Kind of a weirdly written article. Only one model removed the nub, and it's from one of its "we're trying to be MacBook" lines (the X line, like the Z line, are more about form than function). And all that tech shipped in its other lines for a while, afaik.
I recently sold a Z13 because it had so many quirks (low battery life due to OLED, trackpad and trackpoint were crap, bluetooth barely worked through the dense metal chassis, display didn't fold down 180 degrees, felt heavy af).
I got a T14s instead. Holy crap, it is so much better. Feels lighter, the touchpad and trackpoint are great, 500nits low-energy display is "ok" but battery can last all day. I use the trackpoint all the time (partly due to the touchpad drifting for some reason, and partly just to have a more precise pointer for fine work). The only downside is the lack of more USB-C ports.
A random upside if you order it with Ubuntu: it comes with Secure Boot set up correctly. But then a downside: Linux kernel prevents hibernate from working if Secure Boot is enabled, unless you set up an encrypted swap and jump through hoops to set up the bootloader right (and of course it's not set up on Ubuntu). I can't believe it's still such a pain to get otherwise-standard laptop functionality with Linux.
The “X”-line was not trying to be a macbook, only the X1 was doing this, which was a class of its own and confused the product lines tremendously.
X- was always ultraportable business laptops, essentially the smaller version of the T-, lots of connectivity, conservative design etc.
T- was the standard sized laptops built to business standards- usually built the best and lasted the longest, with a conservative design and port selection.
W- was the desktop replacement class, the super-amped variant of the T-, compromising portability for power.
Everything else was confused, experimental, sub-tier, and the X1 muddied the branding of the other X-series..
There’s some legitimate reason for concern in my opinion. In some cases, form is function, and a lot of buyers of the X1 Carbon (and formerly the X1 Nano, RIP) bought them for thinness and lightness without compromising too much on classic ThinkPad qualities (like the trackpoint). The T series, while great, sits in a different category and has a different audience.
In the event that X1-series ThinkPads lose their trackpoints, I think those who are interested in the X1 Carbon are more likely to consider laptops from other manufacturers than to jump to the T-series.
I was using an X230, later a T480s with macOS between 2017 and 2020 when Apple decided to only sell glued-together unfixable devices with butterfly keyboard. Loved the key-travel, repairability, docking stations - but also the quick switch between keyboard and trackpoint. Even configured some gesture-combinations with the trackpoint (e.g. right click + trackpoint swipe to left = navigate back). Switched back to MacBook after apple released silicon macs and improved the keyboards but always good to have a backup ThinkPad.
Lenovo has been enshittifying ThinkPads and then walking back their bad decisions when people won't stop bitching, ever since they bought the brand from IBM. They've tried:
> Removing the trackpoint buttons altogether (walked that back)
> Switching from 16:10 to 16:9 (walked that back)
> For some reason, moving the fan exhaust to the right side instead of the left (made people's hands hot when using a mouse so they walked that back)
I'm surprised the bigger news regarding this laptop isn't just how ugly the thing is. It looks like one of those huge $200 Toshiba laptops you'd see at Wal-Mart in 2010. I can't even begin to imagine how much money Lenovo has wasted on changing their tooling to spite customers and then changing it back when they realize they need customers, almost every generation.
> How many times do we need to teach you this lesson, old man?!?
Is there a picture of it closed? The tab sticking out for the camera. I want to see what it looks like, closed. I have concerns about finger prints on the
lens, despite them making affordances to discourage it.
The real tragedy is the omission of top TrackPad buttons.
Middle-click paste is widely used in Linux, and while I tried mouse emulators with limited success, it sure is good to have a physical button at your thumb. With a tiling window manager, you can copy (by visual select depending on the application) and paste (middle-click) without ever leaving your home row across multiple windows. This is a serious work flow tool in REPL.
Moreover the new haptic feedback they got on button-less TrackPads have motors etc which are not as reliable as million-click-tested ThinkPads' physical buttons.
Laptops are the tools of our trade, and unfortunately, we cannot make too many compromises, especially for the sake of trendy aesthetics. If ThinkPads want to be MacBooks, then we might as well buy MacBooks; indeed, many of us already do. Almost a decade ago, Lenovo already made a similar mistake with 2nd generation Carbon X1 (and some T series) and they had to revert back. Having a diversity in the market place is important, and I surely hope Lenovo keeps ThinkPads as uniquely performant as they have been since the IBM days.
I use middle-click paste VERY heavily in day-to-use of my laptop. It's getting hard to find a laptop that still has a middle button at ALL. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when they finally remove it. (The constant march toward design minimalism means this is a matter of WHEN not IF.)
Also, F Dell for not putting power/sleep lights on their laptops anymore. It was the only reliable of way of knowing whether its safe for me to put my laptop in the bag without cooking itself to death.
> Also, F Dell for not putting power/sleep lights on their laptops anymore.
Yes! It makes me crazy that product designers continue removing helpful LED indicators users rely on - all to maybe a save couple pennies per unit. Other offenders are power supply bricks not having a small LED lit when it's receiving power and Ethernet switches not having RJ-45 sockets with the standard-forever dual orange/green indicators. Sometimes power bricks are on extension cords or power strips which get turned off or kicked loose. Yes, users could open the laptop, log in and finish some pending Windows update just to confirm it's still charging. But that's stupid.
Just this week I needed a cheap, generic 5-port unmanaged switch and almost clicked buy without noticing they'd used connectors without indicators. I quickly found another unit with all the same features and (probably) the same chip and board, which did have LEDs - and it was $5 less! Yes, I could walk to wherever the cable goes to check that the device is on, active and what speed it's at but that's stupid.
Relatedly, there is a lesser circle of hell reserved for product designers of consumer devices intended for daily desktop or nighttime bedside use, like wireless phone charging stands, who put an LED on it that is so fucking BRIGHT it could give a sunburn. Some of them go for extra credit by making the Lighthouse of the Gods BLINK like aircraft landing lights - when indicating normal use - not an exception state.
Until last year, when it broke, I had a Dell that seems to be from 2012 (Latitude E5530, but I might have gotten one of the numbers wrong), albeit refurbished and with more RAM. It was bulky and didn't have a lot of RAM (half as much as my current laptop), but it had its advantages over my current, newer, laptop, like feeling sturdier and more secure (my current laptop has a little grate over what looks like part of the motherboard, which feels weird; doesn't that make it super easy for stuff to get in?), a DVD drive, and that beautiful middle-click button, which also makes it easier to figure out the dividing line between left and right click.
I hate the keyboard in the photo (ThinkPad Aura Edition). It has no gap between F4/F5 keys and F8/F9 keys. It has no Right Ctrl, which I use frequently for keyboard shortcuts, especially because I use Dvorak (e.g. Ctrl+C/V/S/T). It has tiny Up/Down arrow keys. I care a lot about how the keys feel to my fingers without visually looking at the labels.
For reference, I own and use the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 7 for many years, and the ThinkPad X220 for many years before that. The keyboard layout on both of these are more agreeable to me, albeit not perfect (e.g. X1C7 dropped the Context Menu key, which I actually use on computers where it's available; X1C7 doesn't have dedicated volume up/down keys unlike the X220).
I detest the 20-year-long trend of computer manufacturers messing with laptop and desktop keyboard layouts, chasing after sleekness or the latest fashion trends to the detriment of typists. I love laptop keyboards that differ from desktop keyboards as little as possible. I love standard 104-key keyboards on desktop and hate anything that messes this up. These details matter a lot to me as a touch typist, and as some who uses those keys that many manufacturers have implicitly deemed "useless" by their removal (e.g. Home, End, Right Ctrl, Right Windows, Context Menu).
Back to the article though, I used TrackPoint a lot on X220 because it functioned better than the touchpad. The X1C7 has TrackPoint but the motion feels unnatural to me, so I end up using the touchpad instead (which has improved over the X220). I was able to use the center button as middle click on X220 but there is no software to support that feature on the X1C7; maybe this is related to the TrackPoint vendor changing from Synaptics to Elan. Either way, I wish Lenovo made a ThinkPad that has both a good TrackPoint and a good touchpad; they were clearly capable of doing it in the past but have regressed.
I have a Z13 with virtualized button on the Touchpad. At least the simulated haptics are decent. But I agree that 3 physical buttons should be standard. I however also have external ThinkPad/Trackpoint keyboards which I use most of the time. I am waiting for a track point keyboard for the framework. However the framework market place, that was supposed to serve niche needs, is rather an illusion.
