Absolutely, and it just strikes me how come nobody notices how bad the other trackpads are. I have Dell laptops and a Lenovo, all of them are equally unusable compared to MBPs and just separate Apple trackpads.

One obvious thing is the trackpad surface should be smooth. I don't know, maybe not everyone feels uncomfortable with coarse surfaces, but everyone definitely should feel OK with smooth ones. As simple as that. But there may be something else too that Apple got right, such as sensitivity.

Honestly the competition is pathetic. Just got a new HP laptop for my mother - it has a trackpad of a similar size to the one on my Macbook, but the thing is almost unusable. Is anyone making good trackpads?

If Apple already makes great trackpads for laptops, why not just use their hardware?

What is "usable"? I have Acer 4745G notebook. It has pretty big trackpad. Pinch-to-zoom and two-finger scrolling is working smoothly. Most of the time, i don't use my mouse, only trackpad.

I have a Dell, it's trackpad is fine.

Panasonic does.