The Lenovo ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition being showed off at CES 2025 lacks the iconic TrackPoint nub in a nod to a new, modern design that includes Lenovo AI Now.
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.
The best I can do, is to steer it slowly. For me, it’s always been the inferior option when compared to a regular touchpad.
Although, I do se the benefit of the central positioning when you need to type more and you don’t want to move your fingers from the home row just to click something quickly.
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.
Those who don’t use it are only mildly annoyed by it, but those who use it will raise holy hell now that it’s gone.
Is it actually usable? I never owned one
Used one for a few years and I loved it:
But, there’s no mouse wheel or scroll gesture and maintaining pressure on the nub is maybe more tiring than a trackpad.
You can scroll with nub by holding the middle button
It’s also very chill to do things 1-handed with (no euphemism).
Some people prefer it over trackpad, or use both. Personally I like to disable trackpad because I tend to always hit it with palm or thumb by accident
I use a mechanical keyboard with one on my desktop, I actually use it quite a lot.
That sounds awesome! Is it a Unicomp EnduraPro or is there some other option?
TEX out of Taiwan makes a few.
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 fine. Takes some time to get used to. Some people really love it, but I don’t think it’s that great.
I can never get mine to go where I want first try, and sometimes the pointer drifts on its own after I take my finger off.
The best I can do, is to steer it slowly. For me, it’s always been the inferior option when compared to a regular touchpad.
Although, I do se the benefit of the central positioning when you need to type more and you don’t want to move your fingers from the home row just to click something quickly.
Maybe the IBM touch points were better. I could see the Lenovo ones being mostly for show / plausible deniability.
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 feels a lot like using a game controller to control your mouse, if you’ve ever used Joy2Key or similar programs.
Dunno. I have one on my semifake E580 and I just used it to check if it works. It’s a bit awkward for me.
Oh yeah.
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.