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I worked at an electronics retailer in high school for a couple years, my job was to sell laptops. I sold a lot of laptops. Nerds like us who post comments on h
by xnyan 3y ago
I worked at an electronics retailer in high school for a couple years, my job was to sell laptops. I sold a lot of laptops. Nerds like us who post comments on hacker news can have a hard time understanding the mind of the vast majority of regular people who simply could not care less about trackpad quality. It's just not a thing most people even think about.
- ricardobeat 3y agoMost people don't care about 'drive shaft quality' or 'steering wheel quality' in their cars either, but you can be sure it will be taken good care of by engineering, and subconsciously noticed.
- GeneralAntilles 3y agoThere's truth in your point. People do feel the difference even when they don't notice it, but it doesn't seem like that's always (or even often?) reflected in the bottom line. Nissan sells an awful lot of cars with their crappy CVT transmissions and crossovers continue to be hugely popular in the US.
- numpad0 3y agoPeople notice in subconscious but rarely in the wallet.
- dagmx 3y agoIf I may, I’d make a slight modification to your statement. The vast majority of people don’t care about trackpad quality when it comes to shopping. They do care when they *use* it but they either take it for granted when it works well, or it’s too small a papercut to trade in their device and buy/research a new one. but it all combines together to make a smoother experience when using it, and it can convert people as a part of a whole.
- chaostheory 3y agoThe vast majority of people don’t care enough to pay for it. This is why people balk at the price of Apple Vision even though Apple managed to miniaturize a Macbook into a visor and added LiDAR, two 4K screens, a separate depth sensor, several other cameras, and even a 3D camera to it That said, Mark’s devices aren’t bad for the price. They’ve been the best overall VR headsets for the past 2-3 years.
- bodge5000 3y ago> or it’s too small a papercut to trade in their device and buy/research a new one. Most of the time they don't notice at all unless its truly atrocious or truly mind blowing (and whilst I can firmly say the macbook trackpad is the best I've ever used, lets be honest its not mind blowing). They might notice things don't feel as smooth as it did on their macbook (assuming they even had one last, if not how can you tell something is worse if its all you've ever had), but they're unlikely to narrow this down to the trackpad.
- numpad0 3y agoYes, they buy bottom of the barrel and, if it doesn’t work, assume that is where state of the art is. Few months back I’ve seen anecdotal posts somewhere that new generations of managers are trying to shift computing to phones and tablets because they’re “better than laptops”. No one enforces a delightfulness standard for Windows laptops, and it is creating a skewed perception.
- throw9away6 3y agoI’m surprised we don’t have that yet. Your iPhone would make an excellent Citrix client just dock and wait for your text to show up as you type.
- bhouston 3y agoThere was Samsung Dex. It even could run Linux. Didn’t take off so it was cancelled like 10 years ago.
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- Gigachad 3y agoI think the average person does care about and notice quality, its just a question of if they can afford it. When I look around the coworking space, its almost universally macbooks. And these aren't tech people mostly. But the uni student with a budget that only buys half a macbook doesn't get to care about trackpad quality. Normal people don't say things like "The trackpad is unresponsive and the wifi drivers unreliable" They say "I just don't like it" "It feels kinda crap"
- SanjayMehta 3y agoWith lowcost laptops I've noticed that most users end up using a mouse instead of the trackpad.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]