I literally just want a touchpad with buttons. These new 'clickpads' are the bane of my existence. They are so much slower, and certain workflows are impossible. I must use an external mouse now with modern laptops.

Why can no laptop manufacturer even make this an option?

> Why can no laptop manufacturer even make this an option?

Because it’s a variation of both the case and the internals that brings a higher failure rate, more dust ingress, more moving parts, and, most importantly, would rarely be chosen.

> They are so much slower,

They are objectively faster because you can click anywhere rather than moving a finger to a button or keeping one finger always on the button.

Some people used to use a separate finger like the thumb to click, which is pretty fast.

This is my issue! All these years later, I am still not used to it, and I accidentally trigger multi-tap nonsense that I didn't intend because I am trying to click with my thumb.

My only point of reference is my MacBook Pro trackpad but I have no problem using my finger to move the cursor with my thumb resting on the trackpad and clicking. Not exactly the same because you lose some of the tactility of discrete buttons but it seems somewhat possible at least.

Yeah, most of the non-apple implementations of this don’t work with using a second finger to click in my experience. They expect you to click with the pointing finger.

Exactly. On ThinkPad touchpads with real hardware mouse buttons, I move on the touchpad with my pointer finger, and click with my middle finger.

> They are objectively faster because you can click anywhere rather than moving a finger to a button or keeping one finger always on the button.

I have no problem with the current trackpad (and prefer it), but when I used a trackpad with dedicated buttons, i'd use my index finger to track and my thumb to click, so I wouldn't have to move my fingers around at all.

Regardless, why do we feel the need to argue with people's personal preferences? You don't have to agree with someone on this. It's fine. People can prefer other things.

Can’t you map a keyboard button as a mouse click? I agree it’s not the best workaround but it should be a functional one, right?

My current plan is to retrofit buttons to my clickpad. Earlier this week I ordered a few different styles of touchpad buttons from AliExpress to test. I'll build a custom little USB HID device for it once I've picked my favourite one.

I don't think I can rely on laptop manufacturers to buck the clickpad trend any time soon, so I'll do it myself.

That would be incredibly cool. Please post a Show HN of your project. I'm afraid that I'll need to do something like that for my next laptop.

Can only speak for myself, but for me the issue with traditional clickpads comes down to their mechanical diving board nature. Even the best ones are not nice to use due to the unavoidable variance in pressure and click feel across the pad that is exacerbated as the size of the pad increases and the mechanism wears over time.

The type that doesn’t move at all and simulates a click with haptics on the other hand I find just fine. MacBooks do this of course but there’s also a few x86 laptops equipped with pads like that.

So in my opinion, mechanical clickpads should disappear entirely and laptops should offer two options: a static haptic clickpad and traditional trackpad with buttons.

Honestly, I'm here half wondering why we need the click at all. One finger drag for move, quick one finger tap for left click, tap and half for click and drag, two finger tap, two finger drag for scroll covers all the common interactions.

Which isn't to say I don't use the click functionality at all. I will subconciously use it in some scenarios, but not in others, but if it were missing I would adapt very quickly, since I use the gesture alternatives so often, that I would automatically fall back to them.

I suppose I need the click for some obscure interactions like right click drag, but honestly except in games I've almost never seen that used. My surface laptop as currently configured literally wouldn't even allow some other rare ones like hold button and scroll (I'd need to turn on right side scroll-wheel for that) and I've never even noticed the absence of that ability until I tried it just now.

I’ve never missed having buttons on the macbook trackpad lol

How are they slower/impossible?

I've missed them every time I've been in the unfortunate position of dealing with someone else's macOS system. It's all a matter of what you're accustomed to.

They said the mac solution is slower than discrete buttons, I’m contesting that part specifically

I stand by what I said. It may not be slower for you.

Problem is none of the trackpad on PC are as good as the Apple trackpad

Hardware-wise, no, I've had plenty of PC trackpads that are better than Apple trackpads. But MacOS tends to have better built-in support for advanced gestures, which seem to be impossible on Windows and must be manually configured on Linux (but gives you enormous power once you do).

GNOME on Wayland has lots of useful gestures out of the box. It's part of the DE though, so lots of DEs don't have them.

Using Gnome (for whatever reason), I'm used to two finger scrolling and three finger swiping just working by default.

Apple's palm rejection is also top tier, though other systems have been getting better. My current Dell seems fine so far, but at my last company the Dell I had was almost unusable due to my cursor just teleporting around my document randomly if my hands got too close to the trackpad (which is where they have to be to type).

