5 ms·

Do the Windows based laptops have a similar touchpad like the Mac which just works, last time I checked they did not.

by sumedh 6y ago

MacsHeadroom 6y ago
At the same price point in the professional space, of course. Lenovo X series and System76 have solid touchpads- and have for years.
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  “Solid” does not mean comparable. I have both high end dell and Lenovo laptops for work, and my Mac at home. My girlfriends MacBook Pro is far nicer to use despite being slower. Even for Windows.
- TwoBit 6y ago
  As long as PC laptops continue to use that terrible Synaptics touchpad system, they will always be inferior. Anybody I've seen who claims any PC touchpad matches a Mac doesn't know what they are talking about. And I say this as a user of both but mostly PC.
  - noobermin 6y ago
    I had a 2016 macbook and an HP Spectre 360. The touchpads were comparable. On the other hand, the macOS part of the macbook was pretty terrible.
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      I'm kind of the opposite. I have a ThinkPad X390 Yoga and a MacBook. The ThinkPad touchpad is perfectly usable, but not great like the MacBook. The dealbreaker is that the Linux part of the ThinkPad is a complete pain (Intel WiFi headaches - went as far as submitting a kernel bug), while the MacBook just works.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
threentaway 6y ago
Can you explain why this is such an important feature? How often are you writing code where you're not at your desk with a real keyboard and mouse?
- scott_w 6y ago
  100% of the time for me. I prefer the trackpad over the mouse.
  - ooobit2 6y ago
    100% of the time for me, I wouldn't wipe my butt with a trackpad, let alone use one for work. It's always fun for me to meet people who do things the complete opposite I do them. It's oddly satisfying, like, I'm glad someone is my polar opposite on an issue or activity.
    - jmnicolas 6y ago
      Tabs or spaces ?
      - am391 6y ago
        That made me smile....thanks @jmnicolas :)
      - ooobit2 6y ago
        It depends. For lists, I do spaces. Allows for more levels than a tab would. But for everything else, tabs. I've also grown to loathe that first-line tab beginning the second paragraph. It makes left-aligned text look wonky. I loathe centered text too. I'm not a rounded rectangle person. I think the colored block UI that's all over Android, sites like HN, etc. looks tacky. We went from semi-transparent glass UI to flat colored blocks, and somehow interfaces got slower and more processor intensive. Now, that's a horse of a different color.
    - imwillofficial 6y ago
      It’s like we all have an evil doppelgänger out there’re of us who is religiously fervent about trackpads
sneak 6y ago
Macs, with their amazing touchpads, are (at least for the moment and the last ten years or so) general purpose computers that can run pretty much every widely available open source operating system. This is a false dichotomy. From GP: > use a closed source operating system That's not "Windows".
- tkfu 6y ago
  > that can run pretty much every widely available open source operating system. That's just not true, though. Here's a git repo listing what works and doesn't work in Linux for all of the macbook pro models since 13,1 (released in 2016): https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux You'll notice that power management (suspend/resume) doesn't work for any model, wifi only works for a few select models, and support for audio is pretty spotty. If you buy Mac hardware, you're pretty much locked into MacOS if you want to have a reasonably acceptable experience. BSD support is much, much, much worse--it basically doesn't work at all for any relatively recent model.
  - floatboth 6y ago
    > BSD support is much, much, much worse--it basically doesn't work at all for any relatively recent model Well, would probably work fine with an external keyboard/mouse :D NVMe should crash right now like it did on Linux before 5.4, but the Linux patch for that https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/66341331ba0d2de4ff421cdc401a1e34de50502a https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/66341331ba0d2de4ff4... is absolutely tiny, I could probably replicate these quirks in FreeBSD in a few minutes. The SPI keyboard and touchpad thing though is just.. WHY?? Everyone went with HID over I2C, Apple went with a completely new protocol over SPI. So annoying. I wouldn't want to work on supporting that crap. > power management (suspend/resume) doesn't work for any model um, that page says that you have to disable a power saving state on NVMe and it would work on any model with Intel GPU.
0xcoffee 6y ago
They do, when they introduced the precision touch-pad. However ironically it created a lot of problems in software that responded poorly to the high precision events. Chrome being one of the most obvious offenders, took months for them to finally fix it (hence edge scrolling so much nicer then chrome on its release). These days it just works though.
whywhywhywhy 6y ago
Surface line all do and any professional level laptop from the past few years should too. The term to look for is “Windows precision trackpad”.

