[GTALUG] Thinkpad choices today?
Lennart Sorensen
lsorense at csclub.uwaterloo.ca
Fri Nov 14 16:58:52 UTC 2014
On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 02:01:46AM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> 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 have used a few and they are not at all the same. The Dell I
have a work is terribly inaccurate, and the touchpad constantly is
triggered while typing (so I turn it off entirely). My thinkpad at
home the trackpoint is very nice to work with, and the touchpad never
has accidental triggering (probably due to both better drivers, and I
suspect being places slightly further away from the keyboard. I find
the Dell has a terrible keyboard, trackpoint and touchpad.
> 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.
That makes sense. If I am playing games, I do tend to connect an
external mouse.
> 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:
Typing on touch screens just seems awful.
> - 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")
How about the constant finger prints on the screen?
> - 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.
I used to think they were useless, but at least on my W530 it works very
well. It takes less than 1/4 second to go across a 1920x1080 display.
> 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.
Yeah some like to do that. See above. :)
No it is probably NOT your fault. Some of them are crap.
> - 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.
Sounds awful.
> - 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).
I love that feature.
> - 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.
I certainly like having all 3 buttons.
> - 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.
At least thinkpads will be going back to real buttons next generation
again.
> 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.
If you are drawing diagrams and such at the same time, then it does seem
useful, but they seem to have mostly died out again.
> 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.)
I find putty on my nokia with a real keyboard ssh'd to a real system is
a handy way to do things.
--
Len Sorensen
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