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Portables GUI Software Hardware

Laptops w/o Trackpads? 123

Posted by Cliff from the are-we-stuck-with-them dept.
Leave Blank asks: "Are there any laptops out there anymore that -don't- have trackpads? I can't use them properly at all (for whatever reason - my current theory is that it's linked to my severe Raynaud's - some days I can activate a trackpad from a bit under a centimetre above it, other days it just doesn't work at all, so I always carry around an external trackball with my current laptop. Does anyone on Slashdot have recommendations I mightn't have managed to google?"
"A trackpad is just pointlessly annoying for me, because I have to remember to turn it off or I'll 'hit' it accidentally while typing (sometimes just by waving my hand over it, remember), and even if it is off, I'm left with a nagging feeling it's wasting space, which annoys my tender european design sensibilities. So, what are my options? - I want a top-of-the-range in processor/gfx laptop, I quite like the little keyboard, um, nubbins, but I can't find a _new_ laptop with one but without a trackpad, and ultra-pricy tablet PCs typically actually come with a freaking trackpad too. Seems to me a laptop without a trackpad might even be smaller, and I'm quite prepared to live without one as outlined."
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Laptops w/o Trackpads? More

Laptops w/o Trackpads?

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  • Shut off the missfire (Score:5, Informative)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @11:48AM (#11528589)
    For some reason, many of these pads have "tap for click" turned on. This causes nothing but problems: you'll get erroneous mouse-clicks registered just by dragging and moving stuff around the screen. "But I never intended to drag that to the trash can!" Turn this off to make things more bearable.
    • And learn how to use it, it is so much better than the un-geek like crossnig of arms to move cursor and use buttons...

      I like to use the keyboard exclusively anyway - it annoys me when sites don't support tab properly.

      (tab tab tab space)
      • "And learn how to use it, it is so much better than the un-geek like crossnig of arms to move cursor and use buttons..."

        The click buttons are typically located right next to the track area: no arm-crossing needed. "Learn how to use it" is a bothersome change to "move finger to drag pointer, that is all! no erroneous clicks will happen just by dragging stuff". It's better to have it so you can't accidentally click just by dragging.

    • For some reason, many of these pads have "tap for click" turned on.

      Yea, they should. For someone with a real inability, it's easy to turn off. The only times I've had trouble with a touchpad are: Toshiba's terrible software interface for the touchpad and a Kapok OEM notebook where the touchpad was offset just a hair. Typing on the Kapok caused these random cursor movements because my hand would brush the touchpad.

      • I guess the "tap to click" works if you are really slow with your GUI operations. I guess I am working too fast, and my "drag" operations get read as "clicks".

        Actual mice don't have the problem of registering bogus clicks just by using the "point" part of the interface. Why should trackpads by any different?

      • "For some reason, many of these pads have "tap for click" turned on."

        Yea, they should. For someone with a real inability, it's easy to turn off.

        Yea, right, and Windows should come pre-installed with IIS turned on and port 80 open. It's easy to for people who don't like that to turn it off.

        Or not.

        The default settings in any system should be the safest ones, whether we're talking about cracking, user error, or whatever. Tap-to-click is an advanced feature that's easy to mess up or trigger accidenta

        • Dear God, go grab tpconfig [compass.com]... My laptop's touchpad was unusable until I shut that idiot tap-to-click
          thing off...

          tpconfig is a Linux CLI utility to set params for your touchpad. Some things to note that didn't seem too well documented to me:
          1. Although it is documented that you cannot reconfigure the touchpad while X is running, you can simply switch to another virtual console, set whatever features you like, and then switch back to your X console.
          2. On my Dell, suspending turns the fool feature back on. Lo
          • tpconfig solved my problem for months - years? But then, when I upgraded to a 2.6 kernel, tpconfig no longer turned off the click. The machine became almost unusable, because there just wasn't anywhere to put my thumbs that wouldn't click and have me typing in the middle of the previous paragraph... arg!

            I wound up having to use the other one - the synaptics driver? - and the event interface just to turn off mouse tapping. Yes, I DO have a GlidePoint, but the synaptics driver also supports it.