Do the Windows based laptops have a similar touchpad like the Mac which just works, last time I checked they did not.

by sumedh 6y ago

Do the Windows based laptops have a similar touchpad like the Mac which just works, last time I checked they did not.

At the same price point in the professional space, of course. Lenovo X series and System76 have solid touchpads- and have for years.

imwillofficial 6y ago
“Solid” does not mean comparable. I have both high end dell and Lenovo laptops for work, and my Mac at home. My girlfriends MacBook Pro is far nicer to use despite being slower. Even for Windows.
TwoBit 6y ago
As long as PC laptops continue to use that terrible Synaptics touchpad system, they will always be inferior. Anybody I've seen who claims any PC touchpad matches a Mac doesn't know what they are talking about. And I say this as a user of both but mostly PC.
- noobermin 6y ago
  I had a 2016 macbook and an HP Spectre 360. The touchpads were comparable. On the other hand, the macOS part of the macbook was pretty terrible.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    I'm kind of the opposite. I have a ThinkPad X390 Yoga and a MacBook. The ThinkPad touchpad is perfectly usable, but not great like the MacBook. The dealbreaker is that the Linux part of the ThinkPad is a complete pain (Intel WiFi headaches - went as far as submitting a kernel bug), while the MacBook just works.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

threentaway 6y ago

Can you explain why this is such an important feature? How often are you writing code where you're not at your desk with a real keyboard and mouse?

scott_w 6y ago
100% of the time for me. I prefer the trackpad over the mouse.
- ooobit2 6y ago
  100% of the time for me, I wouldn't wipe my butt with a trackpad, let alone use one for work. It's always fun for me to meet people who do things the complete opposite I do them. It's oddly satisfying, like, I'm glad someone is my polar opposite on an issue or activity.
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    Tabs or spaces ?
    - am391 6y ago
      That made me smile....thanks @jmnicolas :)
    - ooobit2 6y ago
      It depends. For lists, I do spaces. Allows for more levels than a tab would. But for everything else, tabs. I've also grown to loathe that first-line tab beginning the second paragraph. It makes left-aligned text look wonky. I loathe centered text too. I'm not a rounded rectangle person. I think the colored block UI that's all over Android, sites like HN, etc. looks tacky. We went from semi-transparent glass UI to flat colored blocks, and somehow interfaces got slower and more processor intensive. Now, that's a horse of a different color.
  - imwillofficial 6y ago
    It’s like we all have an evil doppelgänger out there’re of us who is religiously fervent about trackpads

sneak 6y ago

Macs, with their amazing touchpads, are (at least for the moment and the last ten years or so) general purpose computers that can run pretty much every widely available open source operating system. This is a false dichotomy. From GP: > use a closed source operating system That's not "Windows".

tkfu 6y ago
> that can run pretty much every widely available open source operating system. That's just not true, though. Here's a git repo listing what works and doesn't work in Linux for all of the macbook pro models since 13,1 (released in 2016): https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux You'll notice that power management (suspend/resume) doesn't work for any model, wifi only works for a few select models, and support for audio is pretty spotty. If you buy Mac hardware, you're pretty much locked into MacOS if you want to have a reasonably acceptable experience. BSD support is much, much, much worse--it basically doesn't work at all for any relatively recent model.
- floatboth 6y ago
  > BSD support is much, much, much worse--it basically doesn't work at all for any relatively recent model Well, would probably work fine with an external keyboard/mouse :D NVMe should crash right now like it did on Linux before 5.4, but the Linux patch for that https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/66341331ba0d2de4ff421cdc401a1e34de50502a https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/66341331ba0d2de4ff4... is absolutely tiny, I could probably replicate these quirks in FreeBSD in a few minutes. The SPI keyboard and touchpad thing though is just.. WHY?? Everyone went with HID over I2C, Apple went with a completely new protocol over SPI. So annoying. I wouldn't want to work on supporting that crap. > power management (suspend/resume) doesn't work for any model um, that page says that you have to disable a power saving state on NVMe and it would work on any model with Intel GPU.

0xcoffee 6y ago

They do, when they introduced the precision touch-pad. However ironically it created a lot of problems in software that responded poorly to the high precision events. Chrome being one of the most obvious offenders, took months for them to finally fix it (hence edge scrolling so much nicer then chrome on its release). These days it just works though.

whywhywhywhy 6y ago

Surface line all do and any professional level laptop from the past few years should too. The term to look for is “Windows precision trackpad”.