Me too if being a bit hyperbolic. I also use the external Thinkpad branded keyboards with Trackpoint for desktop machines or even our "media PC" hooked to our TV screen. I feel vaguely disabled if put in front of a computer with only a touchpad, in the "I have no mouth but I must scream" sense.
I am keyboard focused, and mostly use the Trackpoint to change window focus or place a text cursor. I would prefer a desktop mouse for any precision pointer movement such as in photo editing or vector drawing.
The biggest frustration I've had is plenty of regressions in how Linux, Xorg, and/or Wayland handle the Trackpoint input. The calibration, acceleration, etc. can go completely crazy after some software update and it is basically impossible to bring it back the way it was using the available GUI desktop settings manager. Worse, this happens differently for different Trackpoint hardware instances, so in a household with multiple Thinkpads and external keyboards, muscle memory doesn't carry from one machine to another.
I also like getting scroll wheel emulation via Trackpad gestures, but the drivers seem to get into weird states of ignoring inputs on one or both. I don't know if this is some ham-fisted attempt at "ignore input while typing" that generalized into "ignore input during other inputs" and gets it wrong. I'll see moments where scroll gestures stop working, or others where the Trackpoint seems to be unresponsive.
i've bought and used plenty of thinkpads over the last decade and have used the trackpoint a grand total of 0 times. it's definitely not the whole point.
The whole point? I've been buying a bunch of used ones because they're solid machines, and the battery is reasonably easy to replace. I've never liked the track point, it's not the whole point or even any point for myself.
Yeah. Other than the trackpoint, there are a number of vendors that used to sell pretty solid machines with easy to replace batteries. The trackpoint was the only thing you had a tough time getting anywhere else.
Not sure reactions to every claim others make as some attempt to normalized opinion is useful. Kind of vain of you to think they were obliging you to feel so much given a banal personal expression. Go take a cortisol stabilizer and jerk off for 8 hours to waifus
Always loved the TrackPoint and only buy ThinkPads for that feature alone.
Maybe I'm getting older, or lazier, but these days I usually carry around a small mouse just in case I need to do some pointer navigation. Can't stand using a touchpad and always disable it.
From a quality perspective, widening the product range was the mistake Lenovo did after taking over from IBM. The bios and the controller firmware IMHO has become a peace of sh* because they have to support so many configurations. Does not seem that they have learned. They are trying to emulate the MacBook in the completely wrong way.
The trackpoint was great simply because I didn't need to move my hands anywhere else when using it, could keep my fingers all on the home row and still move pointer.
You can't scroll with just your thumb, while you can scroll with a TrackPoint while holding down the middle mouse button. Using your thumb on a trackpad with your hand positioned above the keyboard is also less accurate and restricted to a narrower range of motion.
Not remotely the same experience. One never picks up the pointer finger during input with the nub. The thumb on the track pad looks like one is a crab, constantly twitching and lifting.
Only a handful of classic Lenovo devices (e.g. X230) achieved "aftermarket ecosystem" status, where enthusiasts and repair shops have kept devices working 10+ years after launch, sometimes with screen or other upgrades. How did the Thinkpad 25th anniversary edition fare for laptop longevity? Have any recent Thinkpad models gained "collector item" status?
There are external Lenovo USB keyboards with Trackpoints. If Lenovo wants to copy Apple, they could make a detachable $300 MagicTrackPoint keyboard for 2-in-1 Lunar Lake devices.
I feel the trackpoint is less relevant today on laptops considering designs like MacBook Pro or these Aura laptops that have massive touchpads that are easily reachable without much hand movement. I can mouse with my thumb on a MacBook trackpad without much downward shift in hand position, and I find that a faster and more accurate pointing device compared to the trackpoint.
The place I really want the trackpoint is on my Glove80 or Kinesis Advantage, with these ergo desktop split keyboards I really never want to move my hand to the mouse, yet there’s no easy way to get a trackpoint. For a while I lived with an Apple touchpad in between my glove80 splits but it doesn’t seem any quicker or more ergonomic than a good mouse, although it is a bit more compact. I would love to see a stand alone trackpoint stick “mouse” that could easily be adapted to a desktop ergo keyboard. The happy hacking keyboard has a variant with a trackpoint, but it’s hardly ergonomic and is missing various modifiers.
> The happy hacking keyboard has a variant with a trackpoint, but it’s hardly ergonomic and is missing various modifiers.
I'd like that too. I've seen a few other split custom keyboards that offer options for a trackpoint, ball or game controller thumb stick in the thumb panel position of a split. I think I recall seeing something like that as an option on a Moonlander keyb but it may have been someone's custom add-on or a mock-up. I think the reason there's not a standardized add-on is that the case edge geometry of these ergo splits varies so much between models.
Over the years I've purchased a few small, standalone modules with a ball or stick to put in the middle between the split halves - and I've seen lots of photos of people doing the same. I never use them very long. While they kind of work, the control needs to be tucked in close right near the thumb and it also needs to be attached to that side of the split so it moves as a unit.
Another complication is that I think a lot of us like granular control over tilt angles and that means the 'leaf' holding the thumb control needs to fit into the overall adjustable angle scheme so it can be secured at an ideal angle and distance offset below the main panel. And 'ideal' will vary per user hand size, mobility and preference.
As a related aside, I recently learned there are now high-end game controller thumb sticks which have adjustable height and stops. This isn't just telescoping stick height above the ball but actually moving the entire ball up and down inside the controller. On some models it can be changed in-place by turning the outer ring surrounding the stick clockwise or counter-clockwise.
I find having a trackpoint to be advantageous in situations like sitting in economy airline seats where room to move your arms or position your wrist for using a trackpad comfortably can be awkward, even with MacBook-class trackpads. I don’t like having trackpad sensitivity ramped up super high though so maybe that’s part of the issue.
Funny, I have a HP DevOne, a Linux-first, Ryzen-powered laptop they made in collaboration with System76, that has both the trackpad and trackpoint, when neither HP nor System76 usually include a trackpoint in their laptops.
Sadly they sold out of their first production run and haven't released a sequel, and even the one I have I had to have shipped to a cousin in the US because they didn't sell it internationally (I actually buy all my non-Mac laptops in the US because I can't stand the crackpot British keyboard layout).
I guess the writing is on the wall, and Lenovo has been slowly decontenting the ThinkPad, starting with the keyboards. I don't know that there is any brand that differentiates itself on premium hardware, other than Razer but their Linux support is iffy and their battery life an afterthought.
Oh, and I really liked trackballs back when thin-and-light wasn't such an obsession and Powerbooks had them like my 180c.
I hated my T440s for having no physical buttons for the trackpoint. I would not buy a notebook without a trackpoint. I hate trackpads. I have two mice on my desk one is a trackball.
I would get an ultimate hacking keyboard with a trackpoint adapter. But the keyboard and the adapter is way too expensive.
I got an alternate trackpad with buttons for my T440s, and then conveniently broke the motherboard socket. Greatest disappointment of my life. Had to use an actual mouse for the next couple of years.
For those of us who find the Trackpoint handy sometimes, Lenovo sells a standalone wireless keyboard based on their Thinkpad keyboards with a Trackpoint and three buttons. It works via Bluetooth, RF dongle or wired USB and has a switch for PC and Android compatibility.
Like many on HN, I'm keyboard-obsessive, preferring customized split mechanical keybs for desktop daily driving. But I have a few of these Thinkpad wireless keyboards too because they're small, portable and, with the Trackpoint, ideal for places a larger keyboard and mouse won't fit or isn't always needed. I keep one in our home theater, tucked in my lounger's armrest for when I need to enter an app account/password into an Android TV streaming box or game console (it's insane that most streaming apps still don't receive input from the device's system-wide voice typing).
I keep another one in our arcade room where there's a custom arcade cabinet for emulation with a PC inside. With all the arcade controls on the cabinet, there's not much room to put a keyboard when I need to install a new emulator or tweak something. Next to that I have a virtual pinball cabinet with another PC inside. The Thinkpad wireless is great for configuring stuff without opening the cabinets, messing with wires or a separate mouse. It's small, thin and light but has a full standard PC layout with Ctrl, Alt, Win, Esc and direct function keys yet doesn't feel awful like so many portable mini-keyboards. It also has auto-off, holds a charge for a long time, stores the USB RF dongle internally and falls back to wired so it always works.
Most manufatures that used TrackPoint's in the past positioned them wrong... Too low or high within the keyboard or the buttons were in uncomfortable positions.
I would say mainly IBM and Lenovo have the positioning correct as well as on some models TrackPoint buttons.
So if you had tried most of dell's attempts and tought it was useless, that's because it was even though its a simular implimentation :)
I would certainly buy a Thinkpad T14 with the classic keyboard layout << T420 >> in a heart beat... << even if it had to be thinker >> standard price not x2 mess that was the Thinkpad 25.
