P1 gen 7, the end of an era

[TinkerMan]

saw yesterday the announcement about the p1 gen 7, and i was terribly disappointed, there are no physical buttons to be used with the track-point.
I just wonder why did they keep the trackpoint, since now, with no physical buttons it is barely functional.

RIP physical buttons

[TPFanatic]

Is the button pad not an option like on the Carbon? I’d love to try out one of these haptics for myself, the one on my iphone masquerades well enough. Considering Lenovo’s page still showcases the new p16v and p14s with buttons I doubt they are gone for good.

[RealBlackStuff]

Lenovo = Fruitcopy.

[TinkerMan]

Is the button pad not an option like on the Carbon? I’d love to try out one of these haptics for myself, the one on my iphone masquerades well enough. Considering Lenovo’s page still showcases the new p16v and p14s with buttons I doubt they are gone for good.

its not one on all models, thats for sure, at least not yet, but the P14s and all the 14 inch models and smaller format models, like the 13 incgers too, if im not mistaking, have no SD card reader, the P1 series was the only slim fully loaded models as far as connectors go. I cannot like with a laptop who doesnt have at least 2 usb A and an sd card reader, i cannot work with it.
and the 16 inches and especially the 17 inchers are way to big and heavy. I am really mourning here the loss of the "classic": P1, they butchered it.

[Ibthink]

I just wonder why did they keep the trackpoint, since now, with no physical buttons it is barely functional.

The top of the haptic trackpad is clickable and provides the same function as the dedicated TrackPoint buttons. You even have the small dots there for the middle button. So the function of the TrackPoint is preserved (thats not to say that the haptic buttons will provide the same level of comfort - it will give you a different user experience from the classic design for sure).

Is the button pad not an option like on the Carbon? I’d love to try out one of these haptics for myself, the one on my iphone masquerades well enough. Considering Lenovo’s page still showcases the new p16v and p14s with buttons I doubt they are gone for good.

They have the classic design as an option on the X1 Carbon Gen 12, but not on the new ThinkPad P1 Gen 7.

[StevenD]

Well, I've been using Thinkpads exclusively since I got my first one, a 560, in 1996.

I was panicked that they're removing the dedicated buttons for the trackpoint, because I use it almost exclusively. Never a touchpad, rarely a mouse.

But I have to say, I had the chance to work on a P1 gen 7 today, and they did a great job of simulating the buttons on the touchpad. The haptic touchpad is amazing. It doesn't move, but it *feels* like it moves. You can't convince yourself that it's not moving with a press. You can adjust it so that it feels like it depresses more or less for the click, and then it feels like a definite click happened.

I use the trackpoint with my right hand, and it's a bit of a pain for me to hit the right button because my thumb isn't very flexible. The location on the touchpad that recognizes a right click is a *little* closer to the center than on the X1 Extreme I currently use. So that helps me out a bit, too.

You can adjust how the "buttons" feel and then turn off the rest of the touchpad if you don't use it.

So FWIW, I give it a thumbs up. Based on my experience today, if my next TP has touchpad fake buttons, it's not going to be a worry for me.

One thing I would love to see is the ability to *map* on the touchpad exactly where it recognizes a left click and a right click. So, for example, if you don't use the middle button, you could map the right button onto an area much closer to the center of the pad. That would be great, and for me, it would make it clearly better than the dedicated buttons!
/SD

[unix_joe]

If it's anything like the buttonless trackpad on the Z13 that I had, and Z16 that I need to sell, it was a neutral change overall.

I needed to adjust sensitivity in KDE settings but it was not a deal breaker.

What the newer trackpad did, was convince me that I don't really need a trackpoint anymore. That opened up possibilities and anyway, here I am with a couple of non-ThinkPads. Great job Lenovo!

[Muse]

Ouch! No mouse LEFT, MIDDLE and RIGHT buttons above the trackpad? Big mistake, folks. My P1 Gen 1 and P1 Gen 3 have those and I use them and the trackpad all the time.

Question, if anyone knows:

I have hearing aids as of Dec. 5, my first, and they are LE Audio compliant. Would my P1's be if I swap out the Wifi/Bluetooth cards for Bluetooth 5.3 compliant cards? I suspect the earlier P1's audio codecs wouldn't support that. I have the cards, but haven't installed them yet. Thanks for reply.

[friedrich-eugen]

Well
I'm just now installing two of P1 Gen6 16" Display and I found their Dimensions just that of the W530, that we do use up to now.

May well be there will be different problems, but as far as we have had with those thinkpad docks so may be we will have similar
problems using the Thinkpad Thunderbolt-Docks... Still waiting to be able to use/experience/qualify their usability...

As we usually work using separate keyboards and mice on our desktops, we shall not have the steady experience of a hot keyboard
beczel...