Touchpads are great for clicking and scrolling, especially if you set it up to 'click' with just a tap. Alas, it's much worse for dragging, so e.g. graphic design is problematic. Even with dragging via double-tap-and-drag, supported by MacOS, it's a big nuisance, especially dragging outside the touchpad area (which you can do by changing fingers mid-drag).
I've heard good things about vertical mouses: they're supposed to keep the lower arm from being rotated unnaturally, and the hand position seems to be more relaxed. But I still have doubts about pressing the thing, as that seems to be the root of RSI.
In my experience, staying away from computers altogether works much better for the hands than any devices I've tried, which is not good news for a computer geek.
> Alas, it's much worse for dragging, so e.g. graphic design is problematic.
What kind of dragging operations are you talking about? Drag and drop operations and box selection are no more difficult on a Mac trackpad than with a mouse, and running out of trackpad area was pretty rare even on the pre-Touchbar generation before they almost doubled the size of their trackpads. Drawing might be harder, but neither device is at all good at that task; that's what Wacom is for.
I've heard good things about vertical mouses: they're supposed to keep the lower arm from being rotated unnaturally, and the hand position seems to be more relaxed. But I still have doubts about pressing the thing, as that seems to be the root of RSI.
In my experience, staying away from computers altogether works much better for the hands than any devices I've tried, which is not good news for a computer geek.