IIRC there's some patent on how the pointer accelerates based on the pressure on the nub. This was why the other pointing stick devices (I've used ones from Toshiba, HP, Dell) don't work quite well as a Lenovo/IBM TrackPoint proper.
The real problem with thinkpads is that the 14" is still stuck with that 55Wh battery in the service of shaving a fraction of a pound, while cheaper 14" laptops have 75+Wh batteries that last considerably longer.
I remember using the "TrackPoint" back when I had Toshiba laptops in the 90's. I especially liked them while using the laptop on my lap, where using a mouse was impractical. Later, laptops started offering a "TouchPad" (which the ThinkPads also have). To me, this MMI is far superior to the TrackPoint. I'm typing this on a ThinkPad that I've had for just over a year, and I don't think I've ever used the TrackPoint on this one. It's a distinctive feature of ThinkPads, but it may have outlived its time.
HP sold (sells?) Elitebook laptops that have a trackpoint but with 2 mouse buttons instead of 3. But you can change the right button to right click on press and activate scrolling with press and hold.
HP discontinued pointing sticks on all of their laptops, including their business workstations, a couple of years ago. Dell did the same, but a bit earlier.
i think they could have kept it. the latest yoga slim 7i aura edition (one of the best non-macbook laptops there are) set the trend of lenovo notebooks having a power button on the side.
instead the trackpoint nub could have become a new power button + fingerprint button. just like the TouchID on the macbook.
Its a missed opportunity to keep the brand and update the functionality.
I Just bought a Thinkpad P1 series laptop from the Lenovo outlet store for my father. He has always hated the trackpads on laptops, and has always used a USB mouse. He actually likes the TrackPoint.
I'm not sure if it was my P50 or not, but the driver was really not good: The polling rate felt like it was about 30Hz and definitely not as pleasant as my nostalgia made it out to be. I ended up never using it, despite the weak trackpad.
I'm happy to see it go. I don't like them at all, and they're in the way of typing. It feels awful when I hit it by mistake because it has no 'give'. I always remove the little red hood to make it easier but you're still stuck with a hole in the keys.
What I find much much more of a problem is the awful keyboards on ThinkPads these days. My T490s was the last with a serviceable keyboard. My new T14s has too little travel. It's awful to work on. Strange enough it hasn't become thinner due to the crap keyboard because at the same time they made the screen a lot thicker.
Ps I don't like trackpads either. They're ok in emergencies but usually I just bring my mouse.
Besides the trackpad, it seems laptops outside Apple also regressed on basic stuff like “does it hibernate” and “can I trust it to not turn into jet engine in backpack”. Microsoft’s war on sleep states and demand for AI key on the keyboard are quite frustrating in the laptop market.
Apple actually pioneered the connected standby (though they called it powernap as they have a snazzy marketing name for everything)
I hated it when I had a macbook (from work) because it did sometimes heat up in my backpack. So I always turned it off with pmset.
I have to say though that this was firmly in the intel age, my last personal Macs were a 2010 MacBook and 2011 Mac Mini. I guess this feature works better now that they're on ARM and they can just keep one or two light cores active. But ARM macs are also more locked down so they're not an option for me. Also I really hate their hardware (too little travel on the keys, sharp edges etc). Even when they returned to the old scissor keys the key travel was too short for me.
I'm really happy with KDE these days, it gives me back choice and options on how I want my system to work. The only thing I miss from Apple is pixelmator.
Same here. I had the trackpad disabled on my ThinkPad in college (which always confused others when they tried to use it). After college I switched to a MacBook Air and was shocked at how good the trackpad on it was.
It's incredible that, over a decade later, non-Apple systems have still not quite caught up. Windows does better than any of the Linux distros I've tried at handling the trackpad input, but acceleration curves still feel off and it doesn't detect two finger scrolling when the angle of my hand is too extreme.
Yes, I hate those too. But I have RSI, I'm very sensitive. Any trackpad gets me sore after a few minutes. But also bad mice. For example it's impossible for me to use the Apple "Magic" mouse. It's wayyyyy too flat and cramps my hand after a few minutes. Form over function. Though not as bad as the completely idiotic puck mouse which I've also used in "my time".
Also I hate the sharp metal edges at the front of macbooks that leave marks on my wrists. I don't use MacBooks anymore (or Mac in general as I found it too opinionated and locked down).
> The pointing stick is positioned such that the hands do not need to be removed from the home row to manipulate the mouse pointer.
> Some people find them more appealing for mobile gaming than a touchpad, because the trackpoint allows infinite movement without repositioning.
> Some users feel that pointing sticks cause less wrist strain because a user does not need to avoid resting wrists on a touchpad, which are usually located just below the keyboard.
I love the Thinkpads that have both a touchpad and a trackpoint. It gives me an opportunity to use more than one position for mousing. For me all mice and also touchpads are not the most comfortable thing to use, so having more than one option is very important.
There's gen 1, gen 2 and gen 2 low profile, appeared in that order. Gen 2 and later with maximum sensitivity(separate from mouse speed/acceleration) should nearly completely solve that problem, the default is way too heavy.
I’ve never heard anyone else mention this before, but same here. Incredibly painful. It was 25 years ago and I still wince whenever I see one of those nubs.
Is there actual pressure? Does the pointstick move at all? Does it matter how hard you press on it? Or is that just psychological - you see the cursor moving and assume you are pushing against something.
Yeah same, not quite RSI, but definintively some pain after a while. Just wish they made them more like a game controller joystick instead of a piece of solid plastic with some strain gauges (or whatever they use, almost no travel)
See I'm the opposite, despite using primarily IBM / Lenovo laptops since it was first introduced (yes, am old) I never found it quicker or more accurate than a trackpad or mouse. The last few laptops I have had I now disable it and pull the rubber cap off.
That said the choice was always nice for people who liked it so I'm sure they will be disappointed by this decision. I wonder if Lenovo had some metrics behind this decision.
It was more important when the trackpads were small and not so good. For example drag and drop was difficult with small trackpad as you had to move your fingers more often when you hit the sides of pad.
* TrackPoint has infinite range because it controls velocity, not position. What I mean is, if you need to reach an on-screen object far away, on a touchpad you might need to flick your finger multiple times because you can't reach it in one stroke. Same with mice sometimes; you might need to lift the mouse, move back, put down the mouse, and reach again. TrackPoint does not suffer from this.
* To do drag-and-drop on TrackPoint, simply hold the desired mouse button down, do the movement on the pointing stick, then lift the mouse button - naturally just like you'd do with a mouse. Whereas to do a left-click drag-and-drop on a touchpad, you need to first do a quick tap on the touchpad (down and up), followed by a drag (down, move, up) on the touchpad; this feels unnatural and has extra latency. And I'm not even sure how you can do a right-click drag-and-drop on a touchpad without the assistance of the right TrackPoint mouse button. (Btw, Windows File Explorer allows right-drag-and-drop; it pops up a menu on the dragged file when the button is lifted. Some file managers on Linux don't allow right-drag-and-drop. And I also use right-click drag for mouse gestures in Firefox, which I heard is a feature pioneered in Opera.)
Excellent question. The behaviors of a couple of laptops I used is that if you hold down the touchpad button and your finger reaches the edge of the touchpad, then the computer will give you a small pre-defined constant velocity in that direction (e.g. if your finger is at the right edge then there will be a cursor velocity to the right) until either your finger is no longer on an edge of the touchpad or you lift the touchpad button. It's a reasonable solution but feels hacky compared to TrackPoint (infinite range) or trackball (infinite range) or mouse (can lift the mouse (not the button) and do more strokes).
Not needing to reposition your hand to switch between typing and operating the mouse makes the TrackPoint super efficient. The difference is even greater in cramped places like airplane seats that don't have enough room to place a separate mouse or comfortably use a touchpad.
It was never very useful. If you are typing and you need to quickly use the mouse and the nub is nearby it can be sometimes convenient. Over time the nubs can wear down and cause your cursor to drift so they have to be disabled in the BIOS or physically disconnected. I have never known anyone who wanted to get the nub repaired. People adore the nub but I don't know anyone who admires it and uses it for anything past a small convenience you wouldn't notice if it were gone.
Hi 76j67kj67k67, I'm matthiaswh. I use the nub every day and admire its ease of use and precision. In fact, I like it so much I went out and bought a separate keyboard with its own nub that I can use when the laptop is docked.
Now you know someone.
