I am coming from a 2007 15" macbook pro, which has/had a very good trackpad on it with very responsive two finger scrolling and just the perfect amount of acceleration. I’ve tried the new macbook pros and Apple has pretty much improved everything about them, especially the trackpad – they added a glass surface, removed the click button to increase surface area, made the whole thing bigger, and in the latest OS has added a bunch of really well implemented gestures.
Anyways, sorry if that sounded like an Apple advert, but has anyone used a windows laptop with a similar performing touchpad? I have used a Dell xps laptop and the touchpad on it was total rubbish. two-finger scrolling was just very poorly implemented, and felt unresponsive and jerky.
I am not encouraged when I read articles like this: http://pandodaily.com/2012/06/24/why-does-every-pc-notebooks-trackpad-suck-or-why-microsoft-is-building-its-own-hardware/
The issue, as far as I know, is a fundamental one: Apple designs the operating system and the hardware (in this case). PC manufacturers just buy the touchpad from third party (Synaptic, Elantech, ALPS) and rely on those manufacturers’ drivers. I’ve also read that windows is relying on PS/2 for their touchpads, whereas apple has developed the interface from the ground up (http://www.quora.com/Why-can-no-PC-laptop-match-the-touchpad-of-a-Mac)
The problem with macbooks is that a high spec 15" macbook pro with 3-year warranty is well over $2000 even if you upgrade the ram and hard drive yourself, which is only possible on the non-retina model unfortunately. I could buy 2 windows laptops with the same basic specs for that much money, which is pretty ridiculous.