It depends on what you're trying to use it for. If you just use Emacs for coding, you're not going to gain anything from running it in a GUI. However, if you also use it to read documentation, take notes, etc.; being able to display images, different fonts, different sized fonts, etc. is pretty nice.
>If you just use Emacs for coding, you're not going to gain anything from running it in a GUI.
That's true only if you think pointing devices are useless for editing and navigating code.
ADDED: I withdraw this comment.
Just a heads up, in 2025 the mouse and trackpad work incredibly well with TUI applications. There are days I think the mouse works even better than with GUI applications because it tends to be easier to select any text on the screen than with a GUI. To be clear, I love both (TUI & GUI), but when I started integrating the mouse more into my terminal workflow, I was shocked at how well it worked.
Can you move point to a position by clicking that position with a pointing device?
Also, when you've selected some text with the pointing device, does Emacs sense the selection? I.e., does (list (region-beginning) (region-end)) return the start and end of the selection?
Yes and yes, I don't think there are any mouse issues I've had working with Emacs in the terminal (whereas there are tons of bindings issues).
I had no idea! Wow.
What terminal are you using that doesn't support a mouse? Or is it emacs that doesn't have mouse support?
Before writing my comment, I started Emacs as `emacs -nw` in Gnome Terminal and failed to find a way to move point with my mouse. If there is any additional configuration I need to do to Emacs or a different terminal-emulating app I need to install, I'd be glad to learn about it.
I didn't mean to suggest that pointing devices are completely useless in a terminal, but it has always been my experience that what the device can do is severely limited compared to graphical Emacs.
Looking at my config quickly, I think you probably need this:
(xterm-mouse-mode 1)
Or simply upgrade to the top of tree version of Emacs that now has native mouse support in the terminal.