P.S. The drift usually happens when you hold the nub in a particular direction for too long, or on occasion if the screen is pressing on it when closed. It's irritating, but can often be addressed (although some models are worse than others).
I've always preferred it to low-quality trackpads that a lot of laptops tend to have. Typically I would use my thumb and wouldn't have to move my hand very much at all.
It's the most divisive part of a Thinkpad. 45% of people will say it's the greatest thing ever and every keyboard should have one. 45% of people will say it's useless and they should remove it. 10% of people don't care.
Then smart sales and marketing should keep that feature. Lenovo can't sell to 100% of the market anyway. 45% who think it's the greatest thing ever is great marketing.
It allows you to move mouse without lifting your hands from the standard position on keyboard. However I developed some strain when using it in my work so had to use mouse later
Agreed. Though 'not precise' is a common complaint from people who haven't overcome the learning curve.
My partner hated using my x61, complaining that it was hard to hit anything accurately. Her laptop had a failed battery and she needed to borrow mine for a few days... a week later she replaced hers with an x61 and some 15 years later has only used a thinkpad, specifically because of the trackpoint.
It's a faster, more accurate, and more effective pointing device in a very tiny fraction of the space. Primary downside is that it has a steeper learning curve-- though a couple days of forced usage is enough to overcome it.
Poorly implemented clones of the device have also hurt its reputation somewhat, as a poorly implemented trackpoint is never particularly usable.
You think so, 4chan /g/ has had “thinkpad generals” forever. The reality is that CS departments are full of fedora-core kids with thinkpads and no social skills.
Not sure, I think this is a bit daft from a marketing POV. It was an iconic, recognizable differentiator, and is the sort of thing that makes people tell the story of your brand. Other brands would kill to have a legacy, especially in a space where the product is otherwise largely interchangable and just passes through whatever the latest Intel/AMD product is.
It's like Mercedes deciding not to remind you of the Gullwing every 5 minutes anymore.
If I was working at Dell, I would be flabbergasted at my competitor just throwing away one of their little advantages.
Lenovo already has other brands catering to folks who don't identify with the ThinkPad brand identity and aesthetic (e.g. the Yoga devices, where some of the premium models have been legit svelte and gorgeous; I bought my mom in law a swanky Yoga with an OLED and it's more lovely than anything Apple).
> I think this is a bit daft from a marketing POV.
I agree. It's dumb and seemingly incomprehensible but I finally understood why it happens after seeing it occur inside a large company with a long-successful product line with well-known signature traits. When a product and it's major features are successful enough to last literally decades, they outlive the careers of product managers, designers and marketers. Over time new people come in and work their up into positions of influence. Many times they are there because they appreciate (or even revere) the product, but they're also anxious to put their own mark on the legacy. This isn't just self-centered, they often view their role as bearing the responsibility to guide the legendary product's journey into the future.
At the same time, they didn't inherit complete knowledge of all the reasons why things got the way they are or all the things which were tried in the past. There's also the ever-present ambient need in any organization to "do things" significant enough to justify their, now senior, role along with promotions and bonuses. It's ultimately just a combination of common human behavior in the context of large, long-lasting organizations. I see it so many places in the tech I use daily - Windows is a good example as is Firefox. The current product managers and designers seem to always be removing or fucking up some lower profile but essential feature a subset of users rely on that had been good for a decade or more.
Of course, understanding it doesn't excuse that it's dumb and shouldn't happen.
> It was an iconic, recognizable differentiator, and is the sort of thing that makes people tell the story of your brand. Other brands would kill to have a legacy, especially in a space where the product is otherwise largely interchangable ...
> If I was working at Dell, I would be flabbergasted at my competitor just throwing away one of their little advantages.
That was my thinking. Why would you give away what distinguishes you and gives you an identity - one with an American, Western connection - and become just another laptop company? Why buy Lenovo now?
I read a story about Apple when they fired Steve Jobs. The new management did what everyone had been pushing for years: License the OS to other manufacturers, and start shifting to PC-compatible hardware. Pretty soon, Macs went from a single physical unit with a handle on top for carrying, to a CPU box and separate CRT monitor, available from multiple brands.
But then why buy a Mac, with it's broadly incompatible OS and higher price? The marketing genius of the crowds was, of course, incompetent. When Steve Jobs came back he killed the licensing of the OS and immediately put out a fun, high-design, single-unit cheap desktop computer.
Edit: On the other hand, maybe Lenovo is smart. There can be a big controversy, lots of people talking about Lenovo, and then they can go back and forth a bit and finally put back the trackpoint.
Speak for yourself. I'm typing on a thinkpad at the moment, I use the trackpoint all the time. Once you've mastered it, you no longer need to move your hands between typing / moving the mouse. Your fingers stay on the keyboard.
As a long-time Thinkpad user, I disagree. I even have a Trackpoint keyboard for my desktop because being able to do mouse things without moving my hands from the keyboard's home row is a huge convenience. It was the deciding factor between another Thinkpad and a Framework last time I bought a laptop.
I often use my thumb on the touchpad, but doing it now it does seem like I usually move my index finger a bit off home row. This is on a MacBook, where the top of the touchpad is basically right under the spacebar.
I only recently got a Thinkpad T14 for work and the trackpad is really only serviceable. I was surprised. [0]
Especially because many years ago got a Dell Inspiron line laptop, and the trackpad on that feels great to me.
[0] what's even more surprising is that in Ubuntu there's an extra package, that adds more configuration options for the Thinkpad trackpad, but even with that I couldn't really make it feel as pleasant as my old Dell.
Kind of a weirdly written article. Only one model removed the nub, and it's from one of its "we're trying to be MacBook" lines (the X line, like the Z line, are more about form than function). And all that tech shipped in its other lines for a while, afaik.
I recently sold a Z13 because it had so many quirks (low battery life due to OLED, trackpad and trackpoint were crap, bluetooth barely worked through the dense metal chassis, display didn't fold down 180 degrees, felt heavy af).
I got a T14s instead. Holy crap, it is so much better. Feels lighter, the touchpad and trackpoint are great, 500nits low-energy display is "ok" but battery can last all day. I use the trackpoint all the time (partly due to the touchpad drifting for some reason, and partly just to have a more precise pointer for fine work). The only downside is the lack of more USB-C ports.
A random upside if you order it with Ubuntu: it comes with Secure Boot set up correctly. But then a downside: Linux kernel prevents hibernate from working if Secure Boot is enabled, unless you set up an encrypted swap and jump through hoops to set up the bootloader right (and of course it's not set up on Ubuntu). I can't believe it's still such a pain to get otherwise-standard laptop functionality with Linux.
The “X”-line was not trying to be a macbook, only the X1 was doing this, which was a class of its own and confused the product lines tremendously.
X- was always ultraportable business laptops, essentially the smaller version of the T-, lots of connectivity, conservative design etc.
T- was the standard sized laptops built to business standards- usually built the best and lasted the longest, with a conservative design and port selection.
W- was the desktop replacement class, the super-amped variant of the T-, compromising portability for power.
Everything else was confused, experimental, sub-tier, and the X1 muddied the branding of the other X-series..
There’s some legitimate reason for concern in my opinion. In some cases, form is function, and a lot of buyers of the X1 Carbon (and formerly the X1 Nano, RIP) bought them for thinness and lightness without compromising too much on classic ThinkPad qualities (like the trackpoint). The T series, while great, sits in a different category and has a different audience.
In the event that X1-series ThinkPads lose their trackpoints, I think those who are interested in the X1 Carbon are more likely to consider laptops from other manufacturers than to jump to the T-series.
How would I love a mac with lenovo keyboard!!! They should copy that.
I was using an X230, later a T480s with macOS between 2017 and 2020 when Apple decided to only sell glued-together unfixable devices with butterfly keyboard. Loved the key-travel, repairability, docking stations - but also the quick switch between keyboard and trackpoint. Even configured some gesture-combinations with the trackpoint (e.g. right click + trackpoint swipe to left = navigate back). Switched back to MacBook after apple released silicon macs and improved the keyboards but always good to have a backup ThinkPad.
Lenovo keyboard case for iPad Pro would be a starting point.
I'd live a Lenovo with a Mac trackpad. I owned a P1 and the trackpad was horrendous.
I got the standalone thinkpad Bluetooth keyboard and the Magic Trackpad. I 3d printed a case and voila.
The hibernation issues are so frustrating. I eventually gave up and disabled secure boot.
> Does that mean the TrackPoint is dead? No, thankfully. It will still appear in the other ThinkPads made by Lenovo, said a company spokesman.
This is not about the death of the nub, but about how far the Thinkpad brand name can be diluted.