            I see that
        • Advanced? +5, Funny, maybe.
    • For some reason, many of these pads have "tap for click" turned on.

      I suspect that is because it is a good function.

      I would, however, recommend turning it off during car rides. That has caused me some fun.

  • Just unhook it (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @11:49AM (#11528611)
    It will probably void the warranty or something, but why not just open up the case and unhook the trackpad? Opening a laptop can be tricky, but it is possible.

    And while you are at it, take out all the guts and paint your laptop camo (don't forget the keyboard!) so you can have that "Hackers" look.

    • You could unhook it, but if you were buying a new laptop anyway and knew that you were never gonna use the pad, why not just buy one without a pad if possible?
    • Opening the laptop is easy. It's putting it back together that's difficult.

    • Re:Just unhook it (Score:1, Redundant)

      by dJCL ( 183345 )
      This seems to be th gist of most posts - just work around it. But most some current laptops, I've seen it in Toshibas(as that's what we sell), have a simple key combo to disable it. I've even run into a compaq with that option.

      It's usually just an extended fn key like those for volume and brightness.
      And as I literally just got my alps touchpad working(just really tried for the first time), I also could say that under linux, you could just not enable the thing - heck, there is a command in the xorg.conf fil
    • The new HP Pavilion notebooks have a hardware button to turn off the trackpad. There's a similar one to turn off the radio to the onboard wireless.
      • These buttons require software to recognize them. I have this laptop you speak of. Neither buttons function outside of windows easily. The wireless doesnt work without HP's wireless driver, either.

  • IBM (Score:5, Informative)

    by Txiasaeia ( 581598 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @11:50AM (#11528614)
    Get an IBM X-Series (just the pointer) or a T-Series and replace the wrist-rest with one that doesn't include a trackpad. It's extremely easy to do and costs $20 or so.
    • Also, if the trackpoint annoys you (I assume the person asking uses an external mouse?) just pop off the eraserhead. I don't know how to get rid of the buttons, but if that is a problem the the poster is just crazy. I already think he is crazy since turning the trackpad off is easy, and I fail to see how its presence is "offensive". To each their own I suppose.
      • What a fine example of not reading the article!!!

        First off, the original article states that the guy cannot use a trackpad, the original poster believes it is tied to an extreme case of Raynaud's Phenomenon [nih.gov], there was no mention of being offended (how in the world did you get this idea???) by his trackpad. *sigh*
        • Never mind, after re-reading the article I suppose I can see where you could say he is offended by his touchpad from the part about a disabled touchpad going against his European taste(um, yeah). Although the part about the fact that he is unable to use a touchpad still has nothing to do with using an eraserhead pointer...
          • He actually mentions that he likes the eraserhead (trackpoint) so a Thinkpad without the trackpad is probably what he wants. I find it hard to believe that he didn't know about this.
    • Or do it for free. Buy the thinkpad and turn off the trackpad in the BIOS. You won't have to remember to turn it off manually, and you won't have to spend a penny to replace it.

  • IBM's ThinkPad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by _iris ( 92554 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @11:50AM (#11528615) Homepage
    Get a ThinkPad.
  • I do the same thing, accidentally while typing on laptops with trackpads. I haven't seen any without them in awhile, though.

  • good question (Score:3, Informative)

    by Naikrovek ( 667 ) <jjohnson@pWELTYsg.com minus author> on Monday January 31, 2005 @11:50AM (#11528622)
    it seems that every late model laptop has a trackpad these days. which sucks because i can't stand trackpads.

    thinkpads (and probably most laptops) let you disable the trackpad, in favor of the mouse button, which i greatly prefer, personally.

    so while finding one without a trackpad might be difficult, getting a laptop with a mouse "nipple" and disabling the trackpad is definitely possible.

