Does anyone else dislike touchpads?
 

I'm thinking I may be in the minority, given that most of the laptops sold nowadays come with a touchpad. I don't like touchpads. I find the eraser head joystick to be MUCH easier to use...

I agree. Give me my "kitten nose" over a touchpad any day of the week.

I prefer touchpad over the eraser head-thingy, but a mini USB optical mouse trumps all. :) That is, if there's enough room to use a mouse...

I hate them with a passion. When buying a laptop I had to shop around for one without it. I much prefer the IBM "e-nipple".

I totally agree with you. Just got a new laptop with the touchpad and it's driving me crazy. :eek: You need two fingers for alot of functions where you could manage with one handed before, like moving things around. I had that little "eraser head joystick" down pat and this is not much fun. I'm hoping I just have to spend time with it and get used to it but I'm not too sure.

I do have one of those mini optical mouses thanks to a co-worker who decided his hand was too big to use the tiny mouse :) --- it works just fine and comes in handy occasionally. I usually minimize what I unpack so I don't forget anything and thats just one more thing I'd need to keep track of.

"kitten nose" and "e-nipple"... those a priceless. :D

I also hate the touchpads, as I tend to bump my wrists (or the bottom of my hands) into them when I am typing and accidently move the mouse around.

I know that some laptops now come with the ability to deactivate the touchpad from within the Start -> Control Panel -> Mouse menu.

Hate touchpads.

Love the eraser head of my IBM X21 ^ ^

What jfe said

I prefer the "non-sensitive e-nipple."

By that, I don't like a nipple that substitutes for a mouse click. On my laptop, at least :D

Prefer trackpads, especially the LARGE ones nowadays with scroll zones :)

Doesn't go well with grease
 

I find that when eating cheese fries or greasy potato chips, the touchpad becomes useless. With a nipple, you can always pop on a fresh one. :) :) :)

The default touchpad driver is very susceptible to accidental click-drags while typing, resulting in accidentally replacing whole blocks of text. I downloaded a revised driver (touchpoint? Synaptics?) that changed the behavior to require a very short pause between clicking and dragging in order for it to be recognized as such. This very effectively has cut out the click-drags. The sensitivity is adjustable and doesn't interfere with the normal clicking and dragging.

Edit: On this Dell laptop, the Synaptics touchpad driver has a setting under the Touch tab called Palm Check: "Helps to prevent accidental pointing while typing."

On the other hand, our HP laptop has a button right above the touchpad that turns it off completely.

I use nothing but touchpads at home and at work. My work and home desktops have keyboards with integrated touchpads.

I agree touchpads are hideous. I prefer trackpoints which is one of the many reasons I will keep buying Thinkpads.

I'll take: healthy mouse > good touchpad > eraserhead > trackball > bad touchpad > sick mouse.

Most touchpads I've tried fall in the mediocre category. I find that a sufficiently large palmrest level with the touchpad to be key to avoid CTS-like symptoms.

The greasy fries problem does not apply, as ever since freshman year in college, I shoot anyone trying to use my computer while eating fast food :mad:

I'm another mini-mouse user (Targus Travel Mini Optical). The touchpad is OK in a pinch, but I've never liked the eraserhead "stick" - it's wayyyy too sensitive and I end up struggling to osition the pointer exactly where I need it.