Not OP, but I've felt that Thinkpads all have terrible (and even sometimes nonexistent) trackpads which force the user to use the nub. I'm wayyy more efficient with a decent (usually Mac, but I've occasionally had good experiences on other laptops too) trackpad than a bad trackpad, nub, or even mouse sometimes (it takes time to move my hand between the mouse and keyboard, which is negligible on a laptop with trackpad).
If you remove the rubber nub, you still have a little plastic joystick poking out of the center of your keyboard. Also, the trackpads on Thinkpads are pretty worthless when compared to offerings by other manufacturers.
They certainly used to be pretty worthless, but some two years ago Lenovo seems to have realised that. Being firmly on team trackpoint, I don’t use it personally, but my X1 Carbon (2017) has a nice feeling large trackpad that I’ve heard many good things about.
i think it was actually microsoft that started pushing OEMs towards better touchpads with it's surface touchpad certification program. any laptop with those is pretty comparable to a mac touchpad...
