New laptop having touchpad with buttons

Just about all the Latitude, Precision and XPS models have eliminated tactile buttons.

Look at the Thinkpad T-series -- they'll hit your must have list better than just about any other.

That's very sad :-( I don't understand.

Thinkpad T-series are very nice! Unfortunately I didn't find any with the buttons.

I'm not sure where you're looking, but the T-series has three mouse buttons above the touchpad, along with a pointing stick built into the keyboard.

The three mouse buttons are great, but they are for using the pointing stick, they can't be used with the touchpad.

To be honest, Thinkpads are very nice. Although I would find 2 things that I miss there: a touchpad with buttons and swapped Fn and Ctrl keys.

* touchpad + buttons

- This is what I'm looking for

* trackpad - the pointing stick + buttons

- I don't know what it's called exactly
- That's what I'm not looking for, I don't care if the laptop has it or not

There is another variant that cannot be seen from the pictures. Touchpad without dedicated buttons but integrated under the touchpad. The touchpad can be clickable on both sides or only the whole, and the sides are then recognized by touch. But this is not an ideal option. Clicking is difficult, pressing sometimes moves the cursor, holding down and moving the cursor at the same time is a problem, and I'm not talking about the system where the right button is sometimes simulated by 2 touches on the touchpad (Mac?).

@4bytecolor​ So, in case there are clickable area's at the touchpad, Dell could develop a new touchpad-driver, on which these area's are not sensitive for move's of the finger.
This would be the cheapest solution, and it also helps for people that regret they bought a laptop without physical buttons.
For now, I added plastic stripes with doublesided tape at these area's of my Latitude 5550; this helps to make these area's less sensitive.

@gld3​ Although it does still have touchpad buttons, it has a cramped little navigation cluster, so unusable for me. :-(

@jol002 What an interesting workaround :)

@M.J.W. Beijer You described it well. Totally agree!

No trackpad, small size arrow keys, no dedicated touchpad buttons 👎

Dell, get yourselves together.

I found FUJITSU Lifebooks, they have touchpad with dedicated buttons and full size arrows, but bad hinges design and no trackpoint.

Really don't understand why Dell stopped producing 5490/5590 keyboard and touchpad design with dedicated rubbery buttons. It was great and with 2K/4K OLED and also maybe ARM (now Snapdragon Elite X) these laptops would be awesome. Or Fanless ARM ultrabook option? I don't have any option this year from Dell laptops :-(

@4bytecolor​ Not sure why you're writing that, but it's complete nonsense. The physical mouse buttons on the Thinkpads work independently from the pointing stick and the touchpad. The buttons work with both.

As far as swapping the Fn/Ctrl-buttons, you can set that in the BIOS.

I use the touchpad one-handed by placing the right side of my palm on the table/edge of the laptop, my thumb on the left dedicated and rubberized button below the touchpad, and I control the mouse cursor by moving my index finger over the touchpad.

Clicking doesn't cause the mouse cursor to move sideways, that happens when the laptop doesn't have buttons. Marking text is accurate, fast and intuitive. And the rubberized buttons are very comfortable.

The top buttons are designed for pointing stick, in my opinion. I guess they can be used for a touchpad too. 

Left hand pointer on the top left button and right hand pointer finger runs on the touchpad. Then 2 hands are needed and the left one loses its position on the keyboard, a bit less intuitive to press the right top button (or middle one) with the left hand, but the left top button is pressed with the left hand just fine.

Maybe one could learn to press the top buttons with the left thumb and hold the left hand position that way, but I don't believe anyone uses the touchpad that way. Pressing the right top button with left thumb is difficult.

I also find it very hard to use the pointing stick because it's very inaccurate for me. On the other hand, the most accurate, comfortable and intuitive for me are the rubberized dedicated buttons located below the touchpad.

Some people may find it differently. Of course.

You can swap the Fn/Ctrl, but the text, color and size of the two buttons remains.

Not related to the buttons, but here are the feelings when a Mac user tries a Dell laptop…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GZ4sqB3juQ&t=235s

The Mac doesn't have touchpad buttons and has a sharp edge, so it's not good either, but at least it's fast and doesn't make noise.

Today in 2024 i have also realized that i had tough time using dell laptops for missing button left and right.

Any models as on date giving left right buttons ?

Will prefer to sit laptop less till this resolves but not get into same plague again.

I heartily agree with the grief of no discrete buttons.  "Remember Blackberry"