As a user of both the Macbook Pro and the X1 Carbon, I have to agree. The MBP touchpad handles gestures and palm rejection really well. On the other hand I get accidental swipes every hour with the X1 Carbon that I can only bear using its keyboard in an emergency. FWIW I have oversized hands.

However, I do overshoot and tap the MBP touchbar now and then, which can be annoying.

Unless you are really good at keeping your hands off the trackpad when you rest your hands, the previous generation trackpad was overall better in day to day use, and anything bigger is better as an external peripheral.

The problem is, Apple’s palm rejection tech just isn’t good enough, and if you have to write fancy software to cover a deficiency in the size of a piece of hardware, then you’re better off going with the smaller size. I’m assuming without the palm rejection, it would be an even bigger issue, and I wouldn’t trust any OEMs to get that right.

That said, it is only comparatively worse than the previous generation of Apple’s laptop trackpads which was already enormous, and arguably enormous enough. Compared to other laptops from other vendors, I could definitely see the appeal.

But they were perfect until 2015, making them bigger is a downgrade IMO as well. What’s the point of huge trackpad on a 13–15 inch screen?

Maybe if they centered the damm thing with regard to where your hands rest, vs the center of the laptop.

As it is now, the trackpad is shifted significantly to the right - so much so that my right Palm is constantly triggering it.

I’m basically forced to use a mouse and disable the trackpad while the mouse is connected.

Yet another aesthetic choice that screws up functionality..

I can’t stand using Any trackpad, but the huge Mac one literally deters me from buying a Macbook. I am very much sold on Trackpoint, which I find to be all of conveniently positioned, not nearly as accident prone, and quite precise. Some also don’t realize this, but if you hold the middle button while pointing the trackpoint, it scrolls, which is super useful; I hardly have to move my hands to operate the pointer. A lot of people with aversion to trackpoint can be seen doing odd things, like scrubbing across it like its a mouse or trackpad. Once you get past these issues, which unfortunately does represent a learning curve, it’s quite good in my opinion.

My take: I think the touchbar and giant touchpad are both symptoms of Apple’s aversion to put a touchscreen on the Mac. With many Thinkpads and other PC laptops, you may not get quite as good of a touchpad experience (though Microsoft Precision Touchpad is a pretty good experience I would argue,) but my touchscreen experience with even Linux has been pretty good in recent years, and it has ended up being a useful, if not quite killer, feature to have.

Touchbar makes little sense to me. Power users don’t look down at their keyboards. I think the same reason Valve dropped the screen on the Steam controller applies to keyboards, and is probably part of the reason why similar visual keyboard utilities have largely not sold well. Interestingly, ones that have, like the Streamdeck, are often designed to be positioned on a much more convenient angle. On top of all of this, it didn’t seem worth getting rid of the useful fixed-position keys for a programmable bar.

And on top of everything... I don’t even think Apple has made the most compelling innovative designs in this space anyways. PC laptop manufacturers have been trying arguably more interesting and possibly even more useful concepts for a while to varying degrees of success. For example, MSI has a keyboard where the number pad is a programmable touchscreen. I believe ASUS has a laptop where instead of a touchbar, you get 3 small desktops that you can pin things to. Granted, none of these things are likely to stick in the long term, but I also believe the touchbar won’t either.

I think I get why Apple does not want to put a touchscreen on Mac: the interface isn’t really designed for it. But as much as I have a strong dislike of Windows 10s propensity to install Candy Crush without my consent, I will also concede and say it does a seriously excellent job handling a touchscreen on a desktop. It’s a shame that it will take so long to clean up decades of UI cruft, but even with it, Windows turns out to be a good experience with a touchscreen so as long as you have another precise pointing method simultaneously.

So after all is said and done, and contrary to probably many people’s sensibilities, I actually think the PC laptop market is doing peripherals better, even if the touchpad drivers can be a bummer.

It absolutely boggles my mind that people can't keep in mind that everyone has different preferences.

It's not the best part of the Macbook, it's your favourite part of the Macbook.

There very rarely is an objective best in anything. There is only what you like and need.