Haptic trackpads - The Future or Just optional?

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#1

What are y’all thoughts on haptic trackspads like the ones from Sensel?

I hate the feeling of using a trackpad that has limited sweet spots. It’s one of the big deciding factors for me when using a laptop in which I do a test to feel if all the edges of a trackpad are actually tangible. It feels like Sensel’s trackpad tech could bridge and solve a lot of issues w/ current conventional & haptic trackpad design.

Linus from LTT who is now an investor at Framework also did demo Sensel’s tech not too long ago in this video

However there have also been amazing non haptic trackpads. From a linearity standpoint I’d like the trackpad to feel “good” regardless of how I push down on it. The best trackpad I’ve ever felt have been non-haptic. Especially on Google’s own Pixel line of Chromebooks. They all perform flawlessly when compared to even Apple’s Force Touch (haptic) trackpads due to the physical displacement & travel nature. How has everyone’s experience been with the current Framework trackpads? Do they feel lacking in anyway and could they be improved?

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#2

I find Framework’s diving-board style trackpad pretty decent for its class. I was surprised at how much of the trackpad was actually clickable. Here’s a comparison with a new X1 Carbon:

3000×1995 1.49 MB

That said Sensel’s efforts so far have been lackluster (see X1 Titanium) so at the moment I don’t think haptic is quite there yet. A lot of new units with haptics were announced recently so I’d expect improvement there in the next few years.

#3

Def expecting to see some improvements in the upcoming years, Sensel said they would drop some news during computex this year so might be looking forward to seeing what shows up this year.