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Comment by simonebrunozzi | Hacker News Reader

The single thing that prevents me from switching from a Macbook to a Dell XPS is the Apple trackpad. Think about it.

But this laptop has a "precision touchpad" ie. one that doesn't have a 3rd party driver and interfaces with Windows directly [1] (it's maybe the first one to?). Reportedly it's much more like a Macbook in responsiveness. So maybe there are zero things now

[1] https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn...

TheVerge gave the new xps's touchpad a fairly bad review; but ya, I think it is the biggest blocker for most of us.

A nice little thought-terminating stance. Considering Dell computers can never have Apple parts.

Well the Apple touchpad really is that good, it's another one of those things that kept me from ever considering non-Apple laptops. Maybe one could use a magic trackpad paired to their Dell..

If, after years of trying, OEMs still can't produce a trackpad on par with Apple's offerings, that's on them, not their potential customers who are turned off by the absence.

Maybe it's because of patents?

https://www.google.com/patents/US8049736

Very informative, thanks! I didn't realise how much I enjoy the trackpad (that is, don't fight it and curse at it) until I come to use a Windows laptop and pinch to zoom, swipe left/right etc. doesn't work.

In fact, using a MacBook in Windows is a frustrating experience as the touchpad doesn't work as it does under OSX.

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