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> I think the reason is that "a good trackpad" as well as "a good keyboard" is not something that can be measured.

While I agree that these metrics can be subjective at times, I believe there are some fairly well-established features that dictate whether something is, objectively, a good product. In the case of a trackpad, gestures such as pinch to zoom are arguably an essential (for me at least), as well as stepless scrolling, configurable pointer acceleration configuration, and a reasonable size.

In the case of a keyboard, sure -- that's a whole other kettle of fish. I quite like the one on my Dell XPS, but I'm sure some others wouldn't.

However, I think you've downplayed how much a keyboard matters here: for me, it makes or breaks a laptop (or a USB keyboard, of course). When the laptop is on, I'm spending a good 70% of my time using the keyboard. Therefore, I would argue it is one of the most important things to get right.

I've come across good keyboards, bad ones, and ones that are just OK -- as an example, the more sponge-like ones on Logitech media keyboards do not make a good experience. In my experience, you have to try a keyboard to know whether you like it, but you can filter out plain terrible ones from other online reviewers' experiences.

> In the case of a trackpad, gestures such as pinch to zoom are arguably an essential (for me at least), as well as stepless scrolling, configurable pointer acceleration configuration, and a reasonable size.

I'm typing this on my work windows laptop, which can tick all these boxes!

But the experience is still terrible. While the acceleration and such are fine enough for my use, I still get the feeling there's some lag between my finger movement and the pointer on the screen. There are things which I loved on my 11 yo mac which still don't exist on windows, like "drag hold" which only holds for a little while. On windows, it either doesn't hold at all, or holds forever. But this is purely a software issue.

Funnily enough, Linux with X11 on this very same laptop runs circles around windows, and has none of these issues.

I've never had any issue with palm detection on either OS, but I'm not sure if it's because it works well, or because of the size and position of the touchpad.

However, despite the poor performance on Windows, I still find it usable for random "office" use, and never felt the need to cart around a mouse when I'm not at my desk.

>I still get the feeling there's some lag between my finger movement and the pointer on the screen.

This is a big one. Something I found really impressive, even on the first iPhone in 2007, was that it felt like my finger was moving the display itself, rather than performing a gesture to elicit an action. I feel the same way about the macOS trackpad, it feels almost connected to what is on screen. Other systems usually have that gesture/response feeling, which doesn't feel good natural to use.

Yeah, no. Just tried on rando iPhone SE 1st gen I have here for some tests, and it lags on scrolling just like any other phone from similar era. You just slide back and forth slowly and observe the content of the screen pretty clearly not following the changes in direction immediately, and you can observe about 1-2cm distance between your finger and text.

It's impossible to be in sync anyway, unless you avoid VSYNC, and then you'll have tearing ans at best halve the delay. There are limits to these things that not even "Apple" can violate.

And first iPhone sure was not faster than SE.

Maybe with some 120+Hz refresh rate, and some SW tricks, you can get close to what you're talking about. First iPhone did not have that.

Sample size of 1 and whatnot, but this has absolutely never been my experience on my iphone 7, which I've kept up to date and stopped using less than a year ago. Scrolling in Mail, for example, was the contents following my finger. Hell, I complain about Android phones, even newer ones, which lag while scrolling the settings app, but even there I've never noticed that big of a distance between the finger and the text.

Never handled an SE, though, but I doubt it's worse.

https://nanoreview.net/en/phone/apple-iphone-7

> Response time 35.5 ms

So at 60 fps, that's 2 frames delay + some. (and this is just display response time and doesn't include the content rendering, double buffering, and the input lag)

Here's the input lag for phones from similar era as the SE 1st gen: https://blog.gamebench.net/touch-latency-benchmarks-iphone-x... (88ms)

Another set of numbers: https://danluu.com/input-lag/

You can move your finger quite far in 80ms.

> they can put the price tag they want on it. Want they spend 100$ on a trackpad, they can, but a PC manufacturer can't

Why can't they?

Because they will have a more expensive laptop with nothing to show for it on the label, and customers will buy cheaper ones with "the same specs".

You can't really put "better touchpad" on a label... or can you?

Why couldn't they? Why is a trackpad different than better speakers or camera or battery runtime or having quiet fans?

They should invent a measurement unit for trackpads/touchpads, whatever we call them. Then a grade 5 touchpad will be immediately perceived as better than a grade 4 one. Or Basic, Business, Elite. Marketing teams are good at that.

I can get on board with that. Just some kind of language to describe a touchpad in marketing material. Without it, it is hard to see, without living with it, how a touch pad differs across two or more devices. I tend to think of touchpads as Mac touch pads and non-touch pads. Even though that is wrong.

Microsoft tried "precision touchpad" and I think there was some uptake. But you never see it advertised anymore, so maybe it didn't drive many sales?

They made it a requirement for Windows 11, so the term no longer provides any differentiation.

Because those who make that choice believe (or have data proving it, but my feeling is that usually they just believe) that users are too dumb to understand.

That's a real problem in many situations: users are often under-estimated (they are also often dumb, which doesn't help).

This whole thread is about people buying Macs because they have great touchpads (and I agree with that - I also would never buy anything else because of the touchpad).

Apple doesn't put "better touchpad" on their labels either. It's just very very obvious that they're better.

> Apple doesn't put "better touchpad" on their labels either. It's just very very obvious that they're better.

Exactly. Everyone knows Apple has better touchpad, but nobody knows that about some random PC manufacturer. How will they signal that he has better touchpad in order to justify the higher price?

By sending their laptop to shops and reviewers for people to try?

There are plenty of PC manufacturers that aren't "some random PC manufacturer". ThinkPad, Asus, Acer, HP, Dell. They are known brands that can easily maintain reputations.

I've read PC reviews that do point out when a touchpad is abysmal or excellent, or list models with good touchpads (https://www.windowscentral.com/best-laptop-touchpad) but near as I can tell most customers aren't willing to spend more money on a model with an excellent touchpad so it's not surprising that most manufacturers don't bother adding them except possibly on their premium lines.

I would also wager that the sort of customers who are willing to spend more for interface refinements like an excellent touchpad already use Apple hardware at a higher rate than the general population, further shrinking customer demand for good PC touchpads.

> as I can tell most customers aren't willing to spend more money on a model with an excellent touchpad so it's not surprising that most manufacturers don't bother adding them except possibly on their premium lines.

Of course, I don't think anyone would expect an Apple level touchpad on a budget Windows laptop. But they don't even seem to be on premium Windows laptops.

You're probably right that premium Windows laptops are a super niche market so there isn't much incentive for touchpad manufacturers to cater to it. That's one huge advantage Apple has. If they want a product that no manufacturers want to make, they can just make it themselves.

> But they don't even seem to be on premium Windows laptops.

Yeah, from that my conclusion is that the market for Windows laptops with really excellent touchpads is simply not large enough to be worth pursuing. My guess is that the increase in revenue between a "good enough touchpad" and "really excellent touchpad" is nowhere near enough to cover the astronomical costs of developing one.

It is NOT a hardware issue. I used Hackintosh on my T460s and the macOS experience was nearly as good as on a MacBook Pro (hardly noticable difference). Switching back to Linux / Windows was the usual "meh" experience.