I despise trackpads. They feel so sloppy and approximate. Mice work great for my needs. But the best laptop pointer for me has been the pointing stick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick

I despise trackpads.

And yet I'll use nothing else. Conversely, I have never gotten along with pointy sticks, all the way back to the original 1993 Toshiba Portégé[0] despite their apparent popularity.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook_Portégé