As far as I’m concerned the darn things are practically unusable even when they are new and working correctly! LOL
I use a mouse with my laptop ALWAYS.
I nearly always use a mouse too, but… you Windows folks, doesn’t your OS let you configure your touchpad so you can specify where and how to invoke the functions you’d otherwise invoke with the mouse? MacOS does, and I think always has, going back to System 7.
Yes.
That’s certainly true for Windows as well as the Mac, and i regularly configure both in both systems, with every new device.
I find a Touchpad much faster to quickly move the cursor.
For example from the bottom right corner to upper left.
The mouse scroll-wheel is more cumbersome than using the touchpad and clicking to change focus of the cursor.
A touch-screen is even faster. But I won’t buy a laptop with a touch-screen. I don’t like extending and stretching my arm out over and over. Shoulder pain at night is not pleasant.
What is this wizardry? I’ve been using control+click as the secondary click since I’ve first had a laptop 25 years ago and nowhere along the way did I learn this! And, yes, it works. What in the heck? How did I miss this functionality?
Welcome to the club. 
Surprised me too.
Touchpads/trackpads are larger in newer laptops than in ancient ones, which makes them more accurate and easier to use. But I cannot imagine preferring them to a decent ergonomically designed mouse, which is perhaps the most perfect general-purpose computer interface ever invented! I use the trackpad/touchpad if I just turn on the laptop for some simple task, but if I have a lot to do I always plug in a mouse. My favoured brand has long been Logitech.
I needed a mouse quickly and went to Walmart instead of carefully selecting a specific model from Amazon.
What Walmart sold me was this mouse. Looks like a typical, wireless mouse. Probably cheaply made to sell for $9.98.
Imagine my annoyance when I opened the box and discovered it was maybe 75% the size of a normal mouse.
I have big hands. But, a so-called full-size mouse is the design everybody used in the 1990’s and 00’s.
I gave the small Walmart mouse to a co-worker with a 11 year-old daughter. It’s a perfect sized mouse for her.
Today, consumers are expected to look for full-size printed on the box.
Walmart Link to a so-called Normal size.
They don’t call it a mouse for small hands.
A real mouse from the 1990’s and 00’s.
Why, after over 30 years are WE EXPECTED to search for Full Size? Did I turn into a giant overnight?
Most times, the teensy weensy mice are sold in the laptop aisle because they’re designed for laptops (specifically, to take up less space in a snug-fitting laptop bag).
Desktop mice are sold in another area or aisle, near the full-sized keyboards and such.
Fitting a smaller mouse into a laptop bag makes sense.
Size probably isn’t an issue for many people.
I have catcher mitt hands.
It’s called a “pointing stick” apparently, but I’ve never heard that, people say “nub” in polite company… but about as common is “nipple.” Or even “clit.”
LOL
It does look out-of-place nestled among the keyboard letters.
Yeah, my husband gave me a little mouse when i thought i might need one on an airplane. I forget why he bought it.
I gave up using mice decades ago.
My preferred input device as an Apple Magic Trackpad II. So nice to be able to pan, scroll, rotate, zoom. etc.
For whatever reason, track pads really bug my fingers, and make them tingle and go slightly numb. I can use them for brief periods on a laptop, but I always have to have a mouse with me if I’m going to sit and work for a prolonged period of time.
I agree that an overly small mouse is practically useless. It’s all about ergonomics – your hand has to fit comfortably over the back of the mouse without inadvertently pressing one of the buttons, which is a problem I had with one of the small mousies I once had. The two key attributes of a good mouse are its size, shape, and tracking accuracy – also, a good scroll wheel but no other fancy buttons.
That’s interesting. One is the reasons i use a touchpad is because it never bothers my fingers. The pointing nipple does a number on my hand quickly, but a mouse will cause problems, over time. I’ve never hand any issues using a touchpad.
Same situation here! That numb/tingly feeling gets too much at some point and then I bring out the mouse.
Some do, some don’t.
My old HP Envy had a touchpad where the lower left and right corners of the touchpad were ‘clicky’ (ie there are tactile switches under it) and pressing on them would reproduce the left and right click actions of a desktop mouse.
My Lenovo Chromebook has a touchpad where the whole lower edge of the pad is physically ‘clicky’, but only produces a left-click action regardless of where it is pressed - the right-click action requires either a modifier key held down on the keyboard when clicking, or two-finger tap, but the pad itself has no left or right click distinction.
Some touchpads (Dell XPS is one I know for sure) have touchpads with no physical ‘click’ - they just detect taps or pressure in certain zones and the ‘click’ is just emulated by haptic feedback from a small vibration motor.
In all of these cases where there is a distinction between left and right side, the sides can be configured and swapped in the operating system, to accommodate left or right handed people, or individual preference.