Not sure if it's a hardware (Dell) or software (Ubuntu) improvement, but thank god.

Even Apple's palm rejection is not good enough for me. I really hated the huge touchpad when I was using a Mac.

... it's a software problem afaik. The trackpad may be slightly better quality, but it's the drivers and the OS integration that make even some games playable without a mouse on Mac OS.

Don't think any one x86 laptop manufacturer can fix it.

You could try putting a trackpad from a macbook into the framework. AFAIK the palm rejection is all in the firmware. The apple trackpad is USB. If you look at the code for Asahi Linux it could tell you more.

I assume some gestures are simply not possible. Like click-to-drag and scroll simultaneously. Not every app handles gutter-hover-to-scroll in a usable way. On a mouse or a pad with buttons, you can keep the left click held down and scroll with the wheel or gesture. Uni-pads make this impossible.

You assume it wrong. You can click-to-drag and scroll simultaneously without issues on an Apple trackpad.

How does that work? You've got to tap the touchpad to trigger the initial click, don't you? For some reason, I really HATE tapping a touchpad (let that be an Apple or otherwise), it breaks my flow, I suppose? (like, you have to pause at the cursor's location, lift, tap twice to initiate a dragging event, then finally move on) whereas on the ThinkPad I daily drive I do all the cursor movement/scrolling with my right hand and the selection/clicking with my left thumb on the physical key that sits on the top of the touchpad sensitive area. That makes click&drag workflows super efficient, I find.

You click and drag with one finger and you are free to scroll with two other fingers during the drag. It is a multitouch gesture. (I don't use "tap to click" since I always found it cumbersome)

Just for me to understand, you navigate to that thing you want to drag, then press harder (without the double-tap+move in short sequence, do there's that), and that registers a drag event?

Could you do the "press harder" part with, e.g. a thumb in an other region of the touchpad instead of the finger that did the navigation?

Yes, you can. As long as one finger is "pressing hard-ish" a second finger can command the drag position, but if the finger that is pressing (you do not need to press very hard to trigger a click) is not the one that is also moving, then you will have issues when also scrolling with two other fingers, because at that point you have 4 fingers touching the trackpad, and by default you get anoter gesture registered (probably a zoom out to see all the windows in the workspace, called "expose"). If the fingers touching the trackpad are "only" three, you can drag and scroll, with the window that receives the scroll being the one under the pointer/item being dragged.

Thanks for clarifying, it seems analogous to having a physical mouse button, then (except that the haptic feedback is simulated, which strangely isn't off-putting to most, I've personally always felt the sensation uncanny)

"Without issues" is a stretch. You need to use two hands or be skilled with one. Its trivial on a mouse or a pad with a discrete buttons.

But ok, what about just dragging a long distance where you would normally lift the mouse or finger? Is there some hidden gesture for this? Maybe once your initial drag finger hits the edge you need to use two more to do a move gesture? But I've seen that trigger scroll and/or pinch-to-zoom.

> what about just dragging a long distance where you would normally lift the mouse or finger?

This is why you set Trackpad speed to "fastest", and take advantage of the aggressive trackpad acceleration. When you move your finger quickly you'll easily reach the far side of the screen before your finger reaches the edge of the pad, and slow finger movements will still be precise

I'm probably missing some context, but on my Mac I'm using three fingers drag and I can lift fingers and (quickly) reposition them without breaking the drag.

This reminded me of a feature in windows where if you were dragging something and reached the end of the touchpad, the cursor would continue on the same trajectory as long as you kept your finger at the edge of the touchpad. Then you could overshoot a little so you could bring your fingers back to the middle to regain maneuverability. I haven't missed it since I switched to linux but now that I'm thinking about it that was a very nice touch (no pun intended).

I have the external apple trackpad (the most recent usb-c version at that) and this click-to-drag and then attempting to scroll does not work on Linux. Seems like this might have been a particular attention to detail on part of macOS devs.

As far as I know touchpad implementations just report finger locations and its up to software to interpret what a combination of these gestures means.

Because the macbook trackpad is good.

I feel you. An option with a trackpoint would be a dream.

What workflows are impossible with a trackpad but possible with a mouse?

With the trackpads that have built-in clicks in the pad itself, I've always found it really difficult to drag-and-drop stuff if it has to be pulled longer than a few pixels. Just moving and pressing against a surface seems to not be a super accurate movement in general.

