4 ms·

The trackpad on MacBooks are the greatest thing. I got my first Mac about a year ago and I'll never go back to a PC notebook simply because the trackpads are al

The trackpad on MacBooks are the greatest thing. I got my first Mac about a year ago and I'll never go back to a PC notebook simply because the trackpads are always terrible. Now whenever I use a PC trackpad, I'm astonished at just how bad they are, even on premium PCs. Why can't PC manufacturers get it right?

forgottenpaswrd 15y ago
"Now whenever I use a PC trackpad, I'm astonished at just how bad they are, even on premium PCs." Yesterday I had to install something on my old computer and I realized how bad the keyboard was, there it was , a piece of clunky , and cheap plastic. I have got used to mac keyboard so much. I also use the magic track pad, OMG, using wacom trackpad was terrible. "Why can't PC manufacturers get it right?" Because it takes a lot of work and money. Apple products are patented and they can't just copy them(magic trackpad uses good quality glass and aluminium instead of plastic) so they need to design new ones, costing millions of dollars per device and this only makes sense if you could sell millions overnight like Apple does.
- archangel_one 15y ago
  Surely Asus make enough laptops to amortise the cost of designing a decent trackpad over them? I think the problem here is the same thing that manufacturers still haven't gotten; the quality of the build is important, even though it isn't a number that you can put into a spreadsheet for a $/MHz comparison.
- Tloewald 15y ago
  Apple's smoothing algorithm for mouse movement is something that mad PCs unpleasant to work on for me for years. Those ads I think Microsoft has got it good enough that while it's different it's no longer actively unpleasant, bu it's oe of many, many tiny things Apple sweated over back in 1984 and Microsoft didn't notice at the time. (let's not get into text edit field behavior.)
  - Tloewald 15y ago
    Wow was my spelling mangled. Thanks iOS. That's "made PCs" and "These days" and "but it's one"
old-gregg 15y ago
> Why can't PC manufacturers get it right? They do get it right. In fact I find Macs very limiting since they lack this: http://notebook.pconline.com.cn/testing/0504/other/we1net_ibmt43_12m.jpg http://notebook.pconline.com.cn/testing/0504/other/we1net_ib... A laptop without this is not worth buying. See? Who knew than another guy's opinion can be so different... I can type and operate "mouse" without moving my palms from the typing position. I can do all three types of mouse clicks with my thumbs! Moreover, Thinkpad's touchpad provides the most direct feel when moving the cursor [more on this later]. Having the central "pin" for quick cursor jumps (while typing) is absolutely invaluable. Now, about the directness and precision of the touchpad. It's all about drivers. Early white Macbooks had a terrible lag of cursor movement but Apple fixed it later in software. My Thinkpad had somewhat inadequate "cursor feel" under windows 7 which came with it, but under Ubuntu it has the most satisfying "mouse" money can buy, called Ultranav. Lenovo gets it right.
- ugh 15y ago
  Lenovo has pretty good trackpads but they are tiny. The trackpoint is nice but not for everyone. If you want one you obviously have to buy a Lenovo laptop. I’m not exactly sure, though, why you seem to be so outraged about someone else’s opinion.
  - deleted 15y ago
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  - mtrimpe 15y ago
    I’m not exactly sure, though, why you seem to be so outraged about someone else’s opinion. I think this is a dramatic exaggeration of his opinion to illustrate the existence of opposing perspectives.
- X-Istence 15y ago
  I've owned several laptops that only featured "the nipple" and I had one where it every so often would get stuck in a single position whereby it would always go off to the top left. This seemed to happen after having owned and used it for a year or so. I have also owned several laptops, both Windows and Mac OS X based and my MBP's trackpad is far superior over any other trackpad I've used.
cantbecool 15y ago
PC manufacturers did not acquire FingerWorks, Apple did. I agree with your opinion, PC notebook trackpads are rubish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks
ugh 15y ago
Not all trackpads are created equal. I was playing around with the Acer Aspire S3 (another one of those MacBook Air wannabes) and it had a pretty decent trackpad. Not quite what you get with Macs and by the looks of it also a bit smaller – but at least competent. Looking down the row of laptops left and right to the S3 I was, however, struck by how tiny all the other trackpads were. This seems like such a simple fix. My old 2007 MBP has a larger trackpad than all those Windows laptops. (The S3 actually looks like a pretty nice laptop. It feels nice and stable. The Acer logo also isn’t quite as ugly as the Asus logo. Still, it does many of the usual crappy things Windows laptops tend to do: there are too many damn LEDs and too many damn letters and logos on that thing – and I’m not talking about the removable ones. Those are bad enough but at least removable. And now: monochrome. I guess that’s progress. Specs are a wash – as usual. The S3 has a crappier screen and a worse CPU (not that it matters) but you get more SSD for your money. I’m still not entirely sure why anyone would buy the S3 over the MacBook Air, though. The difference in price is actually pretty small. The only model that is worth considering is the base model with HDD since Apple doesn’t have anything in that price segment.)
