Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Bring back the TrackPoint

The TrackPoint that I'm referring to is that red pointing stick that used to be commonly found on IBM (now Lenovo) laptops.
TrackPoint on a Lenovo Thinkpad
The advantages of the TrackPoint over the touch pad are very apparent after using the TrackPoint for a small period of time. First of all the TrackPoint is located in the middle of the keyboard, surrounded by the B, G, and H keys. This allows the user to type much faster and use the computer more efficiently as the user's keys never have to leave the home row. Another advantage of this design is that it affords a smaller and sleeker laptop design as the pointing device is integrated within the keyboard. Unfortunately for reasons unbeknownst to me the TrackPoint has drastically lost popularity since its introduction in 1987. Now the only way one can purchase a laptop with this feature is by selecting a one particular model of a Lenovo laptop (Thinkpad).

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