Touchpad

[threeringedmoon]

Originally published at Five Acres with a View. You can comment here or there.

For years I’ve been occasionally borrowing laptops and disliking them, mainly due to the touchpad, which has always seemed awkward and erratic.  However, last week I finally decided that I wanted to get a Lenovo Ideapad Y510, and it was delivered to me at work on Wednesday from Newegg.  In the process of playing with it, I discovered that not only can the touchpad be used for moving the pointer, but tapping on it works the same as a mouse click or double click.  In addition, I found out how to use the touchpad to scroll the screen. It makes using the Touchpad much more convenient, and I now understand why I used to find it so unpredictable.

I felt a little embarrassed to discover that I had been doing it wrong.  However, when I was discussing it with Jack, I found out that he didn’t know about tapping for mouse clicks either.

It is always interesting to find out you don’t know everything about something so basic.

Comments

[aellia.livejournal.com]

Glad you mastered the touchpad.
I'm so clumsy when I have to use a mouse now!
x

[exsmof.livejournal.com]

I didn't actually catch on to the scroll feature of the touchpad until I got the Eee, which has the scroll feature clearly marked.

The Apple Touchpad has none of the advanced features. So now that I have adapted to the Eee and now an HP Laptop's Touchpad I find the PowerBook annoying...

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

You're not necessarily totally to blame where this is concerned. Touchpads have improved quite a bit over the years. It may be that the earlier ones you used just plain didn't have those capabilities or weren't set up to use them if they did have them. It is also worth noting that they're not all created equal in usability even if they supposedly have the same features. Some of them are in awkward positions that either make them hard to use or that make it too easy to brush you hand against them unintentionally. Some of them are too sensitive or not sensitive enough as set up by default.