From PC World: For more than three decades, the TrackPoint’s iconic red rubbery nub has been a staple of IBM and Lenovo ThinkPad laptops. But now, no longer. Lenovo has removed its famous TrackPoint from its latest ThinkPad laptops, calling it time for a change.
Does that mean the TrackPoint is dead? No, thankfully. It will still appear in the other ThinkPads made by Lenovo, said a company spokesman. But for the 14- and 15-inch ThinkPad X9 Aura Editions launched at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, the TrackPoint has been removed entirely.
The idea is that certain laptops — let’s say the Dell XPS — have managed to transcend the consumer, prosumer, and small business markets, and the TrackPoint is a legacy design, according to Lenovo. “That doesn’t resonate with all demographics, so to speak,” said the company’s spokesman. “That was cutting-edge technology at one time. But clearly, it’s a touchpad world.”
In the past, Lenovo had defended the TrackPoint as a reason to avoid using the trackpad itself. The TrackPoint debuted with the IBM ThinkPad 700, which launched in 1992. Then, in a 2017 TechRadar interview, Lenovo’s chief design officer David Hill described the TrackPoint as a way for a user to access a pointing device without the need for the user’s hands to leave the keyboard’s home row.
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