I haven't seen a trackpad with buttons for 8 years (Apple, Dell, Asus... ditched them between 2008 and 2012). People have chosen a long time ago, and physical trackpad buttons are a curiosity nowadays.
Technically the trackpads have had zero buttons for years now. It's all haptics and pressure sensors. It's a major step up from the old method, since you can reliably click anywhere on the pad. (They also support a hard-press gesture, but not many applications use that out of the box.)
There may exist some non-crap trackpad with buttons but I have never used one. The buttonless trackpad on my current Dell precision is just as good as the one on my 2011 MBP.
I'd actively avoid a laptop if the trackpad had buttons now I think.
With every tech company trying to imitate all of Apple's poor decisions, it is getting hard to find a laptop that has physical buttons. They have all been switching over to having just the trackpad.
I'm a mouse user (who actually really liked both the much maligned mighty mouse and magic mouse), but when it came to track pads, I hated that Apple didn't have physical buttons for the trackpad.
My hand eye coordination on trackpads has never been great (and I'm not getting any younger), and I've always had issues with taps as clicks.
I've since switched back to Windows, and it drives me nuts that all the PC laptops that follow Apple's design lead that have dropped the physical trackpad buttons. Thankfully most of the business and "pro" laptops still have them.
Sorry dude, you're stuck in 2001. Physical trackpad buttons break, and break often -- which is why they're disappearing. MacBook trackpads are widely recognized as superior, and they are buttonless. The "clit" is also a history footnote at this point, it never got mainstream adoption. If you like Thinkpads that's fine, but don't try to pass your judgement as something universal because it's clearly coming from a very small minority.
One person's tradeoff is another person's flaw and vice versa.
As someone who has a lot of trouble using any trackpad (including Apple's) that doesn't have physical buttons, should I view buttonless trackpads as a tradeoff or a flaw?
I don't care about the design tradeoffs made for esthetic reasons, I only care that I struggle with them and get stressed out by them. So to me, the lack of physical trackpad buttons on a laptop is a design flaw, even though it might be a completely sensible tradeoff for 99% of the population.
I would cry tears of joy to get a laptop with mouse buttons. Trackpad gestures are a gimmick and so much harder to user than buttons. Apple did it to be "bold" and everyone copied them.
All pro style laptops (HP Elitebook/Lenovo Thinkpad/Dell Precision) have trackpad buttons and extra buttons for the nipple controller too. I must say I love having proper buttons and have used such laptops exclusively. Although I do have a Macbook air without the buttons.
You're right that consumer laptops have done away with buttons nowadays.
Totally agreed re: the newer trackpads. Those things used to Just Work (tm) 10 years ago, now it's a gamble whenever you buy a PC laptop.
As a general rule, physical buttons and total lack of multi-touch support seem to go hand-in-hand with good ol' quality... but even that is not a foolproof rule.
Apple has only ever shipped single-button mice with their computers, so turning the whole trackpad into that button on their laptops was a pretty simple evolution. Gestures came much later.
yeah. but now, they have two pointing devices. the trackpoint, and the trackpad. the buttons are in the middle. I'm a trackpad guy so...why even bother having a trackpad if the buttons are designed for the trackpoint? the two alternate interfaces in one package is kind of a fail to start with, they should pick one or the other and stick with it.
Every recent laptop I've tried with a clicky trackpad has been absolute crap. The texture will be too rough or too sticky, the click won't work half the time, the right-click is hopeless, some try to do clever things with multi-finger gestures which usually triggers the mfg-provided crapware launcher, and they're too small.
Apple got the clickpad pretty much perfect, except for when they get dirty or bent. Nothing else that I've used comes within a mile. Trackpads on laptops were not amazing, but usually workable before everyone went clickpad-crazy. Now, it seems like you have to hunt to find something with buttons so you can actually use it. I can't imagine that any of these are getting good feedback, yet it's been a trend for a few years now. PC mfgs make me sad.
What in the hell is wrong with buttons? They are easy to understand and work one hundred percent of the time. I have to use one at work, and I'll never buy one of these crappy button-less trackpads for personal use. Click-and-drag is a mind-melting experience.
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