- dpark 15y ago
  The S3 felt really, really cheap to me. The trackpad had too much flex. Everything about it had too much flex. The screen wobbled. I wouldn't buy it for half price. The Samsung Series 9 seems nice, though I haven't used one for an extended period. My boss's boss had one and didn't like it, but I'm not clear why. The trackpad felt nice when I used it, but the port cover design is moronic (they had to add stickers explaining how to open them, and they're fragile, too). It also has bottom vents, which is pretty lame. I'm considering the Lenovo U300s, which looks nice, and not like an Air clone. The only real drawback seems to be the glossy 1366x768 screen.
xxbondsxx 15y ago
Half of it is Apple's Execution. The other half is the challenge of working around patents and working with second-rate electronics.
- umtrey 15y ago
  I'd say it is entirely Apple's Execution. Someone used this machine before they pushed it out the door. Someone had to have gone, "this trackpad is just awful!" And yet, nothing changed about it, and they released it. It's hard for me to see another brand capturing such equity and such positive reputation when this happens over and over again. If there's a will, there's a way around the patents, etc.
- lloeki 15y ago
  From MacBooks to many (most?) PCs they're using Synaptics chips, which implement hardware multitouch. It's impressive how PC manufacturers are able to absolutely screw up something as simple as two finger scrolling, which is in most part implemented in hardware (the remainder is tweaking a bunch of parameters). How many times have I encountered unusable trackpads under Windows, which only required a little synctl prod under Linux... It talks at length about the carelessness of manufacturers. FWIW only Apple trackpads made me drop lugging a mouse around. This big-ass, ice-like sliding, smooth surface is a wonder to work on for hours. It seems PC manufacturers conspire to make the smallest, most post-10-min-of-use grinding surface ever: not only the size makes it a pain to aim, having to fight against the surface just kills it.
  - nzmsv 15y ago
    That's the problem: in many recent machines ASUS has used Elantech touchpads to save money. These are are absolutely terrible: they don't even have pressure sensitivity, let alone proper multi-touch.
  - kelnos 15y ago
    From MacBooks to many (most?) PCs they're using Synaptics chips Don't know about PCs, but the current and last gen of MacBook Airs uses the Broadcom bcm5974 touchpad controller, and I believe the MBPs do as well. The Linux "synaptics" driver drives a lot more than just Synaptics chipsets these days.
rayiner 15y ago
The trackpad issue is an absolute deal breaker for me with PC laptops. Bad touchpad feel destroys the direct manipulation illusion. And the illusion is a pretty neat one. Swiping between full screen apps in Lion and gesturing to scroll, zoom, and go backwards and forwards in web pages is just amazing. Do you remember what touch pads were like even 10 years ago? Fiddly things that made you carry a mouse around with you? Mice feel so primitive to me now.
- yardie 15y ago
  Apple got the grain of the glass just right. Using an old plastic trackpad sucks. Either the grain is too course and you rub your finger raw or the grain is too fine. Then your finger sticks to the trackpad. Most laptop users I've observed only use the trackpad when there is no alternative. If they have 5 minutes to put the laptop down on a desk (or any flat surface) they'll break out a mouse. I think IBM had a good idea with the trackpoint nub but most users (unless they were really ardent Thinkpad users) couldn't get the hang of it and went back to the crummy pad or USB mouse.
- mike_esspe 15y ago
  I never used a mouse for the last 10 years. Reading the rant from the article made me wonder, what breakthrough Apple did, that after using their technology you can't use normal touchpad.
- myspy 15y ago
  Gestures are really nice. Switching spaces with swipes is very nice. Also having Mission Control for an overview makes things a lot easier. What I miss when having to deal with Windows, is to, spread my work like I do on OS X. Also, I miss being able to scroll in Windows currently not selected (of any application kind). So I can code in an IDE and scroll through a PDF (only mouse over it) without having to leave the focus of the IDE. The touchpad makes scrolling easy with the two finger swipe.
- DanBC 15y ago
  Apple multi-touch pads are less fun when your one year old child swipes his hand over it, changing god knows what and you having no idea how to get everything back.
Andys 15y ago
Just use the keyboard instead. Takes longer to learn the shortcuts, but you'll be more productive.
blub 15y ago
Any bluetooth mouse is MUCH better than even the best trackpads. It's true that Macs have great trackpads, but I almost never use them anyay.
- udp 15y ago
  I agree with this, but whenever I use my MBP I'm forced to use the trackpad because the mouse acceleration in OS X is so bad. I've tried things like Decelerate and had no joy - the movement of the cursor just seems not to match up with my hand.

