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Ask HN: Bad touchpads – hardware or software?

2 pointsby supermatouover 7 years ago
Why are typical laptop touchpads so lousy, compared to those in Macbooks? Is it the cheap (i.e. less capable) hardware? That wouldn&#x27;t make sense to me: when you pay hundreds of dollars for a laptop, you&#x27;d be happy to pay a few (dozen?) dollars more for a quality touchpad and the manufacturers should know that.<p>Or is it the software - as in patents that prevent the manufacturers from offering the same smooth gestures with their drivers&#x2F;software?<p>Anyone have an authoritative explanation?

2 comments

tqhover 7 years ago
It&#x27;s mostly about bandwidth depending on how the device is connected inside the computer (usb is much better than ps&#x2F;2 or serial), polling frequency, and software filtering raw data properly (duplicates and such). Some improvements <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;torvalds&#x2F;linux&#x2F;commit&#x2F;c774326a219536ab615d68a22875673f6f608b62" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;torvalds&#x2F;linux&#x2F;commit&#x2F;c774326a219536ab615...</a>
PaulHouleover 7 years ago
I&#x27;d rather save the dozen dollars and spend it on a mouse.