I know that a full review of my Acer Aspire One is getting overdue and I have had a few people ping me on it now. Rest assured that it’s something I am working on, but I have to ask for patience as the workload from my day job is nearly overwhelming me. As an element of that larger review, I thought I would post my thoughts on the touchpad in response to a reader’s question.
Honestly, this was something I was quite concerned about when I ordered the device. There were two things that were the cause for concern: the unconventional button placement and the finish of the pad. Let me address these separately.
I personally use the tap functionality of the touchpad for my 95% of my left-click needs. I find that it’s much faster and more natural than hitting a separate button when I use the touchpad on any laptop. That having been said, the left-click button is not an issue to me. The only time I ever use it is when I am dragging a window or scrollbar for more than a short distance (I use the tap and hold feature for short drags). Reaching to the side instead of the bottom actually feels more natural for me when doing this because I tend to use my left hand for the button and the right hand for movement.
That only leaves right-clicking as a concern and I made the adjustment to the side button in about a tenth of a second. It makes absolutely no difference to me. My only complaint is that the buttons are a little on the loud side when you click. This isn’t an issue in most circumstances, but in very quiet environments is something that I have noticed.
Enough about the button placement, let me share what I thought was going to be a bigger deal for me: the surface finish of the touchpad. Unlike most laptop manufacturers, Acer decided to paint the touchpad with the same paint used for the casing. It is a high gloss paint that you tend to stick to instead of glide over. At first, it bugged me a good deal, but either the “stickiness” is wearing off or I am getting used to it since it no longer bothers me in the least.
Like most touchpads today, it features vertical scrolling functionality by dragging your finger along the right side of the pad and horizontal scrolling by dragging along the bottom. When scrolling, the mouse cursor changes to a unique icon that looks something like the top view of a mouse pointer being pulled into a tornado. The driver has way more options than the driver on my Lenovo laptop which allow adjustment for the scroll zones, sensitivity, tap and drag functionality, and lots more (I have included a screen shot of all the options here). There is an option for what they call “coasting” where you can start a long document scrolling and it will continue to scroll even after you have lifted your finger off the touchpad (and until you tap the pad again) that is surprisingly useful for web browsing. Overall, I am pleased with the options Acer provides for their touchpad.
In summary, neither of the two concerns I had about the touchpad when I purchased the unit have turned out to be issues at all. The reality is that the Acer Aspire One is a very usable device and the touchpad is no exception to that observation. And there you have it – more than I thought I would ever write about the touchpad on a mobile computer. If there is anything you would like to know that I didn’t cover here, simply leave a comment or shoot me an email and I’ll gladly fill you in!
Hello marvin hill, you just need to click FN+F10
Julie and all others-
I had this same problem and worked on it for hours…..Great News, Who ever suggested the F11 button, Thank you, as it works great!
So, Everyone, solution to Webkinzs———F11.
Ah, my daughter will be so happy!
What a strange summary. I use tap functionallity in 100% of the cases for both, left AND right clicking. I dont like the clicking sound of the sidebuttons eighter. You can adjust your tap function also in a way, that buttom scrolling is back and forward while using a browser.
No one has answered by question yet:
I have an Acer 10.1″ AOD2501185. The pointer of the touch pad starts jumping all over the screen or will only go back and forth (not up and down). using a mouse for a netbook is really getting old. I bought my niece an Acer 15.4″, and hers does the same thing.
would really appreciate some help. I can’t be the only one with this problem.
hi,
i am using Acer 5738G laptop. When I am browsing and using the touchpad, the browser suddenly goes back one page. I am not sure what kind of gesture I am doing for this to happen. Any ideas on how this is happening?
Thanks to Brian, Lee and other posters about help with the zooming feature. I’ve had this great little machine for a while now an d NOW know how to control the scrolling and zooming. Thanks!
hi i have a acer aspire one and i am geting really anoyed with the thing where if you pull your finger down the side of the touch pad it scrolls down. Ho do i turn it of . the other thing is when i am on the internet and i do something with my finger on the touchpad it either zooms really far in or really far ou. How do i turn this of. I think with the internet problem i am making some wierd shape on the touch pad wich makes it zoom in and out. Please e-mmail me back !!!!!! My email adress is : surferdood@msn.com
I have a new Acer Aspire One 10″ since Oct09 that replaced the one I bought Jan09 cuz my son cracked my LCD screen wth my digital camera. anyway, about a week ago, I hooked my netbook up to the 46″ LED TV using the VGA cable. I can’t remember if I had my mini-mouse hooked up at the time or not, but I believe I was using the touchpad mouse & it was working fine when I was seeing how my netbook looked on the TV. I had let my netbook run for about 1-2 hours showing my screen saver pictures on the TV. After I removed it and then later hooked my netbook up to my 19″ LCD screen a few days later, now my touchpad will only very briefly work (a few seconds) upon startup. I had also recently installed the software for my new MS Wireless Keyboard & Mouse 3000. I checked the touchpad settings in device manager & hit restore defaults but my touchpad still doesn’t work.
basically–my touchpad quit working after having my netbook hooked up to a TV via VGA cable and/or shortly after I started using my new wireless keyboard/mouse via plug-n-play before I installed the full-functionality CD onto the netbook. the touchpad still doesn’t work after having installed the CD. I can have both my mini-mouse plugged in & my wireless mouse plugged via USB in at the same time and they both work, but not my touchpad, at all…
anyone have any ideas?
I found the fix to my above problem…did another google search & read on the details link of http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=91569
someone said they had been fooling around with their function buttons, which was the same thing I was doing trying to toggle my FN-F5 button to get my netbook screen to go thru the TV. I had disabled my touchpad by hitting the FN-F7 button (the button has a picture of the touchpad with a hand/finger over it). yeah…it works now. maybe this post helps someone else now.
touch pad not working???—has it been deactivated by pushing the FN-F7 button (or whichever button shows the touchpad with a hand/finger)??? then re-stroke those keys & reactivate your touch pad. If that doesn’t work, maybe there are other problems.
Hey i have an aspire 5732Z
I pluged in a wireless mouse because i am not a fan of touch pads, but in doing so i have lost all use of my touch pad so i am no longer able to use it with out the mouse plugged in, effectively makeing my laptop a desk top. i have trying unistalling my wireless mouse, disabling and enabling my touch pad fn+f7 does not work, and i am out of ideas, if you could help me get my touch pad back i would really be greatful