I’m coming on 2 weeks of daily driving my Framework laptop. 13th Gen Intel 13inch. I absolutely love it! It is light, keyboard feels great, the chassis doesn’t feel cheap and flimsy, the screen aspect ratio is something that felt odd at first but I’ve come to absolutely love it (especially for spreadsheets), the battery life has been pretty good but I about always have a charger and outlet near me.
BUT
This damn trackpad is awful. I mean, for a laptop that costs what these cost it really is the weakest point. (I could say that about the speakers but I always have my AirPods with me and they work surprisingly well with Windows 11)
Clicking near the top of it is almost impossible. I also notice a solid couple millisecond delay when clicking or tapping. When using an external mouse (normally a G305, or M705) that latency is not there.
If Framework ever comes out with a V2 of the trackpad I would happily THROW my money at them! All in all, I’m very happy with this laptop. Just fix the damn trackpad, please!
Clicking near the top of it is almost impossible.
First time using a non-Mac trackpad or something? What you describe is how they have worked for nearly 2 decades. The button is under the bottom edge and the trackpad pivots from the top. Clicking will always more difficult as you move towards the top. And should be nearly impossible near the top. Try opening a door with your hand near the hinge. It’s going to be significantly harder than pushing out at the knob.
First time using a non-Mac trackpad or something?
This made me chuckle, because it reminded of when I got my first Windows laptop a couple years ago coming from Mac. Mid-range MSI gaming laptop, 99% of the budget was sunk into CPU+GPU. I RMA’ed it thinking I had a defective trackpad, got the replacement and realized that nope, they just suck as a feature.
And should be nearly impossible near the top.
I get what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t go that far. Just because something has been done the same way for 20 years doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be. The gap in quality between Apple trackpads and… literally everything else is embarrassing for the industry, and should be complained about IMO.
I’m also not a fan of the trackpad, but mostly that’s because I hate the ergonomics of trackpads in general and am still praying for a Thinkpad keyboard mod; I haven’t experienced the lag you’ve described. Have you tried updating the firmware?
I’m jumping from a Thinkpad X1 extreme and thought the trackpad was a massive improvement. I don’t ever try clicking near the top, though, which I guess is where you’re mainly having issues. I also disable tap to click because I hate it
You use your thumb dont you?
Just middle and pointer fingers
Keep voting for a partnership between /u/SenselInc and Framework!
Yeah, sounds like you’ve got a bad trackpad. Mine has zero latency and it’s easy to click anywhere on its surface, even at the top where it only has a little more resistance. I’d troubleshoot with Framework and see if you can get a replacement shipped out to you.
With enhance pointer precision on (or whatever it is called in windows now) the trackpad to me was poor (or Adaptive acceleration profile in KDE/Linux).
Once I switched them off (and enabled tap to click since the trackpad is firmer to physically click) I’m OK with it. I also upped the pointer acceleration a bit to compensate for the flat acceleration profile.
Coming from a M1 MacBook Pro which I’d rate the trackpad as a 10, I’d give the Framework an 8 for pointing and two finger scrolling and a 6 for clicking.
If Framework ever comes out with a V2 trackpad that matches the MacBook one I’d throw considerable money at them.
The first thing I do on any PC is disable enhance pointer precision. I absolutely hate it!
I have access to a couple framework laptops (including the one I’m using now) and I’m not noticing any delay clicking or tapping near the top.
That said I really wouldn’t mind an option for a haptic touchpad.
Just here to comment about a bit that amused me.
You say that you don’t care about how bad the speakers are becuase you use airpods.
I could turn the trackpad conversation around and say I don’t care that the trackpad is bad because I always use a mouse.
Don’t give something that’s not great on the system a pass because you work around it. The speakers are easily the worst part of a framework laptop. I own a 13th gen i5 system myself and the speakers are so bad it was almost a deal breaker for me.
As for the trackpad itself, I’ve definitely used much worse. But it is far from the best I’ve ever used. My work laptop with is a standard issue midrange dell latitude that is plastic-tastic has a better trackpad.
Are the speakers really that bad??? I thought they were just the normal bad of downward firing laptop speakers
There’s a windows setting which tunes trackpad sensitivity. Maybe you can try playing around with that? I remember I had similarly annoying lag with a Dell XPS which was fixed that way.
edit: I mean this setting
The panel refreshes every 16.7 millisecond, so a latency of a couple millisecond (1-10ms) shouldn’t be detectable. Please clarify if your latency is a couple tens or hundreds of milliseconds, aka the order of magnitude/a closer estimate.
