I have to strongly disagree here. I own a Surface Book 3 and an M1 MacBook Air. There is no comparison. The Surface track pad is better than most Windows laptops, but not on par with a MacBook.

Also, I bet most of the Apple touchpad magic actually lies in the software. For instance the touchpad on an MBP doesn't feel all that great anymore under Linux (not a dig against Linux, it's just that writing universal touchpad drivers doesn't appear to be a simple and straightforward task).

The issue is Linux (and Windows for that matter) applications have extremely bad graphical feedback.

I haven't seen anything actually competing with the macOS/Safari way of touchpad response. The 3-finger expose command just slides all the windows a bit out of the way so you can switch fluently.

On Safari, scrolling is natural, fluent and non-jarring even on long documents. Just slide a bit to the right with 2 fingers and you get a 'peek' of the previous page in your browser history. If you release the trackpad before completing the gesture the current page slides back gently like a real bit of paper. Pinch to zoom now works on other browsers, but still not as fluent as in Safari.

It takes a tremendous amount of effort to coordinate the data collected by the trackpad, the OS response and graphics stack. If one of those components do not cooperate the 'magic' feeling is lost. I presume that is the issue with big, siloed companies or OSS projects.

I had the exact same experience putting Arch on an old macbook which led me to thinking it was more software than hardware but reading the comments here it does seem like a combination. There was a project from someone from the community here working on better linux drivers for trackpads.

I haven't used Linux on a MBP but I use a Magic Trackpad 2 with my Dell Linux laptop and the external apple pad is light years ahead of the built in Dell one (brand new Dell Precision so hardware age is no excuse)

I had about the same budget as a MacBook Pro, 2000-3000$. I decided to buy a Dell XPS but I could not tell any great difference between laptops in that price range either. I am comparing the XPS against my MBP 16 inch (year 2020).

You can walk through the entire laptop aisle of your nearest department store, and won’t find a single one that feels as precise, smooth or responsive. “Better than all” is a pretty apt description.

isnt it JUST surface though? ALL the other track pads ive tried are abyssmal. A physical click is now a deal breaker for me on a trackpad.

Dell XPS 15 (2020) (and probably the 13 & 17) is basically just as good in my opinion. But other than that, yea most laptops are far behind.

That is actually what I bought (OP) and i could not disagree more

And neither of them can proper detect your intention- as in - does s/he want to swipe or is it just the hand resting after typing.

I'd agree. It would be good to know what laptop OP bought.

It would be nice to have a clear "avoid" brand list for poor trackpads

Or better of, a clear list with good ones.

For a start, anything that relies on Synaptics or other 3rd party touchpad drivers (at least that has been my experience so far).