Lenovo has been enshittifying ThinkPads and then walking back their bad decisions when people won't stop bitching, ever since they bought the brand from IBM. They've tried:
> Removing the trackpoint buttons altogether (walked that back)
> Switching from 16:10 to 16:9 (walked that back)
> For some reason, moving the fan exhaust to the right side instead of the left (made people's hands hot when using a mouse so they walked that back)
I'm surprised the bigger news regarding this laptop isn't just how ugly the thing is. It looks like one of those huge $200 Toshiba laptops you'd see at Wal-Mart in 2010. I can't even begin to imagine how much money Lenovo has wasted on changing their tooling to spite customers and then changing it back when they realize they need customers, almost every generation.
> How many times do we need to teach you this lesson, old man?!?
Is there a picture of it closed? The tab sticking out for the camera. I want to see what it looks like, closed. I have concerns about finger prints on the lens, despite them making affordances to discourage it.
don't forget the killing off of the 7-row keyboards
The real tragedy is the omission of top TrackPad buttons.
Middle-click paste is widely used in Linux, and while I tried mouse emulators with limited success, it sure is good to have a physical button at your thumb. With a tiling window manager, you can copy (by visual select depending on the application) and paste (middle-click) without ever leaving your home row across multiple windows. This is a serious work flow tool in REPL.
Moreover the new haptic feedback they got on button-less TrackPads have motors etc which are not as reliable as million-click-tested ThinkPads' physical buttons.
Laptops are the tools of our trade, and unfortunately, we cannot make too many compromises, especially for the sake of trendy aesthetics. If ThinkPads want to be MacBooks, then we might as well buy MacBooks; indeed, many of us already do. Almost a decade ago, Lenovo already made a similar mistake with 2nd generation Carbon X1 (and some T series) and they had to revert back. Having a diversity in the market place is important, and I surely hope Lenovo keeps ThinkPads as uniquely performant as they have been since the IBM days.
I use middle-click paste VERY heavily in day-to-use of my laptop. It's getting hard to find a laptop that still has a middle button at ALL. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when they finally remove it. (The constant march toward design minimalism means this is a matter of WHEN not IF.)
Also, F Dell for not putting power/sleep lights on their laptops anymore. It was the only reliable of way of knowing whether its safe for me to put my laptop in the bag without cooking itself to death.
> Also, F Dell for not putting power/sleep lights on their laptops anymore.
Yes! It makes me crazy that product designers continue removing helpful LED indicators users rely on - all to maybe a save couple pennies per unit. Other offenders are power supply bricks not having a small LED lit when it's receiving power and Ethernet switches not having RJ-45 sockets with the standard-forever dual orange/green indicators. Sometimes power bricks are on extension cords or power strips which get turned off or kicked loose. Yes, users could open the laptop, log in and finish some pending Windows update just to confirm it's still charging. But that's stupid.
Just this week I needed a cheap, generic 5-port unmanaged switch and almost clicked buy without noticing they'd used connectors without indicators. I quickly found another unit with all the same features and (probably) the same chip and board, which did have LEDs - and it was $5 less! Yes, I could walk to wherever the cable goes to check that the device is on, active and what speed it's at but that's stupid.
Relatedly, there is a lesser circle of hell reserved for product designers of consumer devices intended for daily desktop or nighttime bedside use, like wireless phone charging stands, who put an LED on it that is so fucking BRIGHT it could give a sunburn. Some of them go for extra credit by making the Lighthouse of the Gods BLINK like aircraft landing lights - when indicating normal use - not an exception state.
Until last year, when it broke, I had a Dell that seems to be from 2012 (Latitude E5530, but I might have gotten one of the numbers wrong), albeit refurbished and with more RAM. It was bulky and didn't have a lot of RAM (half as much as my current laptop), but it had its advantages over my current, newer, laptop, like feeling sturdier and more secure (my current laptop has a little grate over what looks like part of the motherboard, which feels weird; doesn't that make it super easy for stuff to get in?), a DVD drive, and that beautiful middle-click button, which also makes it easier to figure out the dividing line between left and right click.
I hate the keyboard in the photo (ThinkPad Aura Edition). It has no gap between F4/F5 keys and F8/F9 keys. It has no Right Ctrl, which I use frequently for keyboard shortcuts, especially because I use Dvorak (e.g. Ctrl+C/V/S/T). It has tiny Up/Down arrow keys. I care a lot about how the keys feel to my fingers without visually looking at the labels.
For reference, I own and use the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 7 for many years, and the ThinkPad X220 for many years before that. The keyboard layout on both of these are more agreeable to me, albeit not perfect (e.g. X1C7 dropped the Context Menu key, which I actually use on computers where it's available; X1C7 doesn't have dedicated volume up/down keys unlike the X220).
I detest the 20-year-long trend of computer manufacturers messing with laptop and desktop keyboard layouts, chasing after sleekness or the latest fashion trends to the detriment of typists. I love laptop keyboards that differ from desktop keyboards as little as possible. I love standard 104-key keyboards on desktop and hate anything that messes this up. These details matter a lot to me as a touch typist, and as some who uses those keys that many manufacturers have implicitly deemed "useless" by their removal (e.g. Home, End, Right Ctrl, Right Windows, Context Menu).
Back to the article though, I used TrackPoint a lot on X220 because it functioned better than the touchpad. The X1C7 has TrackPoint but the motion feels unnatural to me, so I end up using the touchpad instead (which has improved over the X220). I was able to use the center button as middle click on X220 but there is no software to support that feature on the X1C7; maybe this is related to the TrackPoint vendor changing from Synaptics to Elan. Either way, I wish Lenovo made a ThinkPad that has both a good TrackPoint and a good touchpad; they were clearly capable of doing it in the past but have regressed.
The only reason we buy Thinkpads, is because of the trackpoint and the 3 buttons. They could remove the trackpad, we disable it anyway.
I do hope other manufacturers will fill this gap. Lenovo's quality has been going downhill.
Typing this on a Lenovo Thinkpad P16 gen2
I have a Z13 with virtualized button on the Touchpad. At least the simulated haptics are decent. But I agree that 3 physical buttons should be standard. I however also have external ThinkPad/Trackpoint keyboards which I use most of the time. I am waiting for a track point keyboard for the framework. However the framework market place, that was supposed to serve niche needs, is rather an illusion.
That’s the whole point of buying a Thinkpad. I will never buy a Thinkpad ever without a Trackpoint.
Me too if being a bit hyperbolic. I also use the external Thinkpad branded keyboards with Trackpoint for desktop machines or even our "media PC" hooked to our TV screen. I feel vaguely disabled if put in front of a computer with only a touchpad, in the "I have no mouth but I must scream" sense.
I am keyboard focused, and mostly use the Trackpoint to change window focus or place a text cursor. I would prefer a desktop mouse for any precision pointer movement such as in photo editing or vector drawing.
The biggest frustration I've had is plenty of regressions in how Linux, Xorg, and/or Wayland handle the Trackpoint input. The calibration, acceleration, etc. can go completely crazy after some software update and it is basically impossible to bring it back the way it was using the available GUI desktop settings manager. Worse, this happens differently for different Trackpoint hardware instances, so in a household with multiple Thinkpads and external keyboards, muscle memory doesn't carry from one machine to another.
I also like getting scroll wheel emulation via Trackpad gestures, but the drivers seem to get into weird states of ignoring inputs on one or both. I don't know if this is some ham-fisted attempt at "ignore input while typing" that generalized into "ignore input during other inputs" and gets it wrong. I'll see moments where scroll gestures stop working, or others where the Trackpoint seems to be unresponsive.
i've bought and used plenty of thinkpads over the last decade and have used the trackpoint a grand total of 0 times. it's definitely not the whole point.
The whole point? I've been buying a bunch of used ones because they're solid machines, and the battery is reasonably easy to replace. I've never liked the track point, it's not the whole point or even any point for myself.
Yeah. Other than the trackpoint, there are a number of vendors that used to sell pretty solid machines with easy to replace batteries. The trackpoint was the only thing you had a tough time getting anywhere else.
Well it is the whole point for OP
Not sure reactions to every claim others make as some attempt to normalized opinion is useful. Kind of vain of you to think they were obliging you to feel so much given a banal personal expression. Go take a cortisol stabilizer and jerk off for 8 hours to waifus
Always loved the TrackPoint and only buy ThinkPads for that feature alone.
Maybe I'm getting older, or lazier, but these days I usually carry around a small mouse just in case I need to do some pointer navigation. Can't stand using a touchpad and always disable it.
> Does that mean the TrackPoint is dead? No, thankfully. It will still appear in the other ThinkPads made by Lenovo
Good.
