The Touchpadless Three

[ajkula66]

So, let's see...Lenovo is wiping out the conventional TrackPoint buttons and placing them in the touchpad?

Let me take a place in line to be amongst the first to purchase a working sample of that atrocity and heresy...

The real question here being: unless one is able to fully emulate the world's best (arguably Apple's) touchpad, what's the point of having one in the first place?

ThinkPads look so much cleaner without them...here's my current TouchPadless Trio:



From left to right: A31p (2653-GKW), G41 (2886-78U) and R60F (0657-CTO)

Don't try locating the A31p's code on Lenovo's site, though: GKW stands for "God Knows What"...



There's another touchpadless ThinkPad - make that two as of this afternoon - on the way here...pictures to follow...

[Tasurinchi]

Nice collection! I Like the G41

The "touchpadless" R60 palmrest must be a rare bird, right?

[ajkula66]

Nice collection! I Like the G41

Feel free to throw me an offer that I can't refuse... since that one will be going up for sale shortly...and it's by far the cleanest example I've ever seen...

The "touchpadless" R60 palmrest must be a rare bird, right?

That machine started its life as a R60e, the lowest-of-lows when it comes to R6x palette, and was missing a touchpad to begin with.

Bought it from a fellow forum member a couple of years ago, and FrankenPadded it for my twin boys a bit...(IPS, SSD, ABGN, T7200, W7)...

[dr_st]

Nice laptops.

It's interesting how they all have the same screen size, yet such a different footprint. The G41 to the A31 is like the A31 to the R60.

[ZaZ]

Yes, that was my first impression too. The R60 looks so small compared to the others, but it real life, it's huge. The track padless palm rest is just so much more aesthetically pleasing. That's why I went for the R60e for my FrankenPad. I wish they offer such a palm rest for the X220. I miss that on my X200.

[pianowizard]

The track padless palm rest is just so much more aesthetically pleasing.

IMO, it all depends on what you are used to. Most of my main laptops over the years (which, for Thinkpads, included the R50p, T42, T43, T43p and T60) have had touchpads, and I find that a palmrest with a touchpad looks more natural. George, I am happy that you found exactly what you want, but to me, these three Thinkpads look kind of "naked" without touchpads. On the other hand, small Thinkpads (e.g. the X40 and the 240/240X/240Z) can look great even without touchpads because their palmrests are so small.

Aesthetics aside, there are two reasons why it's good to have a touchpad, even if you prefer the trackpoint. First, as soon as the mouse pointer starts to drift, touching the touchpad will stop the drift. Second, switching from the trackpoint to the touchpad once in a while will help prevent repetitive strain injuries.

[jdk]

Thinkpads look so much more natural without the touchpad.

[Kogey]

My R61 is touchpad-less and I think it looks beautiful :3

[ajkula66]

My R61 is touchpad-less and I think it looks beautiful :3

I've owned a few of those and loved them dearly.

If you look at that R61 of yours carefully, it does bear a weird resemblance to G41 in certain respects.

[fleming164]

I have to agree that ThinkPads look much more attractive without touchpads but I couldn't do without one in my main machine, two finger scrolling on these touchpads just feels so natural (Well, under Linux anyway, I've never managed to get two finger scrolling working quite right under windows).