An "annoying touchpad" is likely a dealbreaker for me. It's the holy grail for Linux to me and I feel like it's never been solved by anybody but Apple (w/o Linux).
That being said, I could exist in the command line most of the time...
That being said, I could exist in the command line most of the time...
However, apparently Pinebook's one is actually pretty problematic and needs some firmware updates to work better.
I don't even notice the apple trackpad when I'm using it. Others, I do notice.
Whatever process Apple uses to finish the glass touchpad surface must be hard to replicate, because I haven't found anything comparable.
Some are bearable, but not as much of a joy to use (compared to other input devices).
Those differences are very minor though compared to how touchpads used to work and feel like on Windows 10 years ago.
When it comes to how well they work, they're all essentially equivalent. The only reason to get the Apple one is if you care about its quiet haptic feedback (the Dell XPS one clicks very loudly) - and on Linux you can actually make it even more quiet than what macOS allows you to configure ;]
The only difference in the actual hardware that I noticed (aside of the surface texture, which is up to personal taste, and of course size, which you can easily check before even buying) is that the ones from the first half of the decade required some jitter-filtering in software, while newer ones did not. Also, Apple touchpad does an unusually big share of input filtering on the device itself, while most other ones leave it to the software (which is fine, unless your software does it poorly of course).
Generally Windows drivers for touchpads used to be shit for a very long time; this only started to change a few years ago. On GNU/Linux it depends on the configuration, but there's a ridiculous amount of ways to screw it up, so some people don't even realize that it can be better (although it seems to be getting better with recent driver stacks).
While I'll admit Apple's trackpads have been the best laptop trackpads for the past several years, I personally hate trackpads. I always make sure I have a mouse in my laptop bag.
This is going to date me, but my very first laptop was a Powerbook 170, and damn, I loved its trackball.
For my desktop, I recently switched from a mouse to a Kensington trackball because I had some wrist issues using a mouse, and it's fantastic. I was concerned that my four monitor setup would be an issue moving the pointer from end to end, but it hasn't been an issue at all.
The annoying touchpad doesn't work. It isn't accurate and difficult to click anything with any sort of accuracy. It also activates easily when you are typing.
It's honestly the biggest issue with the laptop and the primary reason why I stopped using it after a few days. I might give it another go with a different keyboard layout and disabling the touchpad. The screen and case are great. The keyboard I have is meh, but not too different from a mid-grade Chromebook.
Reminds me of the days of cleaning mouse balls. Man, those things get covered with the grossest stuff.
Thought briefly about cleaning it, but then went back to my blissful ignorance.