Anybody else hate touchpads?

[JimD]

My laptop has been taking 7 minutes to boot since I upgraded it to Windows 10 so I've been using a little 10 inch RCA tablet that has a keyboard. But the keyboard has a touch pad and my thumbs seem to have to touch it. I turn it off on my laptop but there is no way to do it on this tablet. But I think I sollved it. I cut a piece of scrap steel 1 7/8 wide and 6 inches long and taped it over the touchpad. Seems to be working. Why do they put this stupid thing on a touch screen device?

[cwsmith]

Not sure of your exact "Touch Pad" defintion, but I too don't like touching the screen. I see these new lap tops with they're so call "touch screens" and I don't like them. Been using a micro computer since the late 70's and just learned to keep your greasy fingers the heck off of the screen... now they've decided that greasing up the screen is good practice. No thankyou, I much prefer a real keyboard and a mouse!

Last Christmas, my son gave me an Amazon Fire tablet. While I think it is really cool and quite useful, I really can't get past having to touch and swipe the screen. I am always cleaning it. With the tablet I prefer to use a stylus... but even that leaves marks and while it's good for striking the keypad visual, it can't really be used to 'swipe'. I guess I'm just to abscessed with a clean screen... to the point where I keep a couple of screen wipes tucked into the book-like case, along with the stylus.

CWS

[JimD]

The touch pad is the rectangular pad below the space bar. It is a way of moving the cursor. I prefer a mouse. I can use a touch screen. But if the touch pad is operable, I can't type on the keyboard. My hands are extra large and probably not overly coordinated and my thumbs get close enough to the touch pad that the cursor jumps all over. VERY annoying.

[atgcpaul]

I have several touchable devices--phone, tablet, and most recently a Microsoft Surface from work. Given the choice on my Surface, I still use the touch pad rather than touching the screen and if I can find it, plug in a mouse. My taps aren't accurate enough to always touch the right link. I actually find with the Surface, I have to be pretty accurate where I tap on the screen whereas with my Android stuff, if I get close, that's good enough.

[twistsol]

I don't mind touch screen devices but they don't always work as well and I can certainly type much faster on a real keyboard.The touchpad on my laptop is the reason I always use a separate keyboard and mouse with it otherwise I'm randomly clicking and scrolling all over the place.

[JimD]

I am trying an old Zagg bluetooth keyboard at the moment. It is a little larger than the one that came with the tablet and it has no touchpad. It seems to work better for me. More travel to the keys is taking a little getting used to. i like my full sized keyboard at work by far the best.

On my laptops (work and home) I just turn off the touchpad. I use a mouse. Neither has a touch screen.

[cwsmith]

Ahhh, a "touch pad".... see what happens when an old guy is 'fixated' on a greasy 'touch' screen, looses sight of what people are really talking about

I too prefer a 'mouse' and so rarely use the touch pad on my Toshiba that I guess I forget that it's even there. I guess it still works under Windows 10 okay, but I find it too cumbersome to want to be bothered with.

My previous lap top's touch pad was backlit, with icons that could be configured for whatever purpose. I like that, but again, for using as a manipulator of the cursor I found it inconvenient. Give me a keyboard and a mouse and I'm happy. I spend a lot of time drawing, so the pad just doesn't work well for me for that purpose either.

(Years ago, Logitech used to sell a 'roller ball', it sat on your desktop like a mouse, but you didn't need a mouse pad. You simply rotated the ball... but that made the buttons less ergonomic. I couldn't get used to using one of those either.)

CWS

[LinuxRandal]

I have gone more the trackball route, because of some area's limited space. Before that, I preferred and used a Bluetooth mouse with laptops. I notice some have WAY too much sensitivity (accidentally get near it and funny things happen) and I haven't spent the time to learn how to adjust that, under Linux