[pzlarsson]

It has a trackpoint with 2 buttons which tells us they did not put any serious effort into this input device. Would you use a 2 button mouse without scroll-wheel or a touchpad without 2-fingers scrolling?

I suspect this low effort goes for the whole product which is a budget laptop with marketing directed at decision makers instead of users.

[emmelaich]

The presence of the buttons doesn't matter much does it? Assuming a tap works as mouse click.

Maybe they're there for nipple users - it has one. Use fingers on the nipple and thumb on the button.

So to speak.

[hedora]

The third button is usually for scrolling.

[neilv]

Good catch. The Trackpoint in the photo had piqued my interest. But Trackpoint has come with 3 buttons for about 20 years, and I'm pretty sure the middle button gets used heavily by many people.

[dvdkon]

HP's been making two-button "trackpoints" forever. I don't get it either, but it's tradition at this point, not some sign of laziness.

And the laptop is decidedly not a budget laptop rebadge. It looks more like a tweaked EliteBook, their high-end business line. That doesn't automatically make it good, but I think your comment was unfair.

[koprulusector]

Actually, since they highlight “auto-tiling” window manager (I’m trying to see which one), I think the assumption is that users won’t be relying on the mouse all that much. Kind of the whole benefit of tiling window managers.

[aendruk]

Pop!_OS ships with Pop Shell [1], an ambitious and well polished GNOME Shell extension inspired by i3wm.

[1] https://github.com/pop-os/shell#readme

[hjkl0]

Astute comment.

FWIW though, that’s the trackpoint they use on other machines too. They don’t have a 3 button trackpoint like on ThinkPads.

[suprjami]

Confusing comment. Did you miss the massive touchpad beneath the keyboard? Surely it has two-finger scrolling.

I would expect three-finger middle click emulation (which kinda sucks I agree).

[qu4z-2]

People who are excited about the trackpoint probably aren't interested in switching to another input method for scrolling. Personally I usually disable the touchpad ASAP on any new laptop I get.

[fulafel]

The middle button (or "mouse button 2") is a legit pointer interface function that many apps use. Besides scrolling, it pastes, opens links in new tabs, and many application specific uses in eg Blender.

(But there's always been a middle button challenged user population subset around so apps have alternative ways of doing these, a bit like terminal apps can be used without a working meta)

[pigbearpig]

Well, I guess I don't need to wait for reviews anymore, I'll just count mouse buttons to know if it's a good laptop or not.