11 ms·

That’s the whole point of buying a Thinkpad. I will never buy a Thinkpad ever without a Trackpoint.

jemmyw 2y ago
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.
- network3rr0r 2y ago
  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
- ori_b 2y ago
  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.
- daft_pink 2y ago
  To be fair, the wheep holes are pretty nice as well. I bought my first Thinkpad after I accidentally dumped a whole glass of water on my Toshiba laptop and it stopped working, so this was the initial feature that attracted me decades ago. Another plus at the time was the strong Linux support, but Dell has better Linux support. Also to be fair, I use a MacBook Pro as my laptop these days, and mostly use a desktop computer 95% of the time, because desktop computers I haven’t been brainwashed to think that laptops are better than desktops and prefer their superiority.
coconut08 2y ago
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.
saltcured 2y ago
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.

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.

network3rr0r 2y ago
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
ori_b 2y ago
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.
daft_pink 2y ago
To be fair, the wheep holes are pretty nice as well. I bought my first Thinkpad after I accidentally dumped a whole glass of water on my Toshiba laptop and it stopped working, so this was the initial feature that attracted me decades ago. Another plus at the time was the strong Linux support, but Dell has better Linux support. Also to be fair, I use a MacBook Pro as my laptop these days, and mostly use a desktop computer 95% of the time, because desktop computers I haven’t been brainwashed to think that laptops are better than desktops and prefer their superiority.

coconut08 2y ago

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.

saltcured 2y ago

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.