Why You Can Trust CNET Logitech Touchpad T650 review: Multitouch gestures on any Windows 8 PC, tablet
A standalone touch pad makes a lot more sense than a mouse for Windows 8 gestures.
- Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
There's an awful lot of swiping, tapping, and gesturing going on with gadgets this year. The idea of the touch pad is nothing new to laptop users, but it's only recently that many have come to see it as giving a better overall experience than a traditional mouse. Part of that comes from Windows 8 and its emphasis on gesture and touch control, and part comes from Apple's excellent touch-pad implementation in MacBooks, which have outshone their PC competition in this department for years.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
To that end, we've seen an increasing number of all-in-one desktops, including new models from Vizio and Hewlett-Packard, include standalone touch pads rather than a mouse, and Logitech has the standalone $79 Touchpad Wireless Rechargeable Touchpad T650 for those who want to make the leap with their existing setup.
A glass-topped matte black square, the 5.25-inch-by-5.1-inch T650 looks and feels a lot like Apple's excellent Magic Trackpad. The Apple version has a barrel-like top edge, which houses a battery and holds the pad at a steeper angle. In contrast, the T650 is nearly flat, and has an internal rechargeable battery.
It connects to your laptop or desktop not via Bluetooth, but instead via Logitech's proprietary USB receiver, like the majority of Logitech mice. The company says that is a more responsive connection than Bluetooth, but I've never felt that my Bluetooth-connected Magic Trackpad suffered because of it.
But, this means that to use the T650, you need the USB receiver, which eats up a port on your PC, as well as an (included) Micro-USB cable for occasional charging. There's an on/off switch on the right side of the pad to save power, though I found the pad remained charged for more than a week of intermittent use without a recharge, even when left on 24-7. Running Logitech's SetPoint software allows additional customization (tap-to-click was off by default for some reason), but the T650 will run fine without it.
As an actual touch pad, the T650 works as expected. Single-input navigation was responsive, and multifinger gestures worked as well as on the best Windows laptops when used with desktops, tablets (such as the Acer W700), and docked laptops. If you think that sounds like qualified praise, you're correct. The T650 works with the officially supported Windows 8 gestures, such as sliding in from the left side to open the Charms bar, or from the top to access the application menu, as well as its own gestures, such as swiping up and down with four fingers to maximize and minimize open windows.
But, if you're looking for the same easy, intuitive navigation in Windows 8 (or Windows 7) that you get on a MacBook, you're not going to find it. It's still impossible to beat the three-finger expose view in OS X, which allows you to quickly flip between both apps and the open windows within apps, all with one hand.
And, if you plug the T650 into a MacBook or iMac, it works, but the system sees it as an external mouse, not a trackpad. Because of that, you only get left and right mouse button support -- no gestures. That means it isn't an ideal touch pad for swapping between Windows and Mac PCs.
You may have noticed that I mention using the T650 with a laptop. Why would you want to do that if your laptop already has a touch pad built in? Many people dock their laptops connected to an external monitor, sometimes adding an external keyboard and mouse as well, especially if the laptop is docked in a closed or out-of-the-way position. Having a standalone touch pad along with a wireless keyboard makes for a smoother transition between using your laptop on the go and as part of a docked desktop setup.
Conclusion
The glass-topped Logitech Wireless Rechargeable Touchpad T650 is part of a new wave of standalone touch pads and a larger push toward touch and gesture control in general. A handful of new Windows 8 PCs are now includingtouch pads in the box, but if you don't have one of those, this is an easy way to make the leap. It works easily with Windows 8 systems, though if you're looking for a completely Apple-like experience, this isn't an exact match -- but the blame for that falls on Microsoft, not Logitech.