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I am currently working with a MBP 13 Retina. I am a photographer and in need of precise touchpad.
The Dell XPS 13 looks like a nice laptop, but I heard about the bad quality of the trackpad.
Can you confirm that? Is it really that bad?
How is it in comparison with MBP? Of course, Apple manufactures the best touchpads, I don't expect it being like that, but still useable for browsing and photo editing.
It's actually really good about 95% of the time. But then the **** ups in the remaining 5% make it far more annoying than a touchpad that is just generally sub-par would be, I'd say.
I got my 9350 on black Friday for a great price... Unfortunately the trackpad had issues with two-finger scrolling (bouncing/jumping all over the place). After several months of frustration I asked Dell to ship me a replacement part, which completely fixed the problems I was having.
Now I don't have a single complaint, except that forward/back swipe gestures are not supported (not the trackpad's fault, though). It is buttery smooth to the touch with just the right amount of texture, and buttery smooth to use in Windows whether scrolling or pointing. Two thumbs up.
The bouncing/jumping issue is weird: after one month with my XPS, it completely disappeared for me. I used to be able to replicate it 100% of the time by scrolling a small distance multiple times in a row, but no matter what I try it won't come back. So that's one less touchpad issue to worry about. Forward/back gestures can be remapped with autohotkey if you haven't tried it yet. However, you'll have to trade your scroll left with browser_backward and scroll right with browser_forward. So if you use horizontal scrolling with your touchpad, then the only other alternative is to use middle-click scrolling or arrow keys. You can even make it so the 2-finger swipe back and forward works only in internet browsers, in case you use that function for another program. Personally, I remapped my 3-finger click into a middle click and 4-finger click into Ctrl-Tab so it's more convenient for me, since I rarely use Cortana or Action center.
Edit: So I don't double post, to answer the OP's original question you mentioned "I am a photographer and in need of precise touchpad." I should note that Precision Touchpad will have an initial delay when making a movement. In order to move your first pixel, you'll have to move your finger about 0.3 cm; everything after the initial pixel will be normal. So every time you start a movement on the trackpad, you will have to move a minimum of 0.3 cm. On the Macbook, to move one pixel you'd only have to move a small fraction of a cm (very precise). You also lose the ability to do three finger drag (because PTP uses three finger swipes instead, although you're not able to customize the function of it which is alt-tabbing). I used to have a Macbook Pro; I'd rate the Mac's touchpad a 10/10 and the Precision touchpad an 8/10. Ironically, the precision touchpad doesn't feel as precise as the Mac's touchpad (Mac's touchpad was very fluid, can't find a better term for this). I thought maybe after a month or so, I would be used to the delay when making a small movement on the PTP. But after one and a half month, I am still not used to it. If I have to make a small movement, I find that there's less strain on my finger if I just make a bigger circle to go to the adjacent spot I am trying to reach (AKA overshoot the spot and make a U-turn back to it).
They sent me a new trackpad assembly. Don't have the part number handy. The new one has a slightly different (better) texture than the old one so I suspect they made several changes.
The only problem I have with mine is the pointer sometimes just freezes, for maybe even 5 or 10 seconds. It's a minor annoyance at this juncture and I figure they'll get it fixed soon. I have no problem at all with two finger scrolling or anything else.
While I am returning my 13, I can say for the small bit of time that I did use it, it was awesome.
What was annoying is the left side of the space bar was set wrong and would click when pressed. Also, the CPU fan wouldn't turn on. It just kept clicking and clicking trying to move. Which is why I am returning.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