Have you tried holding with one finger and aiming with the other?

I don't think I have, long time ago I had to use a laptop myself, just remember that being difficult last time I had to do it together with someone else. Probably depends on the software/hardware itself also, how well something like that would work.

Have you? The precision vs a touchpad with buttons isn't even close. It may well be a driver issue in Linux, all I know for sure is that it's an issue that does not exist with touchpads and that I have already spent far too much of my life fiddling with settings trying to get it to behave.

I have, yes! I do it a lot when dragging and dropping on Linux. Start the drag with one finger, and then bring a new finger in to move it. It's just like using a button.

I've not had to configure anything to make this work for a number of years now in Plasma. Though I've been running Linux on Macbooks for a long time, so maybe it's about specific hardware support.

I never had problems with precision on HP high end models, Windows XP up to 2008 and several Ubuntu versions since then to 2022, then Debian.

I own an nc8430 and a ZBook 15 first generation. I use the lower row of three mouse buttons as left, middle and right click. Those touchpads don't move and don't bend. I disabled tap to click as buttons are much better and never move accidentally the pointer by design. Palm detection works very well, basically no issues. I use two finger scroll and pan. Several gestures work but I don't really like them. I disabled everything. I rather use keyboard shortcuts. I defined some of my own especially to navigate among virtual desktops.

There is still one ZBook Fury model with buttons, every other model lost them.

Although it gets buggier with every release, macOS has a three-finger-drag operation, and there's a grace period when you lift your fingers if you need to adjust your position over the trackpad. It also lets you just fling one finger.

There is this for Linux but I've never tried it:

https://github.com/marsqing/libinput-three-finger-drag

While I prefer an external mouse, I can manage ECAD and some 3D modelling if I have buttons. It's great in a pinch. I'm getting nauseous even imagining it with a clickpad.

Thinkpads still have buttons. I don't ever use the trackpad, just the nub and buttons.

I use the touchpad together with the buttons, on my ThinkPad, and rarely use the stick.

I would be all in on the nub if mine didn't have such terrible drift. Trackpad with top buttons beats any other trackpad though.

You may be running into the auto calibration.

Best keyboard/mouse implementation ever. I use a thinkpad keyboard on my desktop. A separate mouse feels so klunky by comparison.

I have bad news for you:

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadp/th...

Someone should scoop up the niche market of anguished ThinkPad devotees, with a TrackPoint and a good, non-chiclet keyboard. Maybe Framework, leveraging its modular system. Maybe a Framework-compatible third-party.

Why have a trackpoint if there are no buttons? Dafuq?

I think you're supposed to touch the touchpad in particular ways with your thumb, while using your index finger on the TrackPoint stick.

I wonder what the set intersection is, between people who want TrackPoint sticks, and people who don't want TrackPoint buttons.

ThinkPad industrial design the last several years seems focused on looking thin and sleek -- like an Apple product, only in matte black, with a red accent in the middle of the keyboard -- but some of the human factors changes aren't intuitive to me.

Current models of the X1 have the option of having buttons or not. Which seems fine, but hopefully it isn't a sign that they're trying to drop the option of buttons.

it's the sign they are researching if there are enough demand for the nipple.

I just watched Framework's other video talking about what they're working on[1], and they mentioned they're trying to get the trackpoint working, but they're having issues with it damaging the screen due to the low clearance.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RzUBqtgODM

Thanks. At 11m. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RzUBqtgODM&t=11m

what a dumb thing to do. How do you even scroll with the nub?

Some Dell business models have them as well... I used to be a fan, but at this point I prefer the Mac touchpad experience. The closest I've felt are Razor and a few higher end Chromebooks (that I won' t buy). I'm hoping other mfgs get a lot closer to the Apple touchpad experience as patents start to expire in the next few years.

There's a few that are close, but still not close enough. Also, Mac slightly changed their default settings (regarding the physical click behavior), I never recall what it is but only that I change it back when starting out on a new machine.

ThinkPads still have buttons, or do you require buttons specifically under the touchpad?

The Touchpad Module is easy to replace, and the CAD and interface specs we've published on https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Framework-Laptop-16 are likely detailed enough that anyone can try making one!

How much demand would there need to be for you to make one first-party?

How might we go about registering the quantity of that demand?

Aside: what if frame.work site had a place for popular vote for features? (With proper registration, etc.) E.g. Digital Ocean has this, and it seems helpful, they follow up on some of the most upvoted feature requests. It's sort of free market research.

