Thinkpads Forum

I bought a T420s used a few months ago and it had a perfectly smooth trackpad surface. I use the trackpoint for pointing and trackpad for scrolling, so I do rub my finger across it quite a lot. The smooth surface was great, even better than my old Thinkpads that had just a mild texture on the surface.

However, no I just recently replaced the palmrest with one that was in brand new condition. That's great except the new trackpad has these awful bumps all over it. My finger actually hurts a bit when I'm using it. This is ridiculous.

So my question is how can I accelerate the wear on this thing? I've looked around and I see lots of people complaining about how fast it wears, but it's not fast enough for me. No one seems to be suggesting ways of speeding it up.

Anyone have any ideas?

I've already tried running a plastic credit card back and forth over it for about 10 minutes and I can't tell if it's any different. It actually wore down the bottom of the credit card instead! I guess my next step would be try using something metal like a butter knife? What about putting a bit of oil on the surface when I'm rubbing it? I guess I'm trying to simulate finger wear right?

I also did try removing the sticker from the old palmrest thinking I could just swap them, but once they've been taken off they don't seem to go back on cleanly unfortunately. The edges want to peel up.

I can't believe I'm the only one who wants to just get rid of these bumps.

The solution is use the trackpoint for scrolling.

I was hoping to avoid that kind of answer by specifying that I don't use the pad for pointing, but I should have known it wouldn't be good enough.

The fact is the trackpad is ideal for scrolling if you disable the pointing and tapping and set it up for just one-finger scroll. Using them both in this way better than trying to use the trackpoint for both and this is coming from someone who's been using Thinkpads since the T20 days, so you know I've got that old school hardcore cred.

It's only a sticker. You could peel it off and its perfectly smooth underneath.
You could even peel off your old one and stick it on the new one. They're made from some pretty tough vinyl.

TankPad wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 05, 2017 6:38 pm

It's only a sticker. You could peel it off and its perfectly smooth underneath.
You could even peel off your old one and stick it on the new one. They're made from some pretty tough vinyl.

Yes, this is a better solution. People have replaced the stock sticker with a flat one that you can find online. I have seen worn trackpads on this generation and they look very bad .

This is one I changed not too long ago. I think it was a T420. The original looks disgusting!
The touchpad is really smooth underneath but I find its too grippy. The dots give a really nice, tactile feel when scrolling (for me, anyway).

brchan wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 06, 2017 12:01 pm

TankPad wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 05, 2017 6:38 pm

It's only a sticker. You could peel it off and its perfectly smooth underneath.
You could even peel off your old one and stick it on the new one. They're made from some pretty tough vinyl.

Yes, this is a better solution. People have replaced the stock sticker with a flat one that you can find online. I have seen worn trackpads on this generation and they look very bad .

brchan wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 06, 2017 12:01 pm

People have replaced the stock sticker with a flat one that you can find online. I have seen worn trackpads on this generation and they look very bad .

Do you have a link to this "flat" sticker? I can't find anything like that for sale anywhere, just bumpy replacements. I don't need another bumpy one since the new palmrest I bought has a brand new one on it, which is my problem.

The worn trackpad sticker on my old palmrest looked fine. It was completely worn , not just a circle in the middle like the one in TankPad's picture, so it's just a smooth black surface. You can only tell it's a worn sticker rather than some kind of replacement because the traces of the bumps can still be seen on the underside.

Why not just peel it off? It's perfectly smooth underneath.

Sweater Fish Deluxe wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 07, 2017 3:12 am

brchan wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 06, 2017 12:01 pm

People have replaced the stock sticker with a flat one that you can find online. I have seen worn trackpads on this generation and they look very bad .

Do you have a link to this "flat" sticker? I can't find anything like that for sale anywhere, just bumpy replacements. I don't need another bumpy one since the new palmrest I bought has a brand new one on it, which is my problem.

The worn trackpad sticker on my old palmrest looked fine. It was completely worn , not just a circle in the middle like the one in TankPad's picture, so it's just a smooth black surface. You can only tell it's a worn sticker rather than some kind of replacement because the traces of the bumps can still be seen on the underside.

TankPad wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 07, 2017 10:47 pm

Why not just peel it off? It's perfectly smooth underneath.

Like you mentioned above, it's actually not smooth. It's got some kind of texture that makes it grippy and actually pretty hard to use. Maybe there's something I could do speed the wear on that faster than the sticker, though, and get it smooth.

