I just realized my ThinkPad's mouse buttons are 5/16ths of an inch off-centered to the left. I hate that.

Does anyone else feel that way? I knew there was something wrong. All-in-all I love mine, but this fact irritates me absolutely to no end. I have an X41, which is rather old, but I hate this trend among laptop makers to the touch-pads slightly off-centered. I'm very sensitive to such details, but I've solaced myself in knowing there was likely an ergonomic reason for the placement...still, it just makes everything look like an accident, like someone didn't quite straight the ruler, or sneezed while drawing it in CAD.

 

They are centered on the Trackpoint and keyboard home keys. Makes sense to me.

 

There are many "little off" details in various ThinkPad models.

 

they're not centered across the width of the machine. You're right, they are centered with the trackpoint but that could have been moved over slightly as well

 

Find a way to live with it. That's probably your best path to contentment. It's not like there's anything you can do about it.

 

The ever so slight offset of the Thinkpad trackpoint makes balancing it on one knee with my right hand while mousing much easier - my knee and wrist are positioned at the rough center of gravity of the frame, and my hand easily falls onto the trackpoint and buttons without the need to angle my wrist in a funny way. This is extremely useful when using the laptop while sitting on a public transit bus, as I am doing at this very moment.

 

ummmm, ok ???

Sorry to be blunt, but that would be the LAST thing to bother me.

I remember when the T61's first came out, and people were complaining because the screen was off to one side. I can kinda see that, but mouse buttons ? ?

 

Okay that made me laugh. haha.

 

It's a byproduct of the design of a qwerty keyboard. There are more keys to the right of the center than on the left.

This leaves you with only two options (assuming you want the trackpoint between the GHB keys where it has always been).

1) Have the mouse keys slightly left of center.
2) Have the keyboard slightly right of center (not an option on the x200 as the keyboard runs the full width).

To me, option 1 is a far better choice.

 

Yeah, it has to do with the keyboard layout because they figured it is more design effective to place it in the gap between GHB, although they can probably put it on BHN gap and be slightly more centered (were talking about a full sized board of course).

However, I think all notebooks are slightly off to the left, even for touchpad only based notebooks.

 

So what?
Renee