Kickstarter style upfront payment may be more useful. You want touchpad with buttons; it would cost 300k to develop if enough people paid, the company would build it. If it is a niche, let open ecosystem take care of it.

> These new 'clickpads' are the bane of my existence.

But only because they are all worse than Apple's version. What you really want isn't a touchpad with buttons, is a "clickpad" that doesn't suck. And as far as I know only Apple makes them.

I'm very impressed you managed to get nvidia to give you access to the 5070! I have one queetion though, is the 5070 limited to 100W because of the docking connector, or for cooling reasons?

Primarily for thermal reasons.

That's good to hear, I guess it's possible a thicker module could be made in the future with more cooling potential?

Ain't no way this cooling system is handling a 100W GPU comfortably.

You knew the question was coming. ThinkPad style trackpoint keyboard!

Hah, I'm curious if this is legally possible. I've never seen that on any non-ThinkPad laptop.

I recall Dell had laptops in the past at some point that had blue trackpoint-like nubs

And they were complete trash in comparison to the ones on ThinkPads imo.

I don't think more modern ThinkPads are much better... they have a shorter keyboard depth than the earlier models and the feel overall is significantly reduced... I understand as most people don't generally want a "thick" notebook.

I agree, they used to be a lot better.

The beefier business line models are still decent though.

I used a toshiba that only had the nub and no trackpad previously.

I have multiple Dell laptops that have a mouse nub in the middle of the keyboard

I've used it on a Dell laptop too, but it was far inferior to the Trackpoint. I think IBM/Lenovo had a patent on the specific technology but it might be expired now.

The track point dates to the 1990's at least so at least the main patents have expired. I have no clue about advances they might have made

A TrackPoint-like "pointy stick" has been on some other major brands:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick#Naming_and_bran...

the HHKB studio has a trackpoint as well

Many dells and HPs come with track points

We actually go into this in the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RzUBqtgODM

Specifically 11:04: https://youtu.be/0RzUBqtgODM?t=664

> Something that we hear over and over again across our entire product lineup is that people want pointing sticks. You might know it as trackpoint from other brands. The little nubs that you can use as a mouse. Obviously, if you're a ThinkPad user, former ThinkPad user, that might be something that you're very familiar and comfortable with. And so, it is something that actually on all of our products several times over the last 5 years, we have tried to prototype and make work. The big challenge on this actually is just that there's very, very little space here. That the Zstack here is incredibly thin.

> And for a keyboard, it works because the keys are compliant. If there's force that's put on the lid, like let's say you're got your laptop in a backpack with a book or something, it's just being pressed on like that, the screen is going to touch the keys and the keys are going to give way because they're just on these uh on these scissor mechanisms and the screen will be okay and you may get a little smudge you have to wipe off. You've got like finger grease on there.

> A pointing stick though is not compliant. Not compliant in that way. So, you've got this like sharp point basically sticking out from the keyboard. And if there's pressure placed on the lid, that's going to go right onto that point on the tracking stick and end up damaging screen or have a high likelihood of damaging the screen.

> And so, we've just kept over and over, we've kept trying this and seeing if we could get a low enough profile pointing stick solution to make that work, not risk the screen at all. And so far, that doesn't exist. That is something that we keep going into the supply base to try to find.

> Hopefully we that is something we find in the future because of course with this input module system on framework laptop 16, it would end up being relatively straightforward for us to just make an input module a keyboard that you can swap in that's got that pointing stick unlike uh you know even our other laptops where you'd have to have an entirely new input cover to get that kind of functionality.

Most laptops have rubber bumpers around the screen to create a small airgap when the screen is closed, and even if you stack several laptops on top of each other, the bottom one's screen won't flex enough to touch the keyboard. Maybe with the more rigid lid, they can enable this?

Given the longevity goals with their modular designs, I'm guessing they're unlikely to make dramatic changes to their overall design in less than 5-7 years time from initial release. Such a screen change would likely require new hinge design as well as a thicker display casing, not to mention the risk of someone putting the trackpoint keyboard in a model that doesn't have the thicker display section.

I am thinking that something with a nub on a 2-axis slider as opposed to rocker switches could be an option, but that would potentially have drift issues. Not to mention the Framework keyboards themselves are probably mostly a COTS solution, where something like I'm thinking would require custom R&D an likely be limited release. If Framework, Dell and Lenovo could work together, they could probably come up with a good solution... though Lenovo likes the Fn button in the corner, where most others prefer Ctrl then Fn.

