Should You Buy Apple’s Magic Trackpad?

Should you buy an Apple Magic Trackpad?  It is one of Apple’s latest creations that was released today along with a whole slew of other stuff such as updated iMac’s, Mac Pro’s, and even a new 27″ LED display.  But the most interesting addition today was in fact the Magic Trackpad.  Why?  Because it is something we really haven’t seen before.  The Magic Trackpad may potentially be the hottest selling of all of these new product releases.  Let me tell you why.

For one, it’s cheap(er) than the other new products aside from Apple’s new battery charging device (I’d just like to say – Finally).  Priced at $69 the Magic Trackpad is a much more manageable buy.  And two, perhaps the most important, Apple’s best selling computers tend to be their Macbook and Macbook Pro lines.  What do both products have in common?  A multi-touch trackpad.  It is something everyone who has owned one of these notebooks is familiar with and that I think will be beneficial.

The thing about the Magic Trackpad which makes it enticing to me is the fact it is 80 percent larger than the trackpad on the Macbook’s.  The main problem I face with trackpads in general is running out of “trackpad real estate” when dragging items from point on the screen to another.  It is especially painful when you have higher resolutions and larger displays.  So hopefully, the larger Magic Trackpad will solve that issue, because if I run across it on my Macbook Pro’s 15″ display, it wouldn’t be far fetched to assume it could happen on my 30″ Cinema Display.

Apple’s Magic Trackpad will also alleviate the problem of “mousing real estate”, the area in which you have allocated to moving your mouse around, which presents a similar issue to the one aforementioned above.  While the Magic Trackpad is most likely not ideal for gamers, it fits the mold for every day computing pretty well.  Will it take some getting used to if you are used to using a mouse?  Most likely.  And chances are you will have a love / hate relationship with it for the first few days or weeks, but I’m betting it will grow on people the more they use it.

I plan to find out myself as I ordered one earlier today.  So keep an eye out for that unboxing and review.