[binomialxenon]

I can use it without moving my hands away from home-row position, I can drag-n-drop much more easily than a trackpad, middle-clicking and right-clicking are both more consistent, and I can scroll indefinitely in any direction without picking up my hands.

This is probably just me, but when using my laptop on my lap, if I were using the trackpad i would have to bring my hands down closer to my body which is less comfortable, or move my laptop further away from me.

[akarambir]

Can you provide some info into how you typically use trackpoint. Which fingers do you use and how do you control the acceleration when going few pixels away or whole screen corner to corner. What about the clicks.

I have a thinkpad and am always curious on how to effectively use it. Even a video of someone using it might help.

[NeedMoreTea]

This will be hard to describe. I'll try.

Treat it as a tiny proportional joystick, which it is. I use index finger of dominant hand. Press hard and it'll fly the cursor across the screen. Press gently and it'll give excellent precision. If you keep overshooting, you haven't adjusted to gently enough. It is less movement and more thought for pixel perfect precision as you can barely feel any feedback but still get movement.

I always have to turn up acceleration, but rarely sensitivity, in Trackpoint settings a notch or two for my own preference. For me, if I turn sensitivity down, it ruins it. YMMV.

I will left, right and middle click with thumbs as they're just below space and land there naturally.

Thumb on middle and drag to scroll at pressure sensitive speed for as long as you press. No need to "reset" when you reach the end of trackpad or finger on scrollwheel. Two thumbs and index finger means select and paste are almost as fast as vi-only approaches, as it's placed so you're essentially still typing. :)

[kannanvijayan]

I realize the original poster responded, but I am currently in the process of going through this transition and my experience may be of use to you.

The thinkpad was the latest machine I got, after a string of macbooks and one XPS-15. I made a concerted effort to switch simply because I'm spoiled on OSX trackpads, and the thinkpad trackpad widget just isn't up to par (especially on ThinkPad + Linux). I asked a few colleagues how they got around the trackpad issue and a couple mentioned they just use the nipple cursor.

It's been a few months now. Changing over was really annoying at first. As the other poster mentioned - the key is learning muscle memory for _sensitivity_ to control the speed of the cursor. A light firm touch with a small pressure in the correct direction is all that's necessary for moderate speed.

I use my left index finger to control the cursor, and my left (spacebar) thumb to at the same time to click/drag/etc (as the mouse buttons are right below the spacebar).

Middle-click + drag-down for scrolling is really convenient.

I find myself having just crossed that midway point where the new system is becoming dominant. The trackpads are starting to feel somewhat unwieldy and cumbersome to me now - even the macbook ones when I use my wife's or friends'. It feels like they require too much hand movement, and are far more "gesticulatory" than gentle pushes and pulls on the nipple cursor.

I think I'm faster with the cursor now than with even high-quality trackpads.

If you do end up trying it out, be prepared to tweak settings a bit to get the right ones for you (and as the other replier mentioned - don't skimp on sensitivity), and be prepared to spend a couple weeks feeling like your hands are tied when you want to move the cursor around.

It gets better after that.

[NeedMoreTea]

Interesting to read as I first used one so long ago most of the learning curve is lost to the mist of time.

> It feels like they require too much hand movement, and are far more "gesticulatory" than gentle pushes

Well put. This encapsulates it well.

> I think I'm faster with the cursor now

When I'd got the hang of never overshooting and changing pressure to vary acceleration as I move around, trackpads, even Apple's, just start to feel cumbersome. Quite apart from the need to move hand away from the keyboard so you can't press keys at the same time. It's the thing I miss most on my Mac.

Oh, and just to address the parent's comment that a video might help. Probably not, as there's not much movement to see. Press an index finger on a desk or table and roll your finger around the pad - that's the extremes of movement you should expect with a trackpoint, assuming your finger didn't move on the table at all. :)

[binomialxenon]

I'm left handed, I use my left index finger to manipulate the trackpoint, and my left thumb for any of the three mouse buttons. Clicking the middle button is a middle click, and holding the middle button makes the trackpoint movements act as scrolling.

My laptop is a T450s, running Debian and KDE Plasma. Acceleration is set to medium, and "Adaptive". The key is tuning your sensitivity/accelaration so you can make very fine/slow movements, but also move the cursor all the way across the screen with stronger/faster ones.