Logitech Wireless Touchpad is one of the cheaper external touchpads in the market and doesn't require any specific drivers, unlike the other devices targeted at Windows 8 or OS X. That's why I decided to give it a try; I'm a GNU/Linux user.
Apart from the touchpad, there was only a pair of battery cells, a Logitech Unifying Receiver and some useless paper waste in the box. Notice that I haven't mentioned any cables. You can't use this touchpad wired, nor charge the batteries while using it. Battery life should be close to four months, but I have no idea, if it's actually true.
The very first surprising thing about this touchpad is that it's heavy. The official specs mention something like 100 g, but I'm pretty sure that's without a pair of AA battery cells inside. It's quite bulky as well. About 13×13×2 cm doesn't sound like a lot, but the active area is only 9.5×7 cm and there aren't any noticeable edges except some engraving in the corners, unfortunately. I'm going to complain about this later. I guess it's obvious why.
The touchpad feels very solid, although it's plastic. Glossy, somewhat sticky surface on bottom and buttons; smooth flat finish at least on the touch area. I'd prefer overall rougher texture though, especially on the buttons, which are big and have a nice tactility, but I almost never use them for some reason.
If you want to disassemble it, there are four holes on the bottom; no need to damage any stickers or rubber feet. Speaking of the rubber feet, they work great on a desk... not so much on a Kinesis Advantage.
Logitech Wireless Touchpad is ridiculously idiot-proof. Just put a pair of AA batteries in the hole in the back; its cover is way too easy to remove. Plug a Logitech Unifying Receiver in an USB port. (Note that there's no place to hide the receiver when not in use.) Then turn the switch to the On position, green diode between buttons should blink, and the touchpad is ready to use.
No need to install any drivers. The touchpad is recognized as a standard mouse and gestures are hardcoded. You can use Logitech SetPoint to disable some gestures, but I don't know yet, whether it's persistent, or works only on software level. I don't have any experience with pairing the touchpad with another receiver either, it should be possible even on GNU/Linux though.
Gestures are assigned as follows:
- tap ~ mouse 1
- two-finger swipe ~ mouse 4–7 (usually scrolling)
- horizontal three-finger swipe ~ mouse 8–9 (usually back/forward)
- vertical three-finger swipe ~ Next/Prior (something like Page Up/Down on my system)
- side four-finger swipe ~ Win + left/right arrow (I think it's pseudotiling on MS Windows)
- four-finger swipe back ~ Win + D (desktop on MS Windows)
- four-finger swipe forward ~ Alt + Tab (switching windows, but it's somewhat weird)
At this point, I'd prefer, if the touchpad worked as a stupid generic touchpad and I could use software gestures. However, I can't imagine the usual one-finger scrolling around the edges in case there are no physical edges of the active touch area. What's worse, even the more-finger gestures aren't sometimes recognized properly. Especially if you don't notice that some of your fingers aren't in the active part of the surface.
Random people around the internets hint that using a high-quality touchscreen cover may help make the touch surface somewhat smoother and it would definitely add at least some sense of edges to ones fingers. If I decide to keep the touchpad, I'll do this for sure and then try to remap actions for all gestures.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
