, people on this forum keep saying the opposite: most users perfer the touchpad because it's more intuitive. Only we smart people know how to use the trackpoint.

The debate is heated, and attitudes follow, don't read too much in to it, you are not the one who don't have any options left on the laptop market, and have to debate with people who don't care one way or the other.

But how does insulting us help you prevent the demise of the trackpoint? You should be petitioning to Lenovo instead.

[ajkula66]

But how does insulting us help you prevent the demise of the trackpoint?

Insults don't help in any set of circumstances and this debate is not an exception.

You should be petitioning to Lenovo instead.

He may as well burn himself alive like Jan Palach...Lenovo doesn't listen, doesn't care and won't budge whatsoever.

[twistero]

Now, not having a removable, chokeable piece on a school-issued computer is certainly a good thing both for Lenovo and for the schools, considering that somehow people can extort huge sums of money from manufacturers / organizations by being obscenely stupid and hurting themselves, at least in the US.

That said, it's not a ThinkPad if it doesn't have TrackPoint. However Lenovo probably can't really push an IdeaPad as a school laptop either.


Oh, and touchpads are great if done well. They are inherently more flexible and configurable. With the TrackPoint, I can't even use middle click if I want scrolling, where on a touchpad I can easily do two-finger tap = middle click and two-finger scroll. I do like the TrackPoint for other advantages, but you simply can't deny that touchpads are good for some things.

[Medessec]

Oh, and touchpads are great if done well. They are inherently more flexible and configurable.

Yes, yes... yes, yes, yes, and YES. I can attest in my experience- most UltraNav touchpads are good touchpads. However the absolute best touchpad I've ever used is the one on the Clevo D900T. After that would have to be midrange Toshiba laptops with Synaptics(UltraNav has Synaptics as well). These touchpads have a decent sandy texture, which provides good feedback and feeling for moving the mouse with precision. A lot of the newer touchpads with the multi-touch, tap-click and other stupid features have a slick surface, or horrible rubberized surface that makes finger-feedback extremely vague or dissatisfying, or unpleasant.

There's only so much a manufacturer can do to ruin a Trackpoint, but the Touchpad suffers moreso.

That said, it's not a ThinkPad if it doesn't have TrackPoint. However Lenovo probably can't really push an IdeaPad as a school laptop either.

Which is pretty much my feelings that I stated earlier. Although I don't care much for the Ideapad brand, so I wouldn't mind them using it for a wimpy school laptop. Especially if it means saving Thinkpad from enduring a non-Trackpoint model.

[Adda]

Absolutely not, and I will give you another analogy. In my lab, the main experimental method that we use is technically challenging, and many new students and postdocs struggle to learn it. I always tell them that they must not just keep doing things the same way (i.e. "practice, practice, practice") and expect to get better at this method. Instead, they need to think why things aren't working, and adjust their approach accordingly. Same thing for learning to use the touchpad. During those 3 months that I trained myself how to use it, I didn't just "practice, practice, practice". I changed the amount of force that I applied, the angle that I held my fingers and wrist, played around with pointer settings, etc. etc. Prior to mastering the touchpad, I too told friends that the trackpoint was superior and the touchpad was inferior. But after those 3 months, I realized that the touchpad isn't intrinsically bad; it's just not everyone can learn to use it. You may argue that a good device should be easy to learn, and I would agree to some degree. But so far, no one has brought up this valid argument in this never-ending debate. In fact, people on this forum keep saying the opposite: most users perfer the touchpad because it's more intuitive. Only we smart people know how to use the trackpoint.

Alright then, I must stop sleeping and start using a touchpad through the night then? seriously, if I wanted to remove my hands from the keyboard, in order to use a pointing device, I'd go for the table mouse.
I don't care what the touchpad can do that the trackpoint can't do, what matters is that the touchpad is in the way, and lacks all kinds of precision.

But why do you even bother, every laptop has a touchpad, you have nothing to complain about.

But how does insulting us help you prevent the demise of the trackpoint? You should be petitioning to Lenovo instead.

Well I think you saw an insult where there where none, I basically said that, I and everyone I know suck at using a touchpad, no matter how much they use it.
That is an observation.

Lenovo makes up reality and reinvents truth as they go, yes they are just that crazy and it's just keeps getting worse.
I have been petitioning to Lenovo for quite a while, but if they don't like what they see, it simply does not exist to them, they are dead set on making POS, while acting like nothing has changed.

[lophiomys]

I am in support of Adda's statement.

re Trackpoint:
Personally I know how to use a touchpad (the one on my MacBookPro is excelllent),
but still prefer the trackpoint: That is why I want it and as a paying customer I
will continue to insist on having a trackpoint with Thinkpads!

Personal preferences and alternative input methods aside, the trackpoint has the advantage,
that you do not have to move your fingers away from the keyboard.

Besides the reasons of product continuation, after having offered a trackpoint for two decades now,
which is copied by competing manufacturers in the professional market segment as a useful feature.

[the_servicer]

If the ThinkPad 11e is not good by ThinkPad standards, then what about the Thinkpad 11e Chromebook by Chromebook standards? Would it be correct to say the 11e is one of the best-built Chromebooks?

As far as I know, all Chromebooks only come with a touchpad anyway.

[Saucey]

Having used the 11e I thought it wasn't a bad machine.
It felt a lot better to type on than the X130e, no cramped palm rest.
It's processor was nothing, I think it was worse than the X130e to be honest.
It's best configured to Windows 8/8.1, build felt nice, it being a tablet is weird for me, I wouldn't want to ruin the keyboard on surfaces.

I think that I may be a bit of a loony liking that machine.
But still prefer the classics or a T430.

...Would it be correct to say the 11e is one of the best-built Chromebooks?

Maybe if not including the Pixel, that machine is amazing, OS is strange however and somewhat useless without wifi.

Didn't Samsung or HP make a 15" ChromeBook? I wonder how well that was made, I remember my cousin having a ChromeBook but I didn't get which model he had. But on it was a clear case, it added maybe 1/4" but did study the machine to better standards.

[TonyJZX]

Eh... I lived thru all the Thinkpad 'ages'... the pre Lenovo days. The modern era where they were given out like candy corn to schoolchildren and the X1 Carbon days where execs in fortune 500 companies use them.

Thing is, very small amount of people care about Thinkpad features. We, the enthusiast, are a minority. I love the old pre T430 blue keys keyboard, the Thinklight, the T40 to T420 is the golden ear to me.

But from kids to home to business just doesnt care for thinklights and touchpoints and all that crap.

In fact, I saw more outrage with the X1 2nd gen lack of capslock thing.

I dont care about the new Lenovo products.