Lenovo has removed its iconic TrackPoint nub from new ThinkPad laptops

At CES 2025, Lenovo showed off the ThinkPad Aura Edition...without its iconic TrackPoint nub.

- MARK HACHMAN

F or more than three decades, the TrackPoint's iconic red rubbery nub has been a staple of IBM and Lenovo ThinkPad laptops. 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 spokesperson. “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 (fave.co/4gUzpQn), Lenovo’s chief design officer, David Hill, described the TrackPoint as a way for a user to access a pointing device without their hands needing to leave the keyboard’s home row.

But he also foreshadowed Lenovo’s choice to remove the TrackPoint, too. “It’s a little bit like an automatic transmission versus a stick shift. If you know how to drive a stick, you don’t want an automatic transmission,” Hill said back then in the interview. “If you don’t drive a stick shift, you’re not going to buy a car that’s got one.”