Hyper’s TrackPad Pro wants to make your mouse obsolete… but I hate it | usagoldmines.com

Consider this an apology to Hyper and to its parent, Targus. I don’t want to use HyperSpace’s TrackPad Pro standalone haptic trackpad and I’ve probably wasted your time, Hyper’s, and mine. Perhaps you, dear reader, will feel differently. Me? I just can’t stand it.

Hyper’s $150 haptic Trackpad Pro (or $109 on Kickstarter) taught me that I’m primarily a mouse person, and I have absolutely no need for the advanced capabilities that the trackpad offers, such as deep clicking and various “zones” in which clicks trigger different actions. I want nothing to do with them.

When I saw the TrackPad Pro at the 2025 CES show, I appreciated the concept but was less than impressed by the execution. It just didn’t really work. It does now. Still, my time with Hyper’s TrackPad Pro taught me that this touchpad peripheral is a device for input and trackpad nerds. And I’m neither.

A haptic touchpad is worth your time, though. Put simply, haptics are like the OLED of touchpads. They’re a step up, as they’re clickable across the entire breadth of their surface. Both Apple Macs and some Microsoft Surface devices use a haptic touchpad or trackpad, and they’re effective and futuristic, all in one. Some have compared Hyper’s TrackPad Pro to Apple’s Magic Trackpad and that comparison seems fair.

In fairness, the signs were there from the start. Hyper sent me a TrackPad Pro for review, and I received it right before setting off on two weeks of business travel, with a laptop — and a mouse.

Why am I a mouse person? I’m left-handed, and I’ve determinedly held on to a left-handed Razer DeathAdder mouse I purchased years ago. Lefties are forced to make all sorts of accommodations in their lives like learning to use scissors right-handed or grudgingly accepting that the WASD setup on a computer keyboard isn’t for them. (I prefer the superior number-pad layout instead.) As a result, I use a left-handed mouse, but have been trained to left-click with my middle finger as opposed to my index finger. Chaos! This is the trauma the right-handed world imposes.

Mark Hachman / Foundry

As a result, touchpads usually mess with my head. I’m supposed to click which corner of the touchpad to right click? (The lower left.) And though Windows allows you to tap with two fingers to right-click, the Hyper touchpad didn’t. Ugh.

This isn’t entirely my fault

In my defense, however, I think it’s fair to say that Hyper’s setup experience is bad. The device itself is fine: the TrackPad Pro measures 3.85 inches x 6.29 inches (98mm x 160 mm) and maybe half an inch thick, which connects to your PC via a braided USB-C cable.

Physically, the device works well. The surface is metallic and smooth, with a 240Hz report rate. All that means is that the trackpad feels extremely smooth and responsive, without any hitches or judder.

To enable all of the bells and whistles, however, you need to download a Hydra Connect application. First, Hydra mandates the need for an account and password, which instantly makes me suspect that something nefarious is going on behind the scenes. Second, the software immediately asks if it can send you marketing email — I think not. Third, though the software attempts to guide you through its features, the accompanying text windows are too small to fit the entire explanation, which feels amateurish. Fourth, why dedicate an entire tab of the application to Hydra Connect, a feature listed as “coming soon”?

Mark Hachman / Foundry

Finally, did anyone in the age of Marvel really think that ‘Hydra’ would be perceived positively? Especially after it asked to send you spam? Come on.

The Hydra app, to its credit (?), is extremely detailed. You can define zones on the trackpad surface, where specific clicks will have specific defined actions. Unfortunately, I kept stumbling into a zone where clicking locked my laptop–this got old fast. You can define profiles for various applications like Photoshop, where specific types of clicks have various functions. Interestingly, though the TrackPad Pro seemed big enough to use it as a drawing tablet, that feature didn’t seem to be enabled.

I will be honest: I tried to test out the TrackPad Pro. But I knew from the start that I disliked it, so I didn’t give it more than a few hours. In the spirit of fair play, I’m going to point you to a competitor, Wired, whose own Hyper TrackPad hands-on feels more objective.

Mark Hachman / Foundry

The TrackPad Pro does have one interesting feature–a “deep click.” Simply touching the tablet is one input, depressing it enough so that it clicks is another. But you can depress it even harder so that it records a “deep click,” which can signal something else entirely. Sensing how far you’ve depressed the trackpad is a bit iffy even at the best of times and you really shouldn’t set one command to trigger at the various levels of pressure.

(I once found a way to configure these deep clicks, and then seemingly lost that ability to forever within the stomach of the Hydra.)

In any case, if you’re the type of person who likes to set up a trackpad just so, with specific functions mapped out, the Hyper TrackPad Pro might be for you when it ships in early 2026. Had I realized that I truly had no use for it, I would’ve politely declined a review copy. But I learned something! While I still think that a haptic touchpad is probably the future of laptop input, Hyper’s dedicated touchpad just isn’t for me.