  • IBM Most of their models still do not have touchpads, still clinging on to the archaic touch stick (nipple as some would affectionately call it). This is one of the reasons I won't go with IBM (the price is also a turn off).
  • I have an IBM with the nub, and a touchpad. I never use the touchpad, and it only causes me problems as I hit it accidentally. I don't have any problems with it registering without touching however, that one seems pretty unique. I may be able to disable it... (now to check the settings).

    • Re:Not alone in hating them (Score:5, Informative)

      by KDan ( 90353 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @12:12PM (#11528877) Homepage
      I don't have any problems with it registering without touching however, that one seems pretty unique.

      Perhaps because you don't have Raynaud's [demon.co.uk].

      Daniel
      • But how does Raynaud's effect the touch pad? I'm not a doctor so other then the link you provided I know nothing about Raynaud's, but just from the link, it seems that Raynaud's just affects blood flow. That alone woundn't cause the touchpad to magically be touched. Now if the condition caused uncontrolled tremors or something like that, then I can see how it would be a problem.
        • I checked up on it before posting too, and I have no idea how Raynaud's would impact a touchpad to be honest. Now, having a strong Kirlian aura could possibly play some funky tricks is my guess, just to pop off another word most people don't know. :)
        • Effective touchpad usage requires subtle motions of the finger (just barely rolling the finger without actually sliding it, tiny slides, etc.). These motions use the muscles actually located in the finger and the palm of the hand to make these fine adjustments. Someone with Raynaud's Syndrome during an attack has very little blood flow in their fingers and loses a great deal of fine motor control as a result.

          Touchpoint controllers (the eraser point), on the other hand, tend to require more force and make
        • As it affects blood flow, I'm sure it also affecs heat transferrence to the fingers. Since touchpads are supposed to work by detecting heat, cold fingers would then be a problem.
          • Touchpads don't have anything to do with heat: the temperature of your fingers can fluctuate a lot (e.g.: when you've just been outside in the winter cold), as does the room temperature (what would happen if the touchpad and your fingers are about the same temperature?)...

            They use capacitance: whenever two electrical conductors (fingers are a good electrical conductor) move alongside each other, they influence (slightly) each others electrical field. These minute changes are detected by the touchpad circu

  • ibm thinkpad (Score:1, Informative)

    by supersuckers ( 841107 )
    i think all of them at least have that nubby thing if you turn the touchpad off, but this x series seem to not have the touchpad at all.

    http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/C ategoryDisplay?catalogId=-840&storeId=1&langId=-1& dualCurrId=73&categoryId=2072542 [ibm.com]
    hope that link isn't cookie dependant.

  • Duct tape- no joke (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nomihn0 ( 739701 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @11:54AM (#11528678)
    Buy a top-of-the-line laptop and place ducttape over the trackpad. The cost of the trackpad is negligible in comparison to the overall price of the laptop and duct tape is cheap. You can get a roll of white for your iBook, chrome for your Vaio, or manila for your Walmart PC. As long as you cover the pad, your hand brushing over won't be recognized (conductivity is often measured).
  • IBM Invented the trackpoint or whatever they call it.

    You know, the little 'eraserhead' that goes in the middle of the keyboard?

    Toshiba might still use a similar device as well.

    Have you considered a TabletPC?
  • I also greatly desire a laptop without a touchpad. I hate the damn things, they're basically useless to me. The nub is better, but not perfect either. If you're going to have a built-in pointing device it should be like back in the day when there was a trackball in the laptop. Or on one really old 486 laptop I remember it had a trackball that snapped onto the side of it. Or even better, do like the sony U101 has the gamepad style grips. Tablet pcs of course have a stylus. Basically if you aren't going
  • Anyone remember the old Compaq laptops with the track ball on the inside of the screen and the clickers on the outside?

    I must have been pretty bad for lefties, and having the clickers on the outside of the case dictaed the the machine be kept in a case. Plus every scrolling wheel system needs to be cleaned from time to time.

    Still, it was way better than Nicholas Negroponte's mid-keyboard nubbn'.

    • "Anyone remember the old Compaq laptops with the track ball on the inside of the screen and the clickers on the outside? "

      Can you describe this any better? Sounds like you had to remove the clear display panel to get to the track ball!

