ThinkPad's classic red dot design: destined to be eliminated by the times!

When it comes to business notebooks, every manufacturer has its own unique features, such as cool keyboard design, eye-catching design, flashing headlights, and even loud fan noise. The most recognizable feature is the "little red dot" - TrackPoint.

Little red dot and touchpad?

Before the little red dot appeared, ThinkPad used a trackball, like the ThinkPad 220 in the picture below, to control the movement of the cursor. Isn’t the position particularly anti-human?

ThinkPad 220

The ThinkPad red dot was designed by IBM's Almaden Research laboratory. In the late 1980s, the laboratory's founder, Dr. Selker, had been studying how to change the cursor operation mode. He believed that it was unreasonable to take your hands off the keyboard when moving the cursor, and that controlling the cursor did not require a lot of space, so a small touch bar was used to operate it, and the red dot was born.

The red dot design was first used on laptops, and it first appeared on the ThinkPad 700C, which was released on October 5, 1992. Since then, the ThinkPad series of business notebooks has led the development of mobile computer technology. The black design and the red dot have become the characteristics of ThinkPad.

IBM ThinkPad 700C

As can be seen from the above retro photo, laptops at that time did not have touchpads, and the little red dot needed to be used in conjunction with the left and right keys below the keyboard to function properly.

It was not until the Apple PowerBook 500-series Trackpad, which was launched in May 1994, that the world's first trackpad for laptops was created. With it, people could use one finger to position the cursor on the screen.

Apple PowerBook 500-serie

The touchpads at that time were far from satisfactory in terms of size and sensitivity, but the red dot on the ThinkPad was different. This design is extremely ergonomic: when you push the pointing stick lightly with your fingertips, the ceramic plate at the bottom will respond sensitively, accurately locating the mouse position and moving direction, allowing users to achieve maximum convenience and comfort when using it.

It is precisely because of these reasons that this design is extremely ergonomic. This humanized design has been used to this day and has become a major feature of ThinkPad.

Is the little red dot still useful?

In the early years, many gamers liked to compete in a skill contest, that is, who could play the best games with the ThinkPad red dot. At first, it was racing and World of Warcraft, which did not require frequent mouse operation. Later, some forums even held the Red Dot CS Contest. Some gamers still talk about it with great relish, but these are all in the past.

With the rapid development of technology, in the past two decades, the development speed of laptops has exceeded everyone's imagination. Not only the development of processors and graphics cards, but also the evolution of keyboards and touchpads is amazing.

The sensitivity of touchpads has become better and better with development, and the size and smoothness of touchpads have reached unprecedented heights, not to mention touchpads and touch screens that support multi-point operations .

With the emergence of touchpads with multi-point gesture operations, people can perform more and more operations when using touchpads. Two-finger, three-finger and even five-finger gesture operations have been applied, and the development of the little red dot seems to have been unable to break through the bottleneck.

Nowadays, the dimensions of interaction of touchpads are no longer just the original cursor control. Two-finger movement and zooming, three-finger page switching and five-finger opening and closing operations are all far more powerful than the single-dimensional red dot.

More combinations mean more quick operations, not to mention the force sensing of the touchpad. The touchpad has been played with by manufacturers, and the red dot joystick and clicking operations can no longer meet people's needs.

In order to save space, the touchpads of laptops now mostly adopt an integrated design. However, if the little red dot is to be used smoothly, three original independent buttons must be added under the keyboard. This will make the size of the laptop difficult to control, so the little red dot is destined to become an obsolete product of technological development.

And the operation of the little red dot is also very dependent on the three buttons located below the keyboard, especially the middle button. Many operations that can be easily completed on the touchpad require the little red dot to be completed with buttons or by pressing and dragging.

Coupled with the anti-human design of some models, the buttons of the ThinkPad X240 product have changed from classic independent buttons to integrated buttons. When using the small red dot, the operation of the left, middle and right buttons has become more difficult, which caused a group of ThinkPad enthusiasts to criticize it, and finally changed back to the original design when it came to X250.

Do you think that all ThinkPad products have the red dot? Actually, that is not the case. ThinkPad once launched a product called ThinkPad Helix, which is a two-in-one product with a touch screen and can be split. Its built-in keyboard does not have the classic red dot. Did ThinkPad also realize that the touch screen is more convenient?

Now the positioning of ThinkPad's red dot seems to be changing. Lenovo China President Tong Fuyao once said in an interview that Lenovo's ThinkPad product line will stick to classic logos such as the red dot, while also doing a good job of fan culture. Isn't its existence for users to operate better, but a kind of sentiment?

Summarize

In my opinion, the once popular design of the ThinkPad red dot is a technology that emerged only because the technology in the early years was not advanced enough. Whether from the after-sales price of TrackPoint, the aesthetics and integrity of the keyboard, or the future development, the existence of the red dot has become more and more a belief. Moreover, it takes a long time of practice to be able to use it smoothly, which is also the case with the touchpad.

As for the classic design of the red dot, after its practicality is gradually being compared, it only wants to sell sentiment rather than make some breakthroughs. If it is a classic inheritance, it is better to say that it has become a sale of sentiment . Is its only advantage that you can use the mouse easily without taking your hands off the keyboard when typing with both hands?

Does the existence of the little red dot make a ThinkPad nostalgic? When ThinkPad is no longer a thinker, is it still the leading notebook computer series?

Do you remember the story at the beginning? I suggest that ThinkPad stick the red dot more firmly, after all, 10,000 is a lot of money!

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.