[GTALUG] Thinkpad choices today?

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense at csclub.uwaterloo.ca>

| On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 01:59:56PM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
| >  I don't like touchpads, touchscreens, or trackpoints but
| > some versions are way better than others.
| 
| OK, what option do you like if you don't like those 3?  Please don't
| say trackballs, because no one is allowed to like those evil things. :)

Mostly touchpads, but there are a lot of differences that matter
between touchpads.

[The following long discussion might only interest me.]

The answer depends on the way I'm using the device.

Oh, and what I think I will do (when selecting a device) doesn't
always match what I actually do.  That's why I've experimented with so
many things.

All trackpointers are the same to me (usable but not great).
Touchscreens are of no use to me with a normal Linux desktop.
Trackpads very wildly in usability.

I like mice best, but the logistics are annoying with laptops.  Still,
if my session is longer than, say, a minute, it is probably worth
deploying.

For web surfing on an Adroid or iOS tablet, I quite like touchscreens.
Except while entering text.  But I've never found that touchscreens on
notebooks useful:

- partly due to the crappy support in Linux desktops

- partly because what I'm doing often involves typing

- partly because horizontally reaching for a touchscreen is very
  tiring ("gorilla arm")

- perhaps because Linux tasks require precision that is beyond
  capacitive digitizers.

I rarely remember that I'm even on a touchscreen when I'm using one
with Linux.  (My main notebook, a Yoga 2 Pro, has a touchscreen.  So
does our kitchen computer.)

Trackpointers are simple in concept but I've not really gotten used to
them because I don't have one on my desktop where I do most of my
typing.  (Or on the typewriter or keypunch where my muscles learned to
type.)  My main notebook for five years (x61t) has one and no
trackpad, but I carried a mouse.  The trackpad should be good for
touch-typists (it's in the home row).  But on my high-resolutions
screens, it takes a long time to move a significant portion of the
screen.  I've always found it a bit, well, creepy that the cursor
often drifts when I let go.

Touchpads on notebooks have a variety of designs with a variety of
good and bad points.

- I hate it when touchpads decide that I'm talking to them when I
  don't think I am.  The cursor will zing off somewhere while I'm
  typing or thinking about typing.  It may be my fault, but it happens
  much more frequently on some systems than others.  There's a simple
  fix some systems have:  ignore touchpad events while the user is
  typing.  I suspect that isn't enough.

- I am annoyed at the way touchpad use seems to require two hands
  sometimes: moving a finger on the surface while clicking or holding
  a button (or two!), perhaps even while holding a modifier key.

- having the left button being the whole pad seems like a step forward
  but on my samples, it is designed as a lever with the fulcrum at the
  top so (a) the pressure varies, and (b) is theoretically infinite at
  the top.

- I like the new gestures that have come in.  But haven't seen a
  manual.  So I'm not really confident that I know them.  The most
  useful seems to be two-finger sliding for scrolling (but there seem
  to be two opposite conventions about the direction).

- the middle mouse button is useful in X and Firefox.  It is rare in
  trackpads (except thinkpads).  Simulating by using left+right click
  isn't as reliable.

- new trackpads seem to have soft buttons.  My fingers cannot "feel"
  where they are.  So I have to look down from the screen.  On the
  other hand, if I put some effort in I could configure a middle
  button, I think.

I don't seem to use a stylus.  My x61t tablet/notebook has a stylus
but cannot sense my fingers.  I thought that would be worth trying,
but it hasn't been useful.  If I were drawing things, it would be
wonderful: precise (unlike capacitive sensing of fingers) and pressure
sensitive.  I am envious of Microsoft OneNote users, but in reality
handwriting is probably too slow.

I accepted a stylus in the Nokia tablets and the Sharp Zaurus.  But
the iPad was a real revelation: a fluid interface and not cramped (10"
vs 4").  But I perform some tasks better on the earlier tablets (ssh).

(I actually do some things in busybox on my Nexus 4, but only because
I haven't bothered figured out how to create a GUI for these tasks.
These same tasks are probably better on my Zaurus but it is usually on
the shelf, uncharged.)