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The touch pad is what keeps me on my macbook. Has any other manufacturer managed to create something comparable?

by pault 8y ago

pembrook 8y ago
Researched this for many hours last year before upgrading to the 2018 MBP and the answer is...no. I was super worried about the upgrade after all the complaining about this latest gen hardware. To be honest, the 2018 is still the best machine I've ever had. My theory is that most people posturing here as if they're going to switch to a ThinkPad or other windows machine don't remember how much using windows and non-apple hardware sucks. I remember quite vividly as I recently switched from a Thinkpad to the Apple ecosystem just a few years ago. Now if you have the time to fool around with Linux, more power to you, but now that I have kids I've realized spending countless hours fiddling around with drivers and trying to find alternative software was never a good use of my time. My anecdotal experience: Touch Bar mostly useless but also harmless, the 3rd gen keyboard isn't as bad as people say, USB-C is awesome (buying a replacement USB-C cable for my old external HDD actually gave me better speeds even though the new cable is longer), and I don't miss MagSafe now that I can plug into either side of the machine. Oh, and the audio quality is now good enough for watching movies in bed with the wife w/o an external speaker.
int_19h 8y ago
Depends on how you define "comparable". I don't think any can match it on precision and sensitivity, but the spectrum is very broad. Thinkpad X1 has a good one - still not as good as MBP, but way better than average. I would also add that, at least with the most recent MBP model, there's one significant downside with its touchpad, and that's its size. On a work laptop that's used for coding, I'd much rather that space go towards full-sized arrow keys, or having dedicated Home/End/PgUp/PgDown keys that don't need Fn. Thinkpads give you that.

The touch pad is what keeps me on my macbook. Has any other manufacturer managed to create something comparable?

by pault 8y ago

The touch pad is what keeps me on my macbook. Has any other manufacturer managed to create something comparable?

Researched this for many hours last year before upgrading to the 2018 MBP and the answer is...no. I was super worried about the upgrade after all the complaining about this latest gen hardware. To be honest, the 2018 is still the best machine I've ever had. My theory is that most people posturing here as if they're going to switch to a ThinkPad or other windows machine don't remember how much using windows and non-apple hardware sucks. I remember quite vividly as I recently switched from a Thinkpad to the Apple ecosystem just a few years ago. Now if you have the time to fool around with Linux, more power to you, but now that I have kids I've realized spending countless hours fiddling around with drivers and trying to find alternative software was never a good use of my time. My anecdotal experience: Touch Bar mostly useless but also harmless, the 3rd gen keyboard isn't as bad as people say, USB-C is awesome (buying a replacement USB-C cable for my old external HDD actually gave me better speeds even though the new cable is longer), and I don't miss MagSafe now that I can plug into either side of the machine. Oh, and the audio quality is now good enough for watching movies in bed with the wife w/o an external speaker.

int_19h 8y ago

Depends on how you define "comparable". I don't think any can match it on precision and sensitivity, but the spectrum is very broad. Thinkpad X1 has a good one - still not as good as MBP, but way better than average. I would also add that, at least with the most recent MBP model, there's one significant downside with its touchpad, and that's its size. On a work laptop that's used for coding, I'd much rather that space go towards full-sized arrow keys, or having dedicated Home/End/PgUp/PgDown keys that don't need Fn. Thinkpads give you that.