I remember trying to use a trackball years ago and it felt like the most unnatural thing to try and get use to that i gave up, might have been because after using a mouse for so long by that stage that there was no going back.
Never been able to get used to those.. but who knows, I guess there must be situations where they're the best option.
They are immensely preferable to touchpads, in my opinion. They are the best option in situations where you don't have table space for a mouse.
I think just about anything is preferable to touch pad though that could be I've never gotten that hands on with a really good one. Then again been a long time since I used a trackball (had one on a client's server cos there wasn't a good place nearby for the mouse). There was the trackpoint device used on IBM Thinkpads which always good rave comments from reviewers but wasn't that rapt in either that. Though I think part of that was typing style where I'd hit the bottom corners of the "g" and "h" keys where the damn pointer stuck up.
I never liked trackpoints because of the amount of force they required. Usually caused cramping/pain in whatever finger I was using to drive it after a while.
The few times I use my laptop as an actual laptop, I use the trackpoint over the touchpad 98% of the time. It just takes getting used to.
I used a trackball for over a year in 1998 after a medical event as I couldn't hold a mouse or use that properly at all and I got used to it and loved it, then when I had gotten better I started using a mouse again and now I kind of miss the old trackball.
I never liked the red nipple trackpoint device in the middle of the keyboard on IBM laptops. A touchpad is always preferable to me if a mouse or trackball is not available.
I usually get along with touchpads, I might have been lucky but the last three laptops I used had good ones.
For me it's not a question of being "good." I always find them awkward to use. At least most of them can tell when you're typing these days and don't move the cursor just because you slightly contacted it with your wrist.
Was hunting down a mainboard that I wanted to use in a salvaged component/wreck build.. couldn't find the damn thing but I did found two powersuplies both new, both never used but al least 8 years old.. I vagually remembered them, they came with a bunch of really cheap cases, those casings turned out to be okay enough, one I still use even, when I picked up the PSU I remembered why I never dared to use them, it weighs nothing.. I mean I have a SFX PSU which is tiny and so but that one is quite heavy, Googled the thing: X-Gear CPS4510C8F1 also nothing to be happy about.. so it is back up the attic gathering dust with its identical twin and one of those older horrid Cooler Master 320 watt things..
Hey lately I have found Speccy is giving me temperature readings below that of the sensors on my motherboard.... For example in BIOS cpu temp is 21C but in Speccy it's 12C. It's been happening a few times like this in the last week or two. Speccy used to give me the same readings but now it's not.
The temperature in the BIOS is NOT the temperature of your CPU or CPU cores, it is the temperature reading of the sensor of the CPU Socket or area directly underneath the chip, the 12c could be core temp, add 20c and you have 32c which is okay for an FX chip, AMD CPU's after K9/10 have an offset for core temp... why the hell they do so beats me, motherboard PWM controllers for fan speed use socket temp anyway. So if you're running idle then yes, core temp will be hilariously low, AMD FX chips will start to report the actual core temp as of 45c IIRC.
Either that has been a coincidence or there has been some update or so which feeds other sensor data, might be that Speccy also has had an update, there are many reasons for stuff like that, it remains software.
"shrug" I guess. I am not having any hardware issues with anything and everything is doing what it's supposed to be doing so I don't want to prod around and push my luck. I might however try uninstalling, and then reinstalling speccy
Newer Lenovos have the left & right "buttons" as part of/under the touchpad, not separate. I really don't like that. Some people seem to have made it work.
My Asus 2 in one has the touchpad but the two buttons are under that and you have to press on the bottom of the pad to make it click, so there is a pair of physical switches there. Also the two buttons are separated by a raised line. But I am starting to dislike that machine. What brain dead moron designs a machine with only a 32gig storage for the OS and user files? The machine runs fine but I keep running out of space. It was a birthday present so I can't complain but geez who was the fucking idiot that designed that?
The best laptop by far I have in terms of layout etc is my 2004 Compaq Presario R3000, keyboard and touchpad just have everything the right way, the thing still works but a 2.8Ghz Netburst Celeron and 512 MB RAM aren't quite up to spec anymore. Close second, DELL D830, also very good, my current laptop is a second hand HP Elitebook 8560w, it has a large touchpad and three keys, so now and then I hit the wrong one.. besides that little issue it is rather nice.