It has a trackpoint with 2 buttons which tells us they did not put any serious effort into this input device. Would you use a 2 button mouse without scroll-wheel or a touchpad without 2-fingers scrolling?
I suspect this low effort goes for the whole product which is a budget laptop with marketing directed at decision makers instead of users.
Good catch. The Trackpoint in the photo had piqued my interest. But Trackpoint has come with 3 buttons for about 20 years, and I'm pretty sure the middle button gets used heavily by many people.
HP's been making two-button "trackpoints" forever. I don't get it either, but it's tradition at this point, not some sign of laziness.
And the laptop is decidedly not a budget laptop rebadge. It looks more like a tweaked EliteBook, their high-end business line. That doesn't automatically make it good, but I think your comment was unfair.
Actually, since they highlight “auto-tiling” window manager (I’m trying to see which one), I think the assumption is that users won’t be relying on the mouse all that much. Kind of the whole benefit of tiling window managers.
People who are excited about the trackpoint probably aren't interested in switching to another input method for scrolling. Personally I usually disable the touchpad ASAP on any new laptop I get.
You can scroll by holding down the middle trackpad button with your thumb and pushing the trackpoint in one direction or the other. You can even scroll horizontally this way. This is the main reason for the complaint about the missing middle button.
Why would anybody use a laptop keyboard and no mouse for serious development work? It's always an ergonomic nightmare.
Of course when travelling light you might choose to leave extra stuff at home. But how many of us need to travel light to a new location before starting their daily work?
The middle button (or "mouse button 2") is a legit pointer interface function that many apps use. Besides scrolling, it pastes, opens links in new tabs, and many application specific uses in eg Blender.
(But there's always been a middle button challenged user population subset around so apps have alternative ways of doing these, a bit like terminal apps can be used without a working meta)
I suspect this low effort goes for the whole product which is a budget laptop with marketing directed at decision makers instead of users.