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In particular, how well does the multi-touch work (ie. is it laggy or inaccurate) and how many gestures are supported?

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3 Answers 3

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Most laptops have Synaptics touchpads, which have had multitouch for a few years now (two finger I think), and gestures for many more years than that.

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  • Three-finger, at least. Nov 20, 2010 at 5:58
  • @Ignacio: Oh, okay. I have not had a laptop with a touchpad since around 2002. ThinkPad X-series fan.
    – paradroid
    Nov 20, 2010 at 6:01
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    Synaptics multi-touch driver settings on my Envy i.imgur.com/SI7vo.png
    – Sathyajith Bhat
    Nov 20, 2010 at 6:08
  • Are there any competitors to Synaptics?
    – Casebash
    Nov 20, 2010 at 8:19
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    +1, thanks a lot for the tip! I was able to get multi-touch on my 2008 Vista laptop by installing Synaptics Scrybe. Cool!
    – onnodb
    Nov 20, 2010 at 12:16
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Apart from the support in the touchpad, there's also the integration with the OS to be considered. Like: scrolling on a Mac never needs you to first click in the part of the window you want to scroll. (The part to be scrolled does not need focus; KatMouse can solve that, for what I've heard. I guess good drivers can achieve the same.)

Also, on a Mac, drag operations allow you to shortly remove your fingers from the touchpad without ending the drag operation yet. So, when you hit the border of the touchpad, you can put your fingers on the other side of the touchpad and continue dragging from there. (Again, I guess good drivers can support that too.)

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Laggy: no Inaccurate: no These answers are based on my experience. I have never had a problem with multi-touch, ever.

Any computer can have an Apple multi-touch as Apple sells the touch pad (no Apple's is not integrated into any other laptops I'm aware of). There are windows drivers available for it (Win7 is multi-touch capable on my MBP) For a break down of the gestures go here.

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  • Why did you link me to the Mac gestures?
    – Casebash
    Nov 20, 2010 at 8:18
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    "and how many gestures are supported?" I thought it might help answer part of the question you asked.
    – Everett
    Nov 20, 2010 at 8:29
  • About time you learn the top-secret two-spaces trick ;-)
    – Arjan
    Nov 20, 2010 at 15:25
  • Oh, I get what you were thinking. Nm
    – Casebash
    Nov 20, 2010 at 21:57

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