Pointing devices for laptops

Mouse, touchpad, trackball, pointing stick

On a desktop computer you probably have a mouse as a pointing device, or a trackball of some sort, depends on your taste.But for a laptop you probably have a buit-in device. Trackballs were a real option in the early days of laptops, but those of us used to trackballs know that these devices need maintenance almost all the time. They get dirty no matter how clean your hand is. You need to disassembly the trackball and clean it.Well, this is not desirable for a laptop, you just don’t need and don’t want to disassembly your laptop at all, no? This is a strong reason for which trackballs are not used that heavily anymore on the laptop computers industry.

Nowadays, laptops come with one of the two main pointing devices available on the market: touchpad and pointing stick.

Touchpads for laptop computers

Originally implemented by Apple, touchpads are actually just some pads that you…touch! They are usually some black pads in front of your keyboard, proportional in size ad shape with your display. You just touch them and drag the pointer to wherever you want on your screen.

If you configure the touchpad this way, you may even tap your laptop’s touchpad to click. Right! Instead of clicking an item, an icon or a file on your computer using some button, you just tap the touchpad and the item gets clicked. Easy I’d say!

Even if it takes a bit of practice before using it right, touchpads have a big advantage: they have no moving parts, thus the chance of mechanical malfunction is very low. Well, don’t hit it or anything related, ok?

Laptops pointing stick

The pointing stick is that nub that you may find in the middle of your keyboard looking more like an eraser of a pencil.

Just put your finger on top of it and move your finger, see…it works, the pointer on the laptop screen moves.

This device also needs a bit of practice but with a bit of patience you get used to it.

Laptop USD mouse

An other device, external this time, is the mouse that you can connect on USD to any laptop computer. It is usually smaller and lighter but it does the job!