Fucking stupid ass dumb cunt editor with ragebait article titles making me mad in the morning
Does that mean the TrackPoint is dead? No, thankfully. It will still appear in the other ThinkPads made by Lenovo, said a company spokesman. But for the 14- and 15-inch ThinkPad X9 Aura Editions launched at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, the TrackPoint has been removed entirely.
Senior Editor Mark Hachman I hope you have a terrible day and stub your toe today
Control back in the right place... where you can press it with your left pinkie without taking your fingers off the home keys? Rather than where useless caps lock is just wasting space?
It's honestly the only reason I still buy them. If Lenovo removes the nub or Framework adds it, I'm switching to Framework. Give me a 14" T or E series with TrackPoint and I'm happy.
I think it works fantastically well. I personally like it much better than a touchpad. It lets me move the pointer without taking my hands away from typing home position.
It's not just for decoration. You can use it as a legitimate pointing device. Nudging it will move the mouse cursor and tapping it with your fingernail is clicking.
It takes some getting used to but you can definitely use it for normal office tasks if you wanted to. That being said, I still personally prefer a mouse. But I have known some people who like using the nipple.
It isn't a dealbreaker for me, but it really is nice. It takes getting used to, but it cuts down on the need to move to the touchpad or mouse. If you're working in tight quarters, or have mobility issues, or hand issues, it can end up being a major improvement. It's a ymmv thing of course, but I end up using it more than I thought I would when writing.
i don’t care about the nub on mine, but i do care a lot about the left/right click buttons that take up so much of the trackpad area. just gimme a bigass trackpad.
Oh its one of those Thinkpads that isn't actually a Thinkpad like the Thinkpad Yogas. My ideal Thinkpad would be a proper release of the T480 25th Anniversary Edition with newer components.
I actually stopped using mine a long time ago, and every time I get a new laptop, I remove it. Not because I hate it, but because I like it. Even after modifying the acceleration settings to where I like them though, the repeated stress of pushing on the nub eventually start to develop dendonitis in my finger.
After I've trained myself to only use the trackpad I put the nub back on. Partly because it's so iconic it just looks wrong without it, and partly because I want to avoid conversations with guest about my growing clit graveyard (although I guess I could just not leave them in a cup on the coffee table where everyone can see)
A few years ago, Lenovo released some Thinkpads without the three buttons above the touchpad. After a lot of pushback, they stopped making those. They also tried using Linux-hostile components for a while. My impression is that Lenovo is on an inexorable enshittification trajectory, but backs off a bit when pressured, only to make some other stupid decision next time.
They are back with the "no buttons" design. People swear the haptics make it better, but it doesn't. My work gave me one and the touchpad gets phantom taps and now the pad "clicks" when it hasn't even been touched sometimes and there's nothing that can be done.