From a quality perspective, widening the product range was the mistake Lenovo did after taking over from IBM. The bios and the controller firmware IMHO has become a peace of sh* because they have to support so many configurations. Does not seem that they have learned. They are trying to emulate the MacBook in the completely wrong way.
Yeah, I don’t think finding ways to make your premium product less distinctive and more like the cheap product is a great business strategy.
I still miss my X61s daily.
The trackpoint was great simply because I didn't need to move my hands anywhere else when using it, could keep my fingers all on the home row and still move pointer.
Can be done with Mac. You use your thumb at top of trackpad while fingers stay on home row.
You can't scroll with just your thumb, while you can scroll with a TrackPoint while holding down the middle mouse button. Using your thumb on a trackpad with your hand positioned above the keyboard is also less accurate and restricted to a narrower range of motion.
Not remotely the same experience. One never picks up the pointer finger during input with the nub. The thumb on the track pad looks like one is a crab, constantly twitching and lifting.
Only a handful of classic Lenovo devices (e.g. X230) achieved "aftermarket ecosystem" status, where enthusiasts and repair shops have kept devices working 10+ years after launch, sometimes with screen or other upgrades. How did the Thinkpad 25th anniversary edition fare for laptop longevity? Have any recent Thinkpad models gained "collector item" status?
There are external Lenovo USB keyboards with Trackpoints. If Lenovo wants to copy Apple, they could make a detachable $300 MagicTrackPoint keyboard for 2-in-1 Lunar Lake devices.
It was obvious the day it came out that the X25 was one CPU generation too early (dual core "i7") and even moreso now with Windows 11.
If it had a T480 motherboard instead it would've held up a lot better.
(also, a ThinkPad without a trackpoint is de facto, even if not from a legal perspective, false advertising, just like those dual-core i7's.)
I feel the trackpoint is less relevant today on laptops considering designs like MacBook Pro or these Aura laptops that have massive touchpads that are easily reachable without much hand movement. I can mouse with my thumb on a MacBook trackpad without much downward shift in hand position, and I find that a faster and more accurate pointing device compared to the trackpoint.
The place I really want the trackpoint is on my Glove80 or Kinesis Advantage, with these ergo desktop split keyboards I really never want to move my hand to the mouse, yet there’s no easy way to get a trackpoint. For a while I lived with an Apple touchpad in between my glove80 splits but it doesn’t seem any quicker or more ergonomic than a good mouse, although it is a bit more compact. I would love to see a stand alone trackpoint stick “mouse” that could easily be adapted to a desktop ergo keyboard. The happy hacking keyboard has a variant with a trackpoint, but it’s hardly ergonomic and is missing various modifiers.
> The happy hacking keyboard has a variant with a trackpoint, but it’s hardly ergonomic and is missing various modifiers.
I'd like that too. I've seen a few other split custom keyboards that offer options for a trackpoint, ball or game controller thumb stick in the thumb panel position of a split. I think I recall seeing something like that as an option on a Moonlander keyb but it may have been someone's custom add-on or a mock-up. I think the reason there's not a standardized add-on is that the case edge geometry of these ergo splits varies so much between models.
Over the years I've purchased a few small, standalone modules with a ball or stick to put in the middle between the split halves - and I've seen lots of photos of people doing the same. I never use them very long. While they kind of work, the control needs to be tucked in close right near the thumb and it also needs to be attached to that side of the split so it moves as a unit.
Another complication is that I think a lot of us like granular control over tilt angles and that means the 'leaf' holding the thumb control needs to fit into the overall adjustable angle scheme so it can be secured at an ideal angle and distance offset below the main panel. And 'ideal' will vary per user hand size, mobility and preference.
As a related aside, I recently learned there are now high-end game controller thumb sticks which have adjustable height and stops. This isn't just telescoping stick height above the ball but actually moving the entire ball up and down inside the controller. On some models it can be changed in-place by turning the outer ring surrounding the stick clockwise or counter-clockwise.
I find having a trackpoint to be advantageous in situations like sitting in economy airline seats where room to move your arms or position your wrist for using a trackpad comfortably can be awkward, even with MacBook-class trackpads. I don’t like having trackpad sensitivity ramped up super high though so maybe that’s part of the issue.
TrackPoint is the only reason that keeps me buying ThinkPads.
Same. I've preferred thinkpads since the 90s. If the track point goes, I have no reason to stick with them.
Funny, I have a HP DevOne, a Linux-first, Ryzen-powered laptop they made in collaboration with System76, that has both the trackpad and trackpoint, when neither HP nor System76 usually include a trackpoint in their laptops.
Sadly they sold out of their first production run and haven't released a sequel, and even the one I have I had to have shipped to a cousin in the US because they didn't sell it internationally (I actually buy all my non-Mac laptops in the US because I can't stand the crackpot British keyboard layout).
I guess the writing is on the wall, and Lenovo has been slowly decontenting the ThinkPad, starting with the keyboards. I don't know that there is any brand that differentiates itself on premium hardware, other than Razer but their Linux support is iffy and their battery life an afterthought.
Oh, and I really liked trackballs back when thin-and-light wasn't such an obsession and Powerbooks had them like my 180c.
I hated my T440s for having no physical buttons for the trackpoint. I would not buy a notebook without a trackpoint. I hate trackpads. I have two mice on my desk one is a trackball.
I would get an ultimate hacking keyboard with a trackpoint adapter. But the keyboard and the adapter is way too expensive.
I got an alternate trackpad with buttons for my T440s, and then conveniently broke the motherboard socket. Greatest disappointment of my life. Had to use an actual mouse for the next couple of years.
For those of us who find the Trackpoint handy sometimes, Lenovo sells a standalone wireless keyboard based on their Thinkpad keyboards with a Trackpoint and three buttons. It works via Bluetooth, RF dongle or wired USB and has a switch for PC and Android compatibility.
https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-TrackPoint-Keyboard-4... (if the link someday dies, it's Lenovo Model #4Y40X49493)
Like many on HN, I'm keyboard-obsessive, preferring customized split mechanical keybs for desktop daily driving. But I have a few of these Thinkpad wireless keyboards too because they're small, portable and, with the Trackpoint, ideal for places a larger keyboard and mouse won't fit or isn't always needed. I keep one in our home theater, tucked in my lounger's armrest for when I need to enter an app account/password into an Android TV streaming box or game console (it's insane that most streaming apps still don't receive input from the device's system-wide voice typing).
I keep another one in our arcade room where there's a custom arcade cabinet for emulation with a PC inside. With all the arcade controls on the cabinet, there's not much room to put a keyboard when I need to install a new emulator or tweak something. Next to that I have a virtual pinball cabinet with another PC inside. The Thinkpad wireless is great for configuring stuff without opening the cabinets, messing with wires or a separate mouse. It's small, thin and light but has a full standard PC layout with Ctrl, Alt, Win, Esc and direct function keys yet doesn't feel awful like so many portable mini-keyboards. It also has auto-off, holds a charge for a long time, stores the USB RF dongle internally and falls back to wired so it always works.
That standalone Lenovo keyboard with trackpoint is great for Linux SBCs and KVMs.
Agreed. I forgot to mention that I use one in my home server room. Being so thin, it fits nicely in a slide-out rack shelf.
Most manufatures that used TrackPoint's in the past positioned them wrong... Too low or high within the keyboard or the buttons were in uncomfortable positions.
I would say mainly IBM and Lenovo have the positioning correct as well as on some models TrackPoint buttons.
So if you had tried most of dell's attempts and tought it was useless, that's because it was even though its a simular implimentation :)
I would certainly buy a Thinkpad T14 with the classic keyboard layout << T420 >> in a heart beat... << even if it had to be thinker >> standard price not x2 mess that was the Thinkpad 25.
(( I currently have 6 working thinkpads ))
IIRC there's some patent on how the pointer accelerates based on the pressure on the nub. This was why the other pointing stick devices (I've used ones from Toshiba, HP, Dell) don't work quite well as a Lenovo/IBM TrackPoint proper.
The real problem with thinkpads is that the 14" is still stuck with that 55Wh battery in the service of shaving a fraction of a pound, while cheaper 14" laptops have 75+Wh batteries that last considerably longer.
I remember using the "TrackPoint" back when I had Toshiba laptops in the 90's. I especially liked them while using the laptop on my lap, where using a mouse was impractical. Later, laptops started offering a "TouchPad" (which the ThinkPads also have). To me, this MMI is far superior to the TrackPoint. I'm typing this on a ThinkPad that I've had for just over a year, and I don't think I've ever used the TrackPoint on this one. It's a distinctive feature of ThinkPads, but it may have outlived its time.
