Mouse or Trackpad?

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

What do you prefer to use?

  • A Mouse

  • A Trackpad


Results are only viewable after voting.

chubbyfatazn

Golden Member
Oct 14, 2006
1,617
35
91
Trackpoint (and I mean only IBM's). I still don't like the way HP's or Dell's pointing sticks feel. No one except maybe Apple has gotten the trackpads right, and there's less precision compared to a pointing stick. Good thing you can only find the pointing sticks on business-class laptops.

Desktop, a mouse. Though I sometimes wish I had one of the IBM keyboards that integrated a pointing stick into the board.
 

brianmanahan

Lifer
Sep 2, 2006
24,630
6,013
136
trackman m570 or get out

41ml7Bq3yfL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,948
126
ive been on this for work lately

expert-mouse.jpg


but I rotate between it and the thumb track ball and the finger trackball.

I also have the magic trackpad.

and of course my biggest mouse ever

icon1b_l.jpg
 

vi edit

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 28, 1999
62,484
8,345
126
You'll have to pry my Logitech Revolution from my cold dead fingers.

That being said, the trackpad on my Macbook Air is fantastic and perfectly usable for the majority of basic computing needs. The trackpad on my work assigned HP Elitebook is laughable in comparison.
 

MotionMan

Lifer
Jan 11, 2006
17,124
12
81
I rocked one of these about 15 years ago:

s_p_27497_1__44646_zoom.jpg


I am currently all mouse except on my MacBook, which has a trackpad.

If one of my mouse (mice?) dies, I may look seriously at a trackpad.

MotionMan
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,948
126
dont know if thats healthy.

My problem has been clicking with my thumb and holding the click. I now get some pain going up my forearm. I have a macro set up to click and drag on a button but its still sensitive as I dont use it all the time. The big mixer thing above has helped relieve a lot of that stress though.
 

Broheim

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2011
4,587
3
81
If you've ever actually used one long enough you can see that it's the most thought-out and intuitive design for laptops. You never have to get your finger off one single position and as a result it's much better for typing. Having the left and right click buttons as well as a middle button just below it makes it hands down the best.

Track pads have a smaller learning curve but are definitely inferior. Now that I've used the TrackPoint for two weeks, I turned the track pad off entirely.

this x100000000000000000000000000000
 

makken

Golden Member
Aug 28, 2004
1,476
0
76
Desktop is mouse obviously.

For laptop, order of preference is:

Mouse
Trackball
Trackpoint
Touchpad