I'm not saying whether or not Apple trackpads are better or worse than PC trackpads, but I don't think I've seen a laptop that doesn't support multi touch scrolling (horizontal and vertical, of course) in at least 5 years. Maybe in the low budget range? The side scrolling thing is there for the people who are used to it, but two finger drag has been standardised in any laptop I've seen.

My laptop has a Synaptics trackpad and while it doesn't have stuff like force touch, it's just as comfortable as using a mouse in many occasions.