Mechanicals with built-in trackpad?

[Wilkie]

Any recommendations for mechanicals with built-in trackpads?  Not necessarily multi-touch or wireless.  Thanks.

[jacobolus]

There aren’t any good ones as far as I know. I recommend getting whatever keyboard you prefer and getting a separate Apple trackpad.

[Wilkie]

Thanks.  You'd think a market would exist for this.  If only I could get used to a trackpoint...

[hwood34]

They used to make G80s with them, not sure which model though

[IvanIvanovich]

Cherry G80-11900 is still probably the best bet. You can pick them up used for fair prices on ebay most of the time.
I wish someone would make a modern one... like a 60% with trackpad all on a single bluetooth device.

[Wilkie]

Thanks!  I'll look into that.  Agreed, would love a 60% + trackpad (with or without bluetooth).

[IvanIvanovich]

Like this... biggest con is the trackpad dpi is kind of low which can be poor on high res screen like over 1080. There are also some slightly cheaper version with USB and less nice lasered keycap here.

[Wilkie]

There seems to be a lot of wasted space in this design, which could be used for a larger trackpad.

[jacobolus]

From what I understand the trackpads on the G80-11900 kind of suck though, compared to the Apple ones.

I dunno, I’m a Mac guy, but many of the windows laptops I tried have terrible trackpads. I think there might be some okay ones, but they’re few and far between.

I agree with you, it seems like a nice feature, especially on a programmable-firmware keyboard where the trackpad can be interpreted in more sophisticated ways (in conjunction with keypresses) than just as a mouse surrogate.

[dorkvader]

From what I understand the trackpads on the G80-11900 kind of suck though, compared to the Apple ones.

I dunno, I’m a Mac guy, but many of the windows laptops I tried have terrible trackpads. I think there might be some okay ones, but they’re few and far between.

I agree with you, it seems like a nice feature, especially on a programmable-firmware keyboard where the trackpad can be interpreted in more sophisticated ways (in conjunction with keypresses) than just as a mouse surrogate.

man adjusting those apple trackpads is an epic PITA. Let me tell you unless you know exactly whet you are doing it will take at least 5 tries to get it right. I've done over 100 and I still have problems sometimes. Don't even get me started on the MBPr 13" trackpad.

And apples trackpads on their ibook / powerbook G4 were not good. Anything newer (macbook pro 2006-2008 and unibody/retina stuff) is not comparable. I do admit that a properly adjusted trackpad from a 2008-now MBP non-retina trackpad is pretty nice. If only it didn't have that one stupid button in the middle causing the whole thing to bend crazily (against the extremely dangerous battery) if you press hard enough to click at either of the lower corners... It may be easy to use but it is NOT a good design, especially compared with what fujitsu was doing with their synaptics trackpads and top cases in 2007-2013

I agree that many laptops do have bad trackpads though. These used relatively good trackpads for the time they came out. (alps / cirque glidepoint depending on date)

There seems to be a lot of wasted space in this design, which could be used for a larger trackpad.

This is one of the most compact keyboard designs I know of, It was designed to fit in a server rack. There's very little wasted space. If you look at early trackpads they are all about this size. it's only recently (like after 2004) where people have started making bigger ones.

Cherry G80-11900 is still probably the best bet. You can pick them up used for fair prices on ebay most of the time.
I wish someone would make a modern one... like a 60% with trackpad all on a single bluetooth device.

G80-8113 are sometimes cheaper than 11900. They take up a lot more room on the desk though

[jacobolus]

man adjusting those apple trackpads is an epic PITA. Let me tell you unless you know exactly whet you are doing it will take at least 5 tries to get it right.

Can you explain what you mean?

Don't even get me started on the MBPr 13" trackpad.

I have a retina MBP 13", and before that I had a non-retina MBP 13", and I think the trackpads on both are basically as good or better than any other trackpads I’ve ever used.

And apples trackpads on their ibook / powerbook G4 were not good.

I used a 12" powerbook G4 for 5 years, and I thought the trackpad was great. Better than any non-Mac laptop I tried in ~1990–2010. Perhaps you can explain what you think was “not good” about it?

If only it didn't have that one stupid button in the middle causing the whole thing to bend crazily (against the extremely dangerous battery) if you press hard enough to click at either of the lower corners... It may be easy to use but it is NOT a good design,

You need to elaborate here. I’ve never even heard of anyone having an issue pressing their trackpad the wrong way, and I know dozens/hundreds of people with Mac laptops.

By comparison, the PC laptops I’ve tried (Dell, Toshiba, IBM, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, etc....) pretty much all had various infuriating trackpad issues. The tracking is inconsistent (making single-pixel precision either impossible or incredibly frustrating), accidental palm touches constantly move the mouse cursor in undesirable ways, the edge-of-the-pad scrolling features are straight up broken and terrible, and the buttons below the trackpad are cheap, feel crappy, and break easily.

I find Apple laptop keyboards to be generally okay but uninspiring (unfortunately other vendors’ keyboards are often even worse), but I think their trackpads are pretty much best-of-breed.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

A last-ditch option is a Cherry G84-5500:

http://www.access-is.com/cherry-g84-5500-keyboard.php

It all depends how you get on with Cherry ML.

[fohat.digs]

From what I understand the trackpads on the G80-11900 kind of suck though, compared to the Apple ones.

I think the track pad on the G80-11900 is wonderful. It is small, granted, and not set up for the modern Apple 2-finger stuff, but it works beautifully.

[Findecanor]

If you are lucky, you could get your hands on a Filco Stealth. This is not the Ninja keyboard, but made earlier. It is split and tented like the MS ergo keyboards but in 75% size and with a touchpad embedded in the wrist rest in front of the Space bar.
The switches are some kind of Alps.