me on a date
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
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.
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.
Awesome, thanks!
It feels a lot like using a game controller to control your mouse, if you’ve ever used Joy2Key or similar programs.
Used one for a few years and I loved it:
- it’s precise, you can really aim small UI elements
- It is paired with actual buttons, index on the nub and thumb on the buttons, so no weird gestures to right click
- It is very quick to switch from keyboard to mouse, your hands nearly don’t move
But, there’s no mouse wheel or scroll gesture and maintaining pressure on the nub is maybe more tiring than a trackpad.
Back when I was in high school, we had a shared pool of laptops stored in the library, and our teachers would reserve the library space for days when we were supposed to be working on laptops. My district had a bunch of Dells with the nipple mouse. To this day I still think it’s probably the most convenient and precise input device I’ve ever used.
It’s also very chill to do things 1-handed with (no euphemism).
You can scroll with nub by holding the middle button
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
ThinkPad isn’t for you then. There are plenty of laptops with huge track pads, there aren’t many with a nub.
If Framework offered a nub, I’d switch. Until then, I’m sticking with whichever 14" Thinkpad has a nub.
if only i had a choice of what my work assigns to me.
Same. I’m stuck on an Apple laptop and much prefer my personal Thinkpad.
lol I’d trade you.
At least I’m up for an upgrade, so I’ll get an M-series chip, which is cool. I really don’t like macOS though and much prefer my Linux workflow.
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I use the “control nipple” occasionally, but I use the physical mouse buttons every day always.
Even though they’re slightly oddly positioned to use with the touchpad, they’re a million times better than not having any buttons at all.
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.
Engage giant-marble-headstone
R I P
Admittedly overdue and also a sign of the end days
Is nothing sacred anymore‽
No more laptop clit
I will not buy a Lenovo without the clitmouse
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)
I think you’re overstimulating. You need to be gentle, which benefits both of you. Try resting it on or near the nub and applying gentle pressure.
my growing clit graveyard
How do you have more than, like, 3? How often do you change laptops?
At least 2…
This, and why do they take away the 2 buttons below the track pad. PC track pads are barely tolerable as it is.
Fewer parts means cheaper to manufacture.
Don’t be fooled; they’re only doing it to increase profits because our standards aren’t higher.
Nobody was using that thing
You mean the nub, or buttons on the trackpad?
I, personally, made use of both back when I had a thinkpad.
I used both. But the track pad buttons are so much easier to use for click and drag operations, left click right click is a button not an Interpreted 2 finger gesture that doesn’t always work.
removing the nub from ThinkPad is like removing cheese from a cheeseburger.
it’ll still be a laptop, but a nubless ThinkPad will always look wrong.
Next thing you know they’ll put the Ctrl back in the right place.
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?
this is actually wonderful ive been debating what to do with my caps lock thank you
Escape next to 1 is also underappreciated. It’s how vi was meant to be used.
Exactly. I use escape way more than control.
Thankfully it can be swapped in bios
Just learning this now, I’m not sure if I should cry.
I almost didn’t buy a ThinkPad back in the day before I leaned that you can swap it. Such a stupid design
I also randomly saw today that framework has the opposite option in BIOS. For the people that migrate over
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.
“Can’t find the clit-mouse. Damn.”
I AM THE CLIT COMMANDER!
It’s super handy on my X1c 6thgen when my trackpad randomly freezes about once a month and I need to shut everything down and reboot. Bah.
Open to tips for fixing the trackpad if anyone has that on their radar!
Now put the clit mouse into a framework chassis (the relevant patents are now expired)
Yes, I’d switch if they did.
Put it on a handheld PC plz
about a million years ago I had an HTC phone that had a trackball mouse thingy. that was cool. i think it was HTC desire, not sure.
God is dead