forgottenpaswrd 15y ago

"Now whenever I use a PC trackpad, I'm astonished at just how bad they are, even on premium PCs." Yesterday I had to install something on my old computer and I realized how bad the keyboard was, there it was , a piece of clunky , and cheap plastic. I have got used to mac keyboard so much. I also use the magic track pad, OMG, using wacom trackpad was terrible. "Why can't PC manufacturers get it right?" Because it takes a lot of work and money. Apple products are patented and they can't just copy them(magic trackpad uses good quality glass and aluminium instead of plastic) so they need to design new ones, costing millions of dollars per device and this only makes sense if you could sell millions overnight like Apple does.

archangel_one 15y ago
Surely Asus make enough laptops to amortise the cost of designing a decent trackpad over them? I think the problem here is the same thing that manufacturers still haven't gotten; the quality of the build is important, even though it isn't a number that you can put into a spreadsheet for a $/MHz comparison.
Tloewald 15y ago
Apple's smoothing algorithm for mouse movement is something that mad PCs unpleasant to work on for me for years. Those ads I think Microsoft has got it good enough that while it's different it's no longer actively unpleasant, bu it's oe of many, many tiny things Apple sweated over back in 1984 and Microsoft didn't notice at the time. (let's not get into text edit field behavior.)
- Tloewald 15y ago
  Wow was my spelling mangled. Thanks iOS. That's "made PCs" and "These days" and "but it's one"

old-gregg 15y ago

> Why can't PC manufacturers get it right? They do get it right. In fact I find Macs very limiting since they lack this: http://notebook.pconline.com.cn/testing/0504/other/we1net_ibmt43_12m.jpg http://notebook.pconline.com.cn/testing/0504/other/we1net_ib... A laptop without this is not worth buying. See? Who knew than another guy's opinion can be so different... I can type and operate "mouse" without moving my palms from the typing position. I can do all three types of mouse clicks with my thumbs! Moreover, Thinkpad's touchpad provides the most direct feel when moving the cursor [more on this later]. Having the central "pin" for quick cursor jumps (while typing) is absolutely invaluable. Now, about the directness and precision of the touchpad. It's all about drivers. Early white Macbooks had a terrible lag of cursor movement but Apple fixed it later in software. My Thinkpad had somewhat inadequate "cursor feel" under windows 7 which came with it, but under Ubuntu it has the most satisfying "mouse" money can buy, called Ultranav. Lenovo gets it right.

ugh 15y ago
Lenovo has pretty good trackpads but they are tiny. The trackpoint is nice but not for everyone. If you want one you obviously have to buy a Lenovo laptop. I’m not exactly sure, though, why you seem to be so outraged about someone else’s opinion.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- mtrimpe 15y ago
  I’m not exactly sure, though, why you seem to be so outraged about someone else’s opinion. I think this is a dramatic exaggeration of his opinion to illustrate the existence of opposing perspectives.
X-Istence 15y ago
I've owned several laptops that only featured "the nipple" and I had one where it every so often would get stuck in a single position whereby it would always go off to the top left. This seemed to happen after having owned and used it for a year or so. I have also owned several laptops, both Windows and Mac OS X based and my MBP's trackpad is far superior over any other trackpad I've used.

cantbecool 15y ago

PC manufacturers did not acquire FingerWorks, Apple did. I agree with your opinion, PC notebook trackpads are rubish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks

ugh 15y ago

Not all trackpads are created equal. I was playing around with the Acer Aspire S3 (another one of those MacBook Air wannabes) and it had a pretty decent trackpad. Not quite what you get with Macs and by the looks of it also a bit smaller – but at least competent. Looking down the row of laptops left and right to the S3 I was, however, struck by how tiny all the other trackpads were. This seems like such a simple fix. My old 2007 MBP has a larger trackpad than all those Windows laptops. (The S3 actually looks like a pretty nice laptop. It feels nice and stable. The Acer logo also isn’t quite as ugly as the Asus logo. Still, it does many of the usual crappy things Windows laptops tend to do: there are too many damn LEDs and too many damn letters and logos on that thing – and I’m not talking about the removable ones. Those are bad enough but at least removable. And now: monochrome. I guess that’s progress. Specs are a wash – as usual. The S3 has a crappier screen and a worse CPU (not that it matters) but you get more SSD for your money. I’m still not entirely sure why anyone would buy the S3 over the MacBook Air, though. The difference in price is actually pretty small. The only model that is worth considering is the base model with HDD since Apple doesn’t have anything in that price segment.)