I guess the reason I don't is that I have no idea whether that would work properly whereas I do have experience showing it's possible to get the nubby sticker worn down smooth since the previous owner of this laptop did it.

Be a cheapskate and put on a piece of self-adhesive d-c-fix (any color) or buy the sticker I linked to above.

It's actually really smooth underneath. Its for this reason I actually find it too grippy/sticky. It's much less so when using the stippled sticker.
http://i.imgur.com/jgQABbM.jpg

In any case, you can apply any kind of sticker you like in its place. I once tried a carbon fibre vinyl on one of them and while it looked nice, it was again too smooth and grippy for my comfort.

Sweater Fish Deluxe wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 08, 2017 3:16 am

TankPad wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 07, 2017 10:47 pm

Why not just peel it off? It's perfectly smooth underneath.

Like you mentioned above, it's actually not smooth. It's got some kind of texture that makes it grippy and actually pretty hard to use. Maybe there's something I could do speed the wear on that faster than the sticker, though, and get it smooth.

I guess the reason I don't is that I have no idea whether that would work properly whereas I do have experience showing it's possible to get the nubby sticker worn down smooth since the previous owner of this laptop did it.

Warning: picture is WAY too big, tags removed. Please read the Forum Rules, especially Section 5. viewtopic.php?f=16&t=14339

Before I changed the keyboard bezel on my T420s, I wanted to add a fpr, I accidentally scratched a few bumps off in one section. I then tried it some more and they came off fairly easily with my thumb nail. I don't know if this is taking the bumps off of the sticker or if it is taking the sticker off.
You can still try this and see what happens before you replace the sticker.

I guess if you don't have strong nails, you can use some smooth metal object with a little, but not a lot of pressure.

The bumpers never bothered me, and I've never had a problem with these trackpads, although I do end up using the trackpoint a lot more.

Now I want to try the really smooth surface. My favorite trackpad has been a sony viao (chinese version) which was completely smooth. It probably helps I have fantastically dry skin that can't even grip those bags in the produce section, so I'm there person standing there for a minute or two trying to open a bag while two or three other people got there bags open and walked away already.

try sand paper on the original sticker

I bought a used T520 recently and the only thing that bugged me was the bumpy pattern on the touchpad, plus it was half worn through which made it look like a Mercedes Benz with body rot. I considered replacing it with the Skinstyler product, but before I got a chance to order one I found a solution that appeals to my DIY side, as well as my el-cheapo nature. It's simply a square foot of adhesive backed vinyl that I picked up at an arts & crafts store called Michael's for $1.99. I cut a piece to size with a razor knife and straight edge then simply applied it, carefully working out the bubbles. Works great and I've got enough left for over a dozen more. if you don't care for matte black (which is what I got) there are maybe a dozen garish colors you can choose from.

About size, I've seen 76 x 45mm mentioned for Thinkpads but 3 X 1 3/4 inches works pretty well for those of us who are metric-intolerant.

I had the exact same problem with my ThinkPad T530. I first tried with alcohol and it only removed one layer. After that, I tried some tape that sticky ( in my case it was double-sided tape) And it removed the bumps after a few seconds. You just have to keep repeating until all of it comes off. Then you follow it up with a little bit of alcohol to clean it up and the end result will be a trackpad which is smooth as butter.

I just put a sheet of sticky cell phone protector on it. I can't stand the bumpy trackpad. I tried to remove the supposed sticker on my first T410 but it really didn't seem to be working and I didn't want to make it worse, hence the sticker.

Coincidentally, three years later, I've been dealing with the trackpad sticker too since I swapped palmrests again.

I ended up solving my original problem by buying one of the T420 palmrest stickers you can find on eBay. They're different from the original stickers and even though they have bumps, they're really mild ones that didn't bother my oh so sensitive finger tipsies at all.

This time, on my new palmrest I tried just going with no sticker at all like some other people had suggested. After some cleaning and use, the surface did come out totally smooth. But actually I felt like it was if anything too smooth and glossy, almost greasy feeling, and I still didn't really like it. So I went back to eBay and bought some more stickers. These were a slightly different design, but also had just the mildest bumps, which I think now is my actual preference. The only thing I don't like about them is that both of the one I've bought have been just about 1mm too short. The width is perfect, but there's just a tiny gap along the bottom (or top I guess depending on how you put it on). Kind of annoying, but I can get over it.