      " must have been pretty bad for lefties"

      There is no reason not to make sure that any permanently-installed pointing device is in the center. Wal-Mart's job kiosks have them on the right, basically saying "if you are left handed, we don't want you working at Wal-Mart".

  • In windows 2000 you can open the device manager and disable any piece of hardware, including the trackpad. I'd be surprised if this wasn't possible with other operating systems.
  • If you want to find a tablet PC without a trackpad, look at the TC1100 from HP/Compaq

    It has tablet mode and can pivot around to use a keyboard which has only two buttons and a clitoris/nippple/eraser.

    My HS had a whole program of rolling them out to students and they're very nice machines.
  • I actually like the touchpad in my HP laptop. It's a good Synaptics pad which uses capacitance [synaptics.com] instead of pressure. The control panel has lots of knobs, including adjustable palm check which nicely prevents movement while typing. Theres also stuff like tap zones: I have it set for tap in the upper right corner for a right click, or in the upper left for maximize. I always tap; I never use the buttons. There's even a GPL'd driver [telia.com] for XOrg and XF86 that has all the features.

    After a little practice, I can use
  • Most new compaq laptops have touchpads which can be turned off.
  • Most of the Thinkpad's have either both or just the trackpoint thingy in the middle of the keyboard. Some even now have a scroll button. My X31 has it and it's great!

    -m
  • .. can have it's touch pad turned off in the bios.

    • Or you can just not touch it. But the problem isn't not using the trackpad. The problem is finding a laptop that provides an alternative to a trackpad. The only real choice seems to be an IBM-style pointer stick. (Not ideal, but I can't really think of anything better that doesn't rely on psychic powers.) And unfortunately that pretty much limits you to Thinkpads, since other manufacturers seem to be abandoning them (more expensive?). Indeed, I'm afraid that the Thinkpad's new Chinese Overlords will likely
      • "Or you can just not touch it."

        Sadly, no, that's not an option. The reason why I know that any laptop with a touchpad can be disabled is because I keep hitting the stupid thing every other time I hit the space bar. I feel this guy's pain. Frankly, if BIOS's (or included software) didn't typically allow this to be turned off, I'd be with him on his crusade. Fortunately, life is easier for him than he'd realize.

        " And unfortunately that pretty much limits you to Thinkpads, since other manufacturers see
        • Not sure if it helps or not, but my Dell came with both. They make good laptops, at least in my experience. I'd happily buy from them again.

          Unfortunately, newer Dells appear to be shipping with only the touchpad, which is a shame since I also hate touchpads and prefer the nipple-mouse.

        • Not sure if it helps or not, but my Dell came with both.

          That's interesting, I can't ever recall seeing a Dell with a pointer stick. And Dell certainly doesn't advertise this feature. The only way to tell is squint real hard at the picture...

          I know that may sound a little weird, but the tablet form factor is definitely stronger for mobility.

          What should that sound weird? Tablets imitate the form factor of an old-fashioned clipboard. What disappoints me is that tablets haven't caught on among those who s

          • "That's interesting, I can't ever recall seeing a Dell with a pointer stick. And Dell certainly doesn't advertise this feature. The only way to tell is squint real hard at the picture...'

            I should qualify that by saying that I have a Dell laptop that has both. But it was purchased 2 years ago.

            "I wouldn't want an M-200, though, since it tries to be both a tablet and a notebook. If I go over to the tablet side, I'm going all the way."

            Err, why? It actually does the job really well. The design is sturdy
            • Why no keyboard? Because it adds weight and bulk. Every ounce and square inch detracts slightly from a portable device's usability. It's a reasonable tradeoff to have a builtin keyboard if you have to be able to back and forth from laptop to tablet mode. But I don't. And as I said before, I don't consider laptop keyboards ergonomic.
            • I have a Dell Latitude D600 in fornt of me that has both the Trackpad and the Trackpoint/eraser/clitoris thingy on it. This was purchased ~ 3 months ago.

              Not a bad little machine in other respects as well.

