The return of the clunkpad? Lenovo ThinkPad trackpad comparison - Sensel vs. Synaptics
The battle of the clickpads.
Ten years ago, Lenovo tried to integrate the dedicated mouse buttons for the ThinkPad TrackPoint into the touchpad, to make the trackpad bigger. In 2024, they are trying it again. We compare ThinkPad P1 G7 with the ThinkPad T440s to see why Lenovo thinks that this will work now, despite not working back in 2014.Benjamin Herzig Published 🇩🇪 🇷🇺
A decade in tech is a very long time. Ten years ago, the newest Windows version was Windows 8.1, Windows XP just reached its end of support and AMD was still trying to sell Bulldozer CPUs. Ten years ago, things were different - and yet, Lenovo is now doing something that they already tried to do ten years ago.
Lenovo's ThinkPad laptop series is one of the most well-known laptop brands, and the brand image is entangled with the ThinkPad TrackPoint. The red pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard is a fan favorite, but its mainstream appeal is limited. Put simply, most users will ignore it in favor of the touchpad. This leaves the biggest PC manufacturer with a dilemma: Having the TrackPoint and its dedicated mouse buttons limits the touchpad size, but removing said mouse buttons would render the TrackPoint unusable.
Ten years ago, Lenovo tried to have its cake and eat it, too: By integrating the three dedicated left, right and middle mouse buttons into the touchpad, which was now a clickpad, the touchpad could be bigger and the TrackPoint would still function. The only problem is: It did not work, the user-base rebelled and one year later, Lenovo brought back the dedicated mouse buttons.
Now, in 2024, it is apparently time for a second attempt. The new ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 is the first modern ThinkPad, outside of experiments like the Z series, without dedicated TrackPoint buttons. It features a new haptic trackpad with integrated TrackPoint buttons. Time for a comparison! In this review, we compare and contrast the new Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 with the new Sensel haptic touchpad against a vintage Lenovo ThinkPad T440s from 2014, which features the old mechanical Synaptics solution. It is the battle of the TrackPoint-button-less ThinkPads!
Look and Feel: Looks similar, feels completely different
From the outside, one might be tempted to think that Lenovo is crazy. Why would they try to do something again if it already failed once?
After all, the touchpads look very similar: Both have a flat glass surface with seven distinct little raised dots in the middle of the top, which indicate the middle button for the TrackPoint. The left and right click zones for the TrackPoint are only given a visual representation - two gray lines on the new Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 and two red lines on the old ThinkPad T440s.
The only other differences look-wise is the beveled top of the T440s' Synaptics solution, while the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 is just flat. Overall, the more modern ThinkPad also sports a far larger touchpad surface area, especially in width (T440s: 10 x 7 cm, P1 G7: 13.5 x 8.5 cm).
While the looks are deceivingly similar, the feel of the clickpads is anything but. The ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 offers a sharp click, while the ThinkPad T440s is spongy. The P1 feels precise, the T440s imprecise. The T440s has the feeling of a large keyboard key, similar to a space bar, while the P1 Gen 7 feels like a mouse click.
This is due to the underlying technology being completely different: While the Synaptics touchpad of the ThinkPad T440s is a mechanical solution, the Sensel touchpad of the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 is a haptic trackpad. It does not actually move when clicking it. Instead, it is a click simulated by an actuator - when the computer is off, the touchpad does not click at all.
In contrast, the ThinkPad T440s touchpad sinks down like two millimeters. It uses the same mechanism as the ThinkPad keyboard. This works great for a keyboard, but not great for a touchpad. The travel distance is just too long, and it takes too much effort and time to click.
While the feeling of clicking the touchpads differs considerably, the gliding the fingers across the surface feels very similar - after all, both solutions are made out of matte glass.
Noise: Sensel touchpad is not a "clunkpad"
Colloquially, the touchpad of the T440-generation of ThinkPads was known as the "clunkpad", due to the noise it makes when clicking. Indeed, it is rather a "clunk" than a "click" - or maybe a "thump". The sound is very loud and it has a metallic reverb sound. It sounds exactly like what it is: A very large button with a complicated stabilizer mechanism underneath.
Compared with that, the Sensel clickpad is outright quieter. We measured it, using the same high-quality sound measuring gear we use for measuring fan noise in our laptop reviews: The click noise of the mechanical Synaptics solution produces roughly 48 dB(a) of sound, while the haptic Sensel clickpad only reaches around 40 dB(a) for the clicking noise.
This is also only the loudest setting of the Sensel clickpad: Since it is a haptic solution with a simulated click, users can directly influence the noise level by setting the strength of the haptic response in the Windows settings. At 25 percent haptic strength, the click noise is lowered to 37 dB(a). Optionally, it is also possible to disable the haptic response and thus the click noise.
The sound profile we created with ARTA visually shows the difference between the two contenders: While the Sensel touchpad produces a sharp click sound that peaks in the middle 250 Hz frequency band, the sound of the old mechanical Synaptics solution is all over the map, being loud across most of the sound spectrum - the dreaded "clunk" noise.
Software & Usability: ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 produces less misclicks
Any hardware is only as good as the software behind it. In the case of the Synaptics clickpad, this was a major pain-point. YouTuber Louis Rossmann famously made a half hour long complaint about the new ThinkPad design in 2014, with the Synaptics clickpad being singled out as the biggest problem.
One of the key critiques was that the clickpad would often miss-click. This was due to it just being an ordinary touchpad on top of a button, which could only use capacitive touch sensing to recognize where you wanted to click. Frequently, trying to produce a left click would end up resulting in a right click and vice versa. The touchpad had no way to actually tell where the user clicked.
This is not the case with the Sensel touchpad. Since it is a haptic trackpad, it has force sensing, so it can actually tell where you press down. Misclicks are thus eliminated, and the result is a frustration-free user experience.
Both trackpads can be configured by the user, and both provide a way to disable either the touchpad or the TrackPoint function if the user so wishes. This may be the only area where Synaptics is better than Sensel, as the old Synaptics driver provides a much nicer visual representation of how the different settings affect the user experience in terms of the click zones. Also, Synaptics provides a function to configure the whole right side of the clickpad as a right click. The Sensel clickpad does not have this function.
Verdict: This time, Lenovo's integrated TrackPoint buttons work
In the ten years since the original experiment with integrating the ThinkPad TrackPoint's physical mouse buttons into the touchpad, technology has improved so much that this new solution finally works. The haptic Sensel trackpad in the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 delivers not only a great touchpad experience, it also works for TrackPoint users.
When compared directly with the old Synaptics "clunkpad", using it feels completely different. Gone is the spongy and loud mechanical click with too much travel distance. Also, the haptic trackpad does not produce misclicks, which the old mechanical solution does frequently. While dedicated buttons are still overall superior for TrackPoint users, the much larger touchpad user base should be very happy with the Sensel solution - and it works well enough for TrackPoint users to still provide the basic function of the TrackPoint comfortably.
Pricing and Availability
The Lenovo ThinkPad T440s can be found at various refurbisher stores online. The Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 is available for $2,799 over at Amazon.com.
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