Can You Suggest a Good Wireless Trackpad?

[ruzzi]

Can you guys suggest a good wireless trackpad that uses all the Windows 10 special trackpad gestures? Its VERY important that the Win 10  gestures work.

[tp4tissue]

get the apple one..

[yensteel]

Although the trackpad is discontinued, the Logitech T650 can still be found new on Ebay pretty cheaply. It supports a few gestures, but not fully. Hopefully Logitech will update the drivers.

Update: I just browsed the Logitech forums, there seems to be a discussion on a firmware update but I couldn't find the exact download link.

[iLLucionist]

get the apple one..

Best there is, really (no fanboy).

But yeah... if it doesn't have win10 gesture support it might not live up to expectations!

[Maave]

The Windows drivers for the Magic Trackpad drivers are awful. They put effort into making it bad. There is no multi-touch/gesture support aside from scrolling and right clicking. There is very limited amount of customization for it, nothing including multi-touch. Double-tap to drag/highlight has a 1-2 second period after the double click with the mouse freezes. Despite having basically no multi-touch features, it'll still choke and freeze if you accidentally touch with another finger, then jumps.

I've been lurking on geekhack without an account for a while, tracking to find some decent external trackpad. I'm considering just ripping one that I already like out of an old laptop and 3d printing a shell for it. I hope I find something ...

[davkol]

I don't understand the requirement for "special" gestures. IME, it just means, that certain keyboard shortcuts are hard-coded as actions for certain gestures, in practice. That's stupid. (Actually, it isn't from vendor's perspective, because they can force planned obsolescence that way.)

[Maave]

I don't understand the requirement for "special" gestures. IME, it just means, that certain keyboard shortcuts are hard-coded as actions for certain gestures, in practice. That's stupid. (Actually, it isn't from vendor's perspective, because they can force planned obsolescence that way.)

It's nice not having to move my hand off the device that I'm using. If I'm on the keyboard I use keyboard shortcuts but if I'm already on the mouse I'll use mouse shortcuts.

[davkol]

I don't understand the requirement for "special" gestures. IME, it just means, that certain keyboard shortcuts are hard-coded as actions for certain gestures, in practice. That's stupid. (Actually, it isn't from vendor's perspective, because they can force planned obsolescence that way.)

It's nice not having to move my hand off the device that I'm using. If I'm on the keyboard I use keyboard shortcuts but if I'm already on the mouse I'll use mouse shortcuts.

…and your point is?

[Maave]

My point is the reason he wants gestures is so that doesn't have to move his hand off the mouse when he doesn't need to .........

[davkol]

You clearly failed to understand my post.

Gestures existed long before multitouch touchpads became common. Mouse gestures were very popular in Opera, for example; you could assign any action to any motion (with some buttons pressed).

Touchpads with gestures "specific" for MS Windows typically have *keyboard* shortcuts hardcoded, i.e., they send stuff like Win-arrows or Win-D to the host. Meanwhile, there are at least 9 standard pointing-device button actions—usually interpreted as primary three clicks, scrolling in four directions and back/forward. The device could easily send those standard codes, allowing users to configure any actions they like. However, it's only possible with some Logitech touchpads and a bit of low-level hacking AFAIK.

[Maave]

Most trackpad drivers are godawful and don't allow any kind of customization. The standard controls are already being used for their standard purposes, remapping those would remove their original function.

[davkol]

Exactly. If you want to use that specific shortcut (that is assigned to a firmware gesture) for something else on the keyboard, well, good luck with that. I've already seen regressions with Win7-optimized touchpads in Win8 or the other way around.

[the_marsbar]

I've never heard of any really good trackpads for Windows.

With my Mac at home I use the new trackpad (with force touch), and I really like it.

[avantdark]

I've never heard of any really good trackpads for Windows.

With my Mac at home I use the new trackpad (with force touch), and I really like it.

yes. i really love my trackpad 2! Worth the money!

[HappyCatFish]

I use the Apple Magic trackpad 2 as well and I like it even though it has pretty awful windows support.


It's just that no other company makes a really premium trackpad. You could always use a Wacom tablet as a trackpad though, and they support a few multi finger gestures and have dedicated buttons that you can remap to whatever you want. Small ones aren't too expensive either.