  • BIOS control (Score:3, Informative)

    by MoogMan ( 442253 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @12:58PM (#11529384)
    For the majority, you can disable the trackpad in the BIOS.

  • Sorry dude, your dead (Score:5, Funny)

    by aardwolf204 ( 630780 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @01:01PM (#11529405)
    Trackpads don't work for you because your fingers are too cold. This is a result of you being dead. I hate for you to find out this way, but its true. You've been dead for a while now. There was actually a slashdot story on it, maybe you missed it? It was duped twice. Seems you died after a 36 hour starcraft session at a cybercafe. As your body lay there lifeless, your soul has been carying on and seriously the slashdot posts from the after life are kinda freaking us out here. If you dont mind, just walk towards the bright light and leave us alone. Oh, and give a word up to big J.
  • If you get a high end gfc laptp the trackpad is not the space (though your design sensibilities may still be irked).

    The high end Dells have a nipple and a touch pad. The touchpad can be disabled and stays such forever, you can still use the nipple and a mouse, and the touch pad is not wasted space, just ugly at that point because the whole case is packed with stuff.
    • A word about using external mice on Dell laptops (at least in Inspirons):

      The touchpad and nubbin are internal PS/2 devices. When you plug a PS/2 mouse into the PS/2 port on the back, you will automatically disable the touchpad/nubbin. When you plug in a USB mouse, they're still enabled and you would have to go into the Device Manager to disable them.
      • True, the new ones do not have PS/2 ports at all though.

        Most annoying though is that the mouspad and nipple cannot both be disabled at once, though it is hard to accidently do damage with the nipple if tap click is off.
  • My Latitude D600 has an option to disable the trackpad and eraser-thingy in BIOS, or to have it enabled only when something else isn't plugged in. Most Dells I've seen have this same option.
  • I was shopping for a new laptop recently, to replace my still-working but very slow IBM Thinkpad A22p (800MHz).

    I have tried time and again to get used to touchpads, but I never feel like I have good control with them. The experience is always frustrating .

    So, my #1 criterion for a new laptop is a non-touchpad pointing device, a la IBM's trackpoint, i.e., the "nipple"-type pointing stick.

    I looked far and wide on the net. Of the major vendors, I found that IBM, Dell, and Toshiba all still make laptops with
    • My brother and I put a keyboard from the new Dell latititude into my inspiron (also replaced the palm rest). It's a non-trivial operation, but it's certainly doable. Across vendors??? You've got to make sure everything fits together, and there's not much of a market for modding laptops...

      --LWM
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I have an Inspiron 600m.

          The keyboard/palmrest are from the equivalent Latitute... D600? Not sure exactly which brand. A little piece of plastic did have to be broken to make it fit (no problems there), and the little piece of plastic with the power button and sound buttons doesn't fit perfectly, but it's great :) No touchpad for me!

          We didn't have to flash the Bios, BTW - it just worked.

          --LWM
  • If you still want to keep the trackpad working, then cover it with something thick. My father does this since he still wants to use it once in a while. It works well on two Toshiba notebooks so far.

    I personally can't use the finger control (don't know the term for this) with my fingers (have physical disabilities). I prefer trackball (my old Pentium laptop had one) and track pad if mice don't exist.
  • Although the Apple LT comes with a trackpad, it is not needed anymore once you get this new keyboard from Fingerworks:

    http://www.fingerworks.com/MacNTouch_product.htm l

    I don't own it (yet) but from what I see so far, they are going down the right path.
  • I was the happy owner of a IBM 570e and now of a T41p. Unfortunately contrary to the 570e, the T41p has both the red IBM thingy and the pad.

    However, there exists a palmrest without pad (part #91P8399, see http://www.indexcomputer.net/91p8399.html [indexcomputer.net]) but I could not get precise information about what happens to the warranty if I buy and install it myself. Thus, the pad remains (and I hate it).
  • Sony's tiny VAIO laptops (the Picturebook series, the X505 [dynamism.com]) have generally been made without a trackpad, simply because the laptops are so small. They all have trackpoints to handle pointing. I much prefer this design because the trackpad + "wrist rest' design of most laptops is horribly un-ergonomic for me.
    • I always wondered- are those Sonys hard to type on? B/c there is no hard surface to rest your wrist when you type like with other laptops. Good looking little laptop though.

