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Comment by hateduser2 | Hacker News Reader

Never understood the appeal of this thing.. tried it once to move the mouse and it was just so slow and awkward.. hardly seemed to work at all.. why do people like this? I really don’t get it myself.. is it for something besides moving the mouse? The thing seems pretty bad for that purpose.. maybe to move he mouse in small increments? Would love an explanation because I absolutely don’t get it myself.. pls help!

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Did you try it on an actual thinkpad? I have a dell with a trackpoint and it's nowhere near as accurate.

The appeal is that your fingers don't ever need to leave the homerow and also working from your lap on a bus for example is much easier since your hand doesn't have room to move to get to the trackpad

Agreed. Used to have an IBM Thinkpad with a trackpoint and loved it. Then I got first a Dell and later an HP laptop with trackpoints and could never get used to either of them. They just didn't work anywhere near as well as my old Thinkpad. I cannot really articulate the difference, but it was massive.

I think its because on Thinkpads, the trackpad is rather terrible, so you are forced to use the trackpoint if you want quick, trouble-free movement without a mouse. On the macbook, the trackpad is gorgeously smooth, you don't need to leave the homerow in order to move the cursor - can do any movement with either thumb.

I think people who type "properly" understand it... but even when I try to do that[0], IME, it's just less hassle to use a well-designed trackpad.

[0] It kills my wrists on pretty much any laptop that's placed in a reasonable position with respect to my eyeline. It's a bit easier on a well-designed keyboard but still not something I'd consider natural.

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