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PC WORLD
In the notebook PC realm, there have long been two camps on the issue of input devices: Those who prefer the joysticks made famous by IBM’s ThinkPads, and those who like touchpads. People tend to have strong opinions on the matter. Buying decisions can hinge on whether a product has the customer’s favorite input technology. This is one reason why Dell and IBM put both devices on some of their notebooks; they don’t want to lose any customers because of their input choice.
For people like myself, the debate is moot: I don’t much like either, so I pack an optical mouse whenever I travel with my notebook. Even on a plane I usually find someplace to use the mouse–often my lap.
But I digress. Somebody at Hewlett-Packard must believe that users of handhelds would also like input options beyond a stylus or, in some products, a jog wheel. Hence we have the IPaq Hx4700 series of Windows Mobile 2003-based Pocket PCs, which sport a touchpad in place of the navigation button on most IPaqs.
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