  • Personally, I've always preferred the tactile feel of a mouse, particularly a small one. Macally has a nice optical Bluetooth mouse called the BTMouseJr [macally.com]. As an optical mouse, it will function on almost any non-reflective surface. As a Bluetooth device, no cable is required. (They have the OptiMicro [macally.com] if you don't have Bluetooth or don't want to deal with batteries.)

    To avoid the possible problem of needing to use your laptop without an available mousing surface, just slap some gaffer's tape to the right

  • Instead of looking far and wide for a non-trackpad version of a laptop, find whatever laptop you like best, whatever your criteria is for selecting one, and IF it has a trackpad on it, disable it. It will then become just a little square on the front of your laptop that isn't used for anything. You would always then have the option of using it again (say you're on a plane and your mouse breaks) if you need it.

    Don't remove that which doesn't need to be removed. Just push it to the side. You never know when
  • I don't know about laptops without tap pads but mine has a button to disable it. Plus, usually it shows up as a pointing device or something so you can just disable the whole device. That's what I do and then rock the wireless mouse.
  • I carry around this mini mouse for my laptop... It's so small it really takes no space, plus, it's optical, so it works correctly on any surface.

    http://www.brookstone.com/shop/product.asp?product _code=389395&search_type=search&search_words=mouse &prodtemp=t1&cm_re=Result*R1C1*T [brookstone.com]

  • Trackpads work by reacting to the elctrostatic charge from your skin.

    High humidity or a build-up of sweat/grease on the trackpad can significantly increase the sensitivity of the unit - I have used one in a service workshop which would follow my hand as I waved it about an inch above the unit.

    Usually you can adjust the sensitivity of the trackpad in software on the laptop in question, other things you can do are as follows:

    * Clean the trackpad regularly with a damp cloth - either warm water or perhaps Wi

  • I agree that the trackpoint sucks.

    I refuse to buy one that does. For what I do, and the way I want to do it, I much prefer the Touchpoint.

    Currently, I know that both of the HP Tablet PCs have them (TC-1000 and TC-1100) as well as many of the IBM laptops. In the not too distant past some of the Sony Vaio laptops (only the Picturebooks) had these, as well as some Toshiba laptops.

    By the way, does anyone else remember IBM's ScrollPoint Mouse? Basically it was a mouse that had a touchpoint on it (this was
  • Reference to severe Raynaud's explained here [webmd.com].
  • "A trackpad is just pointlessly annoying for me, because I have to remember to turn it off or I'll 'hit' it accidentally while typing (sometimes just by waving my hand over it, remember), and even if it is off, I'm left with a nagging feeling it's wasting space, which annoys my tender european design sensibilities"

    I think ergonomic design dictates that you need an area to rest your wrists, lest your hands get tired from just hanging in midair. So even if the laptop comes without a trackpad (a la IBM) the

  • I believe some ThinkPads still come with the eraser-nub. It acts like a miny-joystick, and is actually decent once you get used to it. But many have tapping as well, so I definately suggest disabling that.

    My old laptop (Dell Inspiron 3700) had both Trackpad and thumbstick. And even though the drivers were buggy, you could set it to use both or just one of them. I wound up turning off the trackpad because these bear-claws I call hands kept tapping it while I was playing Half-Life.

    Good luck.
  • Alot of Ultra-portables, particularly the japanese imports, have the nipple exclusively.
    http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildse riesbean.do?series=P1 [fujitsupc.com]
    http://www.dynamism.com/xp741/gallery.shtml [dynamism.com]
    http://reviews.cnet.com/JVC_MP_XV841/4505-3121_7-3 0981361.html?tag=pdtl-list [cnet.com]

    And as an added bonus, they're so cute! *drools*
  • They come with a touchpad, but it has a handy little button on top of it that will disable it.

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