HP sold (sells?) Elitebook laptops that have a trackpoint but with 2 mouse buttons instead of 3. But you can change the right button to right click on press and activate scrolling with press and hold.
HP discontinued pointing sticks on all of their laptops, including their business workstations, a couple of years ago. Dell did the same, but a bit earlier.
TIL Lenovo makes a standalone keyboard with a TrackPoint nub: https://www.lenovo.com/au/en/p/accessories-and-software/keyb...
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ-0WRju2Zc
While looking at more niche keyboard vendors, I've come across a few pointsticks (the generic name).
i think they could have kept it. the latest yoga slim 7i aura edition (one of the best non-macbook laptops there are) set the trend of lenovo notebooks having a power button on the side.
instead the trackpoint nub could have become a new power button + fingerprint button. just like the TouchID on the macbook.
Its a missed opportunity to keep the brand and update the functionality.
I Just bought a Thinkpad P1 series laptop from the Lenovo outlet store for my father. He has always hated the trackpads on laptops, and has always used a USB mouse. He actually likes the TrackPoint.
I'm not sure if it was my P50 or not, but the driver was really not good: The polling rate felt like it was about 30Hz and definitely not as pleasant as my nostalgia made it out to be. I ended up never using it, despite the weak trackpad.
God damn it. I've had three X1 carbons and I use only the track point.
The latest Gen13 of X1 Carbon still has it, though. Incidentally, it's a pretty sweet laptop.
Same. Frankly this is the only thing keeping me buying thinkpads. I must be in the minority…?
For me, a laptop without the track point is a total deal breaker. Why would I wish to remove my hands from the keyboard?
I'm happy to see it go. I don't like them at all, and they're in the way of typing. It feels awful when I hit it by mistake because it has no 'give'. I always remove the little red hood to make it easier but you're still stuck with a hole in the keys.
What I find much much more of a problem is the awful keyboards on ThinkPads these days. My T490s was the last with a serviceable keyboard. My new T14s has too little travel. It's awful to work on. Strange enough it hasn't become thinner due to the crap keyboard because at the same time they made the screen a lot thicker.
Ps I don't like trackpads either. They're ok in emergencies but usually I just bring my mouse.
Have you tried the trackpads of the MacBooks? I used to not like trackpads until I used those.
Besides the trackpad, it seems laptops outside Apple also regressed on basic stuff like “does it hibernate” and “can I trust it to not turn into jet engine in backpack”. Microsoft’s war on sleep states and demand for AI key on the keyboard are quite frustrating in the laptop market.
Apple actually pioneered the connected standby (though they called it powernap as they have a snazzy marketing name for everything)
I hated it when I had a macbook (from work) because it did sometimes heat up in my backpack. So I always turned it off with pmset.
I have to say though that this was firmly in the intel age, my last personal Macs were a 2010 MacBook and 2011 Mac Mini. I guess this feature works better now that they're on ARM and they can just keep one or two light cores active. But ARM macs are also more locked down so they're not an option for me. Also I really hate their hardware (too little travel on the keys, sharp edges etc). Even when they returned to the old scissor keys the key travel was too short for me.
I'm really happy with KDE these days, it gives me back choice and options on how I want my system to work. The only thing I miss from Apple is pixelmator.
Same here. I had the trackpad disabled on my ThinkPad in college (which always confused others when they tried to use it). After college I switched to a MacBook Air and was shocked at how good the trackpad on it was.
It's incredible that, over a decade later, non-Apple systems have still not quite caught up. Windows does better than any of the Linux distros I've tried at handling the trackpad input, but acceleration curves still feel off and it doesn't detect two finger scrolling when the angle of my hand is too extreme.
Yes, I hate those too. But I have RSI, I'm very sensitive. Any trackpad gets me sore after a few minutes. But also bad mice. For example it's impossible for me to use the Apple "Magic" mouse. It's wayyyyy too flat and cramps my hand after a few minutes. Form over function. Though not as bad as the completely idiotic puck mouse which I've also used in "my time".
Also I hate the sharp metal edges at the front of macbooks that leave marks on my wrists. I don't use MacBooks anymore (or Mac in general as I found it too opinionated and locked down).
The Magic Mouse is not very good indeed. Gestures especially are really hard to pull off.
Agree for the metal edges. I do not love them either. I usually put a piece of cloth below my wrist when it’s not cold enough to have a sweater :-)
Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42548336
Has the trackpoint been improved upon in the last 20 years?
I was servicable back then, but could have been better.
No they're still the same. ThinkPads got a middle button though.
End of an era
The title wrong. It's only about the 14- and 15-inch ThinkPad X9 Aura Editions.
Yeah, putting a good screen in a ThinkPad? What are they thinking?! Nothing is sacred anymore.
I'd really like to see something brighter than 500 nits in a "good screen"
If it doesn't have a trackpoint, it's not a Thinkpad, imho.
Looking forward to these hitting the resell market. I will be a buyer.
They have periodically had models without the trackpoint, that isn't new.
Too bad they don't have the courage to bring back some models without the touch pad... it's inches of wasted space.
Is it really useful and handy? Never had Lenovo stuff.
Yes.
> The pointing stick is positioned such that the hands do not need to be removed from the home row to manipulate the mouse pointer.
> Some people find them more appealing for mobile gaming than a touchpad, because the trackpoint allows infinite movement without repositioning.
> Some users feel that pointing sticks cause less wrist strain because a user does not need to avoid resting wrists on a touchpad, which are usually located just below the keyboard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick#Problem_scope
I loved pointing sticks for years but the backpressure gave me RSI.
I love the Thinkpads that have both a touchpad and a trackpoint. It gives me an opportunity to use more than one position for mousing. For me all mice and also touchpads are not the most comfortable thing to use, so having more than one option is very important.
There's gen 1, gen 2 and gen 2 low profile, appeared in that order. Gen 2 and later with maximum sensitivity(separate from mouse speed/acceleration) should nearly completely solve that problem, the default is way too heavy.
I’ve never heard anyone else mention this before, but same here. Incredibly painful. It was 25 years ago and I still wince whenever I see one of those nubs.
> the backpressure gave me RSI
Is there actual pressure? Does the pointstick move at all? Does it matter how hard you press on it? Or is that just psychological - you see the cursor moving and assume you are pushing against something.
Yeah same, not quite RSI, but definintively some pain after a while. Just wish they made them more like a game controller joystick instead of a piece of solid plastic with some strain gauges (or whatever they use, almost no travel)
thank you
I use it 99% of the time.
That said, I use emacs and lisp so ...
but to me removing it from the thinkpad line is a mistake
the only thing they should have done is fix the drifting bug that happens once every two days
It is, I don't need to use a mouse or trackpad as it's much quicker/easier.
See I'm the opposite, despite using primarily IBM / Lenovo laptops since it was first introduced (yes, am old) I never found it quicker or more accurate than a trackpad or mouse. The last few laptops I have had I now disable it and pull the rubber cap off.
That said the choice was always nice for people who liked it so I'm sure they will be disappointed by this decision. I wonder if Lenovo had some metrics behind this decision.
It was more important when the trackpads were small and not so good. For example drag and drop was difficult with small trackpad as you had to move your fingers more often when you hit the sides of pad.
> Is [TrackPoint] really useful and handy?
Two points that other people have not mentioned:
* TrackPoint has infinite range because it controls velocity, not position. What I mean is, if you need to reach an on-screen object far away, on a touchpad you might need to flick your finger multiple times because you can't reach it in one stroke. Same with mice sometimes; you might need to lift the mouse, move back, put down the mouse, and reach again. TrackPoint does not suffer from this.
* To do drag-and-drop on TrackPoint, simply hold the desired mouse button down, do the movement on the pointing stick, then lift the mouse button - naturally just like you'd do with a mouse. Whereas to do a left-click drag-and-drop on a touchpad, you need to first do a quick tap on the touchpad (down and up), followed by a drag (down, move, up) on the touchpad; this feels unnatural and has extra latency. And I'm not even sure how you can do a right-click drag-and-drop on a touchpad without the assistance of the right TrackPoint mouse button. (Btw, Windows File Explorer allows right-drag-and-drop; it pops up a menu on the dragged file when the button is lifted. Some file managers on Linux don't allow right-drag-and-drop. And I also use right-click drag for mouse gestures in Firefox, which I heard is a feature pioneered in Opera.)
The laptop I use is just one-finger click-down->drag->up to left mouse drag, and two finger click-down->drag->up to right mouse drag.
