However, it was not like the “nub” on the Thinkpad. Before IBM sold off their PC and Thinkpad lines to Lenovo, they produced a Trackpoint equipped wired mouse. If Google is finally going to support a Trackpoint and Lenovo responds with a Trackpoint equipped Chromebook I will not only respond by buying my first Chromebook, I’ll buy TWO !!īTW…a bit of IBM trivia. Couple the Trackpoint with IBM/Lenovo’s wonderful and class leading keyboard and you really never needed a mouse at all. It was as close to having a built in trackball you could get inside the keyboard. I had a Trackpoint on an old Thinkpad T400 setup where quite literally I could simply flex the muscle and tendon in my middle finger and the cursor would instantly and accurately respond. On a plane or a train or an automobile or anyplace where even a small wireless travel mouse could not be used properly the Trackpoint is a godsend of cursor control. The IBM (now Lenovo) Trackpoint found on Thinkpads going back to 1992 has been a Love/Hate topic since their introduction.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments section below. A Verge article from 2016 says that Lenovo couldn’t put the pointing stick on their Chromebook because Google has “strict guidelines” about Chromebook hardware.Īre they changing guidelines? Will we see something interesting on the rumored new Pixelbook? We all know that Lenovo is famous for the red pointing stick that they put on their Thinkpad laptops. Now, why would you do that unless you currently have or are planning to release Chromebooks with pointing sticks? So this should be a new section that Google is adding to Chrome OS. I searched the Settings app for anything related to point sticks. It says “separate pointing stick settings”. “Separate pointing stick settings: Enables a separate group of settings (speed, button swap, and acceleration) for pointing sticks (such as TrackPoints).” Here is an experimental flag that I spotted today: We might soon see Chromebooks with Pointing Sticks like those on Lenovo Thinkpads.

What is laptop pointerstick