I used to like those but they started giving me rsi

Yeah, nowadays the trackpoint is just a bad pointing device. As laptops get slimmer, trackpoints get less precise and less usable. And they hurt our wrists.

We just have to let go. A haptic trackpad is miles better now.

Would love to hear ur take on the impact of tariffs and how u folks have navigated that.

Would u consider setting up an assembly plant outside the US to sell to to customers internationally? I’m in Australia.

We manufacture our systems and many of our modules in Taiwan, and have had less tariff impact than other electronics companies as a result. Currently, laptops are also exempt from some tariffs.

Why no full-height arrow keys and Esc/function key row? There would be enough space.

ETA on launching in India?

Came here to ask exactly this.

Will we ever have ECC RAM as an option?

+1

And if not, could you elaborate?

It would also be a huge benefit to use a replaced mainboard as a homelab base WITH ECC support in the future.

Same goes for the Framework Desktop, which features Strix Halo without ECC support, whereas ECC IS possible with Ryzen AI MAX+ 395+ PRO (e.g. HP Z2 Mini G1a).

Can't speak for Framework, but AMD themselves doesn't necessarily support this configuration so it would be on Framework to develop/test/certify a compatibility list... they'd likely only support first party modules, if anything. At least for non-pro AMD CPUs.

Likely mostly down to resources/time as to the lack of official support.

Yes, we often hear it is "not supported." I'm here saying all my future non-mobile devices are required have ECC RAM or better. Take my money.

Not a question about the Framework Laptop 16 specifically, but why are the upgrade kits[0] for the Laptop 13 still marked as "register interest" on the Framework Marketplace? The Ryzen AI 300 motherboards, RAM, and Wi-fi cards are all available separately already.

[0] https://frame.work/products/framework-laptop-13-mainboard-ki...

Ah, great question. I'll flag this to the team.

This listing is now live. Thanks for flagging it.

I have an old Framework 16. How do I know which of the new parts I can upgrade? I imagine I can't upgrade my chassis (or can I?)

You can upgrade to any one of the new parts. In the Framework Marketplace, you can set compatibility filters to see the new parts (some of which are on waitlist because we'll be shipping them later this year): https://frame.work/marketplace?compatibility%5B%5D=laptop_16

What all does your Linux support entail? Do you offer support for both Linux abd Windows models?

Is the firmware identical for the models that ship with Windows and those that ship with Linux?

How well does Linux work out of the box? What kind of small glitches can a Linux user expect?

> Is the firmware identical for the models that ship with Windows and those that ship with Linux?

Yes. The firmware upgrade processes can differ, but there's no difference in firmware, and you can buy a Framework kit with no OS provided.

We publish our recommended and officially supported Linux distros here: https://frame.work/laptop16?tab=linux

For the new generation, we'll list those as we get closer to shipments.

Granted:

- Bazzite takes community contributions; whereas, SteamOS is packaged and distributed by Valve, and

- Bazzite is based on Fedora, so the work to support Fedora should bubble over to Bazzite.

I'm curious though, is there a big difference in functionality for SteamOS vs Bazzite. Are there things that work in Bazzite that wouldn't in pure SteamOS?

I'm guessing/hoping Debian 13 now meets the requirements and can be added?

In theory I'm the perfect audience for the Framework 16! The only thing holding me back is the lack of a 4K display. It's so good for dense text on the screen (e.g., code with lots of split buffers), I can't go back. Still waiting patiently for this to become an option.

This!

The only reason for me going with the Dell Premium 16 instead of framework, is that I need my 1920px screen width at 200% scaling.

Such a shame, the Framework is better in so many other ways.

Is it possible to put the trackpad "above" (as in closer to the display) the keyboard? This is to me the obvious correct place to put it, but I'm in the clear minority.

Any hope for a 75 keyboard? With home/end/pageup/pagedown on the side?

We're developing key modules that enable the community and 3rd party keyboard developers to create alternate key layouts.

I would love more keyboard options! If I could have a laptop with a keyboard more like a standard tenkeyless, I would be over the moon. In the meantime, I'll have to see about hacking the standard keyboard somehow, although there's no fixing those arrow keys.

Wouldn't it be possible to have a side add-on similar to the numeric keypad but the width of the spacer or LED matrix to accomplish this? Maybe a revamped keypad that has home, end, page up, page down, and then a bunch of assignable macro keys would work well.

Yep, definitely possible!