What if you reach the edge of the trackpad before the mouse reaches its destination?
Excellent question. The behaviors of a couple of laptops I used is that if you hold down the touchpad button and your finger reaches the edge of the touchpad, then the computer will give you a small pre-defined constant velocity in that direction (e.g. if your finger is at the right edge then there will be a cursor velocity to the right) until either your finger is no longer on an edge of the touchpad or you lift the touchpad button. It's a reasonable solution but feels hacky compared to TrackPoint (infinite range) or trackball (infinite range) or mouse (can lift the mouse (not the button) and do more strokes).
Not needing to reposition your hand to switch between typing and operating the mouse makes the TrackPoint super efficient. The difference is even greater in cramped places like airplane seats that don't have enough room to place a separate mouse or comfortably use a touchpad.
It was never very useful. If you are typing and you need to quickly use the mouse and the nub is nearby it can be sometimes convenient. Over time the nubs can wear down and cause your cursor to drift so they have to be disabled in the BIOS or physically disconnected. I have never known anyone who wanted to get the nub repaired. People adore the nub but I don't know anyone who admires it and uses it for anything past a small convenience you wouldn't notice if it were gone.
>Over time the nubs can wear down and cause your cursor to drift
This is simply not true. The trackpoint driver will compensate for trackpoints that no longer point "true" center https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/TrackPoint#Trackpoint_moves...
Hi 76j67kj67k67, I'm matthiaswh. I use the nub every day and admire its ease of use and precision. In fact, I like it so much I went out and bought a separate keyboard with its own nub that I can use when the laptop is docked.
Now you know someone.
P.S. The drift usually happens when you hold the nub in a particular direction for too long, or on occasion if the screen is pressing on it when closed. It's irritating, but can often be addressed (although some models are worse than others).
I've always preferred it to low-quality trackpads that a lot of laptops tend to have. Typically I would use my thumb and wouldn't have to move my hand very much at all.
It's the most divisive part of a Thinkpad. 45% of people will say it's the greatest thing ever and every keyboard should have one. 45% of people will say it's useless and they should remove it. 10% of people don't care.
Then smart sales and marketing should keep that feature. Lenovo can't sell to 100% of the market anyway. 45% who think it's the greatest thing ever is great marketing.
Were those numbers from a survey?
It’s from the Open Project’s Annual Statistic Survey, I believe. /s
It allows you to move mouse without lifting your hands from the standard position on keyboard. However I developed some strain when using it in my work so had to use mouse later
I never liked it, it's too difficult to use precisely. So I'm happy it's gone.
I don’t use it therefore nobody else should have it, even if they like it. Right.
On the opposite, it allows pixel-perfect precision, something you simply cannot have with a trackpad.
Agreed. Though 'not precise' is a common complaint from people who haven't overcome the learning curve.
My partner hated using my x61, complaining that it was hard to hit anything accurately. Her laptop had a failed battery and she needed to borrow mine for a few days... a week later she replaced hers with an x61 and some 15 years later has only used a thinkpad, specifically because of the trackpoint.
It's a faster, more accurate, and more effective pointing device in a very tiny fraction of the space. Primary downside is that it has a steeper learning curve-- though a couple days of forced usage is enough to overcome it.
Poorly implemented clones of the device have also hurt its reputation somewhat, as a poorly implemented trackpoint is never particularly usable.
Not really, it just helps strengthen your finger muscles, which some people appreciate, if you know what I mean :)
A better touchpad is way more convenient.
How are we going to find the clit now?
Heresy!
I struggle to use computers without it.
Relevant XKCD - https://xkcd.com/243/
[flagged]
Quite possibly the strangest stereotype ever conceived right there
You think so, 4chan /g/ has had “thinkpad generals” forever. The reality is that CS departments are full of fedora-core kids with thinkpads and no social skills.
It's useless. It's a relic from an era when trackpads weren't good. I'm glad they got rid of it.
It's just not needed anymore and the left/right click button space can be used to make the trackpad larger.
Not sure, I think this is a bit daft from a marketing POV. It was an iconic, recognizable differentiator, and is the sort of thing that makes people tell the story of your brand. Other brands would kill to have a legacy, especially in a space where the product is otherwise largely interchangable and just passes through whatever the latest Intel/AMD product is.
It's like Mercedes deciding not to remind you of the Gullwing every 5 minutes anymore.
If I was working at Dell, I would be flabbergasted at my competitor just throwing away one of their little advantages.
Lenovo already has other brands catering to folks who don't identify with the ThinkPad brand identity and aesthetic (e.g. the Yoga devices, where some of the premium models have been legit svelte and gorgeous; I bought my mom in law a swanky Yoga with an OLED and it's more lovely than anything Apple).
> I think this is a bit daft from a marketing POV.
I agree. It's dumb and seemingly incomprehensible but I finally understood why it happens after seeing it occur inside a large company with a long-successful product line with well-known signature traits. When a product and it's major features are successful enough to last literally decades, they outlive the careers of product managers, designers and marketers. Over time new people come in and work their up into positions of influence. Many times they are there because they appreciate (or even revere) the product, but they're also anxious to put their own mark on the legacy. This isn't just self-centered, they often view their role as bearing the responsibility to guide the legendary product's journey into the future.
At the same time, they didn't inherit complete knowledge of all the reasons why things got the way they are or all the things which were tried in the past. There's also the ever-present ambient need in any organization to "do things" significant enough to justify their, now senior, role along with promotions and bonuses. It's ultimately just a combination of common human behavior in the context of large, long-lasting organizations. I see it so many places in the tech I use daily - Windows is a good example as is Firefox. The current product managers and designers seem to always be removing or fucking up some lower profile but essential feature a subset of users rely on that had been good for a decade or more.
Of course, understanding it doesn't excuse that it's dumb and shouldn't happen.
> It was an iconic, recognizable differentiator, and is the sort of thing that makes people tell the story of your brand. Other brands would kill to have a legacy, especially in a space where the product is otherwise largely interchangable ...
> If I was working at Dell, I would be flabbergasted at my competitor just throwing away one of their little advantages.
That was my thinking. Why would you give away what distinguishes you and gives you an identity - one with an American, Western connection - and become just another laptop company? Why buy Lenovo now?
I read a story about Apple when they fired Steve Jobs. The new management did what everyone had been pushing for years: License the OS to other manufacturers, and start shifting to PC-compatible hardware. Pretty soon, Macs went from a single physical unit with a handle on top for carrying, to a CPU box and separate CRT monitor, available from multiple brands.
But then why buy a Mac, with it's broadly incompatible OS and higher price? The marketing genius of the crowds was, of course, incompetent. When Steve Jobs came back he killed the licensing of the OS and immediately put out a fun, high-design, single-unit cheap desktop computer.
Edit: On the other hand, maybe Lenovo is smart. There can be a big controversy, lots of people talking about Lenovo, and then they can go back and forth a bit and finally put back the trackpoint.
They're still keeping the trackpoint in all of their existing models. This is just for a new thinkpad model.
Speak for yourself. I'm typing on a thinkpad at the moment, I use the trackpoint all the time. Once you've mastered it, you no longer need to move your hands between typing / moving the mouse. Your fingers stay on the keyboard.
As a long-time Thinkpad user, I disagree. I even have a Trackpoint keyboard for my desktop because being able to do mouse things without moving my hands from the keyboard's home row is a huge convenience. It was the deciding factor between another Thinkpad and a Framework last time I bought a laptop.
It's a shame that Framework hasn't managed to implement a pointing stick on its laptops. If they offered one, I would already be using their laptops.
The Framework feature request is here: https://community.frame.work/t/responded-any-chance-of-track...
I often use my thumb on the touchpad, but doing it now it does seem like I usually move my index finger a bit off home row. This is on a MacBook, where the top of the touchpad is basically right under the spacebar.
I've tried that on some laptops. I do not find it to be a good replacement for the Trackpoint.
I still use it when coding or writing. You can really easily move the cursor and never take your fingers off the keyboard.
I really like to use it for drag & drop, too - it somehow feels much more precise than the trackpad.
I use it pretty much every day! It's nice. I use the trackpad too, but each device has its strengths.
I haven't seen any Windows/Linux laptops with a good trackpad. Apple seems to be unbeatable in this regard.
I only recently got a Thinkpad T14 for work and the trackpad is really only serviceable. I was surprised. [0]
Especially because many years ago got a Dell Inspiron line laptop, and the trackpad on that feels great to me.
[0] what's even more surprising is that in Ubuntu there's an extra package, that adds more configuration options for the Thinkpad trackpad, but even with that I couldn't really make it feel as pleasant as my old Dell.