dpark 15y ago
The S3 felt really, really cheap to me. The trackpad had too much flex. Everything about it had too much flex. The screen wobbled. I wouldn't buy it for half price. The Samsung Series 9 seems nice, though I haven't used one for an extended period. My boss's boss had one and didn't like it, but I'm not clear why. The trackpad felt nice when I used it, but the port cover design is moronic (they had to add stickers explaining how to open them, and they're fragile, too). It also has bottom vents, which is pretty lame. I'm considering the Lenovo U300s, which looks nice, and not like an Air clone. The only real drawback seems to be the glossy 1366x768 screen.

xxbondsxx 15y ago

Half of it is Apple's Execution. The other half is the challenge of working around patents and working with second-rate electronics.

umtrey 15y ago
I'd say it is entirely Apple's Execution. Someone used this machine before they pushed it out the door. Someone had to have gone, "this trackpad is just awful!" And yet, nothing changed about it, and they released it. It's hard for me to see another brand capturing such equity and such positive reputation when this happens over and over again. If there's a will, there's a way around the patents, etc.
lloeki 15y ago
From MacBooks to many (most?) PCs they're using Synaptics chips, which implement hardware multitouch. It's impressive how PC manufacturers are able to absolutely screw up something as simple as two finger scrolling, which is in most part implemented in hardware (the remainder is tweaking a bunch of parameters). How many times have I encountered unusable trackpads under Windows, which only required a little synctl prod under Linux... It talks at length about the carelessness of manufacturers. FWIW only Apple trackpads made me drop lugging a mouse around. This big-ass, ice-like sliding, smooth surface is a wonder to work on for hours. It seems PC manufacturers conspire to make the smallest, most post-10-min-of-use grinding surface ever: not only the size makes it a pain to aim, having to fight against the surface just kills it.
- nzmsv 15y ago
  That's the problem: in many recent machines ASUS has used Elantech touchpads to save money. These are are absolutely terrible: they don't even have pressure sensitivity, let alone proper multi-touch.
- kelnos 15y ago
  From MacBooks to many (most?) PCs they're using Synaptics chips Don't know about PCs, but the current and last gen of MacBook Airs uses the Broadcom bcm5974 touchpad controller, and I believe the MBPs do as well. The Linux "synaptics" driver drives a lot more than just Synaptics chipsets these days.

rayiner 15y ago

The trackpad issue is an absolute deal breaker for me with PC laptops. Bad touchpad feel destroys the direct manipulation illusion. And the illusion is a pretty neat one. Swiping between full screen apps in Lion and gesturing to scroll, zoom, and go backwards and forwards in web pages is just amazing. Do you remember what touch pads were like even 10 years ago? Fiddly things that made you carry a mouse around with you? Mice feel so primitive to me now.

yardie 15y ago
Apple got the grain of the glass just right. Using an old plastic trackpad sucks. Either the grain is too course and you rub your finger raw or the grain is too fine. Then your finger sticks to the trackpad. Most laptop users I've observed only use the trackpad when there is no alternative. If they have 5 minutes to put the laptop down on a desk (or any flat surface) they'll break out a mouse. I think IBM had a good idea with the trackpoint nub but most users (unless they were really ardent Thinkpad users) couldn't get the hang of it and went back to the crummy pad or USB mouse.
mike_esspe 15y ago
I never used a mouse for the last 10 years. Reading the rant from the article made me wonder, what breakthrough Apple did, that after using their technology you can't use normal touchpad.
myspy 15y ago
Gestures are really nice. Switching spaces with swipes is very nice. Also having Mission Control for an overview makes things a lot easier. What I miss when having to deal with Windows, is to, spread my work like I do on OS X. Also, I miss being able to scroll in Windows currently not selected (of any application kind). So I can code in an IDE and scroll through a PDF (only mouse over it) without having to leave the focus of the IDE. The touchpad makes scrolling easy with the two finger swipe.
DanBC 15y ago
Apple multi-touch pads are less fun when your one year old child swipes his hand over it, changing god knows what and you having no idea how to get everything back.

Andys 15y ago

Just use the keyboard instead. Takes longer to learn the shortcuts, but you'll be more productive.

blub 15y ago

Any bluetooth mouse is MUCH better than even the best trackpads. It's true that Macs have great trackpads, but I almost never use them anyay.

udp 15y ago
I agree with this, but whenever I use my MBP I'm forced to use the trackpad because the mouse acceleration in OS X is so bad. I've tried things like Decelerate and had no joy - the movement of the cursor just seems not to match up with my hand.