Did you consider QMK / VIA or other open source variants as keyboard firmware?

The keyboard firmware actually already is QMK-based! https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/qmk_firmware

Awesome thanks for the link!

I'm very happy to see Framework lead the USB power delivery pack by supporting 240W, 48V/5A charging on the Framework 16. As the first company to ship laptops using this spec, what problems or quirks, if any, have you seen from 48V charging in the field?

Since we designed both the power adapter and the product that is using it, it just works. There aren't a lot of other devices that support 240W USB-C for us to test against.

How thick must be the cable that delivers 48V @ 5A? I suppose not much thicker than normal, but still? Does this require a specialty cable to achieve that?

Increasing the voltage doesn't require a thicker cable, and 5A power starts with 100W USB-C PD. USB-C cables that support 5A aren't that thick, but they do need a special chip so that the devices know it's safe to send 5A.

Not specifically about the new laptop but will you guys ever do a 15 inch non-gaming laptop that looks similar to a macbook? I really want to buy one of your products but 13 inch is a bit too small for me while the Laptop 16 is a bit too bulky.

Yes, I am another who wished for a bigger 13.

I wish I could buy it, but I'm in the unfortunate situation of being in Norway, instead of almost any other European country. Will you ever ship here? ;-(

Any possibility of a new Linux keyboard? Else, are the existing Linux keyboard modules compatible with the updated shell?

The new keyboard artwork across all languages is Linux by default, meaning no Windows logo on the super key.

Awesome job on following through with the upgradability! I love the nvidia support!

Are you coming out with another coolermaster case for the 16 mainboard?

I want to make a custom dock with fans to force more cooling over the radiators. Could it be possible to "unlock" the 100W TDP of the 5070 in firmware or are there other hardware limitations like the interconnect?

Was adding the USB C power input on the GPU necessary to get full power? I see in the specs on github that VADP_GPU can take 100W into the mainboard and VSYS_GPU can supply 240W to the GPU. Are there any tradeoffs powering the system from the back ports vs the GPU?

Was the previous version of the AMD GPU not sending the display signal directly to the panel via the edp mux but instead via the igpu? If not is that something you can update in firmware? Can you publish how this was done so someone can make an oculink expansion board with displayport input?

Thanks to everyone at Framework for making such awesome hackable products!

I (pre) ordered one. I'd be so excited if the haptic super-wide touchpad made an appearance, even if in some limited form.

Apparently the AMD RZ717 is a rebranded Mediatek MT7925. It's strange that the prose uses the AMD name, but the photo uses Mediatek's.

When I clicked the "Already an owner" link, it sent me to the Romanian page when I'm in the US on a desktop device that has never been abroad:

https://frame.work/ro/en/marketplace?compatibility%5B%5D=lap...

The original link for this HN discussion goes to the Romanian page, so that's probably why.

This link may work better for you: https://frame.work/laptop16

Same thing happened to me. It's because the original link is to the Romanian site.

Good catch! Didn't realize he wasn't OP.

We don't submit our own announcements :)

Agreed that it would be great if the submission link was updated to be frame.work/laptop16 instead though.

@dsng Any possibility?

Same for me with the configure now button

Please fix the performance of your website. Scrolling down is too slow and crashes my browser sometimes.

What's the bottleneck in getting a Macbook like touchpad experience in a modern non-Apple laptop? Is it software? Some specific company that won't sell parts to anyone else? Patents?

I have tried several laptops, and nothing has even comes close in the last ten or so years.

I am hoping you might have some unique insight into this!

PS: Framework Laptop 16 looks great, will order one later this year and then get a GPU with more vram whenever available in future.

If you haven't seen it, this "Linux Touchpad like Macbook" project is related, the last/best effort I've seen in this direction. Here's a random update from a few years ago:

https://www.gitclear.com/blog/linux_touchpad_update_december...

Is this effort still underway?

any chances we'll see an arm/qualcomm motherboard one day?

I see it is still not possible to order from Japan.

Is there an ongoing effort on solving this?

Your team might want to know that the website can crash on firefox mobile.

It even crashes firefox itself, and the android UI.

Unfortunately I am unwilling to give further details except that it is firefox on a very reasonable Android device.

I understand there's two versions of requirements for the NVidia 50 series - the higher end 5070Ti and up, and the lower end 5070 and down. What's the chance of releasing a 5070Ti/5080 version?

Will my Valve Index work with it? I was sad to find it doesn't work with my Intel Core Framework 13, even on Windows.