I recently purchased a laptop from Microsoft (2015 Dell XPS 13") that uses the Microsoft Precision Touchpad. There are a few issues I'm having with this touchpad that I've never noticed with other laptops and I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing these or if there are any fixes. There is a noticeable delay when trying to make slow light movements. My finger can move several millimeters before the cursor responds. It may not sound like much, but if you're trying to make subtle movements in photoshop, or select a specific character anywhere it's very noticeable and difficult to use. The majority of the time when I lift my finger the cursor will jump several pixels, often moving away from the object I'm trying to target. If you use any browser besides IE, two finger scrolling is very choppy and has a similar delay that's experienced in the first issue. There are a few other minor annoyances, like poor palm detection and using two hands (one to move the cursor and one to click with) but the issues above are the biggest annoyances, ordered by most annoying to least. If anyone has any ways to fix these issues or install different drivers, I'd love to hear about them. Thanks!

I have just bought a Lenovo X1 Yoga and am having the same experiences as the posts here. Lenovo are a good solid make and Synaptics make the touchpad. Synaptics helped develop the Precision Touchpad so I would expect this to be the best possible example. I think Microsoft have gone back in performance. With the level of standardisation the Precision Touchpad will bring it should be an easy job to get it right. 1 The touchpad is not sensitive. I need to move my finger a few mm before the pointer moves. This makes the touchpad hard to use for accurate work like photo editing and it also makes regular use messy. 2 The touchpad gets confused between two finger scroll and zoom making browsing and scrolling difficult. 3 The scrolling for text files is handled differently to web pages. Text file scrolling is handled by the old mouse settings of 1 to many lines at one time which is clunky. It is also very slow. I write software so scrolling through a large source file is slow hard work of multiple swipes to move a few lines. Non Precision Touchpads scroll freely and smoothly. 4 There is a delay in the touchpad responding. 5 The movement of the mouse is not consistent. Sometimes the scrolling works free and easily and others it is like pushing through treacle. 6 The touchpad jumps to the top of the screen at random times. I tried installing the previous (non Precision Touchpad)drivers from the previous X1 model and many of these issues were fixed but it still was not perfect. So I think it is not a hardware issue it is a Microsoft issue. I got my X1 Yoga replaced and the replacement was no better so that is going back for a refund.

Hi Rob, I'm afraid it's not up to Dell, and I've seen this canned response posted from Microsoft support multiple times. Microsoft spec'ed and supplies the drivers for the PTP touchpads. The Microsoft driver adds the horizontal/vertical scroll lock, as evidenced by people who fell back to older synaptics drivers to eliminate it. I've also confirmed these issues with your touchpad team that manages the the driver. I've seen the same issue on Dell, Samsung, and other Windows laptops. 2. There's also a 2:1 horizontal:vertical movement bug in the driver that makes moving diagonally another challenge. You move 30 degrees instead of 45. This again is across multiple PTP machines. Inertial momentum really doesn't happen properly for wheel events. Edge doesn't send wheel events on PTP laptops. I'd just like to see my Windows touchpad work like my Mac, and right now with all of the bugs I don't use my Windows laptop much.

I may not understand the specific "Dell" issue that you are referring to. There's are numerous identical reports from Dell, Levono, Samsung, and other laptops that are all strongly encouraged to adopt the PTP touchpads. Microsoft had trouble with IHV's shaving $0.50 by sticking dirt cheap touchpads and drivers while Apple got this right. So I bought an HP Envy 15 for $1500, and they stuck a $3 touchpad on it that was unusable. Then my second Win 10 update bricked it. The PTP driver on all of the machines I've looked at comes from Microsoft. So ultimately, yes, these hardware vendors will need to decide whether to supply an updated driver from Microsoft, but the root cause and fix starts with Microsoft fixes these issues. They supply the hardware and certify that their hardware configuration works with the Microsoft OS and drivers (and any third-party drivers). If you want any more evidence, then I've repeated all of this on an old Microsoft SurfaceBook and Surface and new SurfaceBook. So now the ball in really in Microsoft court. Talk to Ross on this thread. He really cares about improving this dilemma.

It really just doesn't matter. As much as it stinks, Dell has to be the one to send the flaw report to their MSP representative. Even if it's entirely Microsoft's problem, Dell is the implementers and legally required to be the initiator. We can all huff and puff forever but it won't matter unless the OEM reports it.

The end user really doesn't care who's legally required to initiate what. That sounds like policy Microsoft put into place to avoid accountability. All we want is for Microsoft to take responsibility and fix a problem that's clearly theirs. Untill then this issue will remain unresolved.

Microsoft Precision Touchpad, not very precise

Anonymous

I recently purchased a laptop from Microsoft (2015 Dell XPS 13") that uses the Microsoft Precision Touchpad.

There are a few issues I'm having with this touchpad that I've never noticed with other laptops and I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing these or if there are any fixes.

There is a noticeable delay when trying to make slow light movements. My finger can move several millimeters before the cursor responds. It may not sound like much, but if you're trying to make subtle movements in photoshop, or select a specific character anywhere it's very noticeable and difficult to use.
The majority of the time when I lift my finger the cursor will jump several pixels, often moving away from the object I'm trying to target.
If you use any browser besides IE, two finger scrolling is very choppy and has a similar delay that's experienced in the first issue.

There are a few other minor annoyances, like poor palm detection and using two hands (one to move the cursor and one to click with) but the issues above are the biggest annoyances, ordered by most annoying to least.

If anyone has any ways to fix these issues or install different drivers, I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks!

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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63 answers

Anonymous

2017-09-09T12:57:52+00:00

I have just bought a Lenovo X1 Yoga and am having the same experiences as the posts here. Lenovo are a good solid make and Synaptics make the touchpad. Synaptics helped develop the Precision Touchpad so I would expect this to be the best possible example. I think Microsoft have gone back in performance. With the level of standardisation the Precision Touchpad will bring it should be an easy job to get it right.

1 The touchpad is not sensitive. I need to move my finger a few mm before the pointer moves. This makes the touchpad hard to use for accurate work like photo editing and it also makes regular use messy.

2 The touchpad gets confused between two finger scroll and zoom making browsing and scrolling difficult.

3 The scrolling for text files is handled differently to web pages. Text file scrolling is handled by the old mouse settings of 1 to many lines at one time which is clunky. It is also very slow. I write software so scrolling through a large source file is slow hard work of multiple swipes to move a few lines. Non Precision Touchpads scroll freely and smoothly.

4 There is a delay in the touchpad responding.

5 The movement of the mouse is not consistent. Sometimes the scrolling works free and easily and others it is like pushing through treacle.

6 The touchpad jumps to the top of the screen at random times.

I tried installing the previous (non Precision Touchpad)drivers from the previous X1 model and many of these issues were fixed but it still was not perfect. So I think it is not a hardware issue it is a Microsoft issue.

I got my X1 Yoga replaced and the replacement was no better so that is going back for a refund.
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Anonymous

2017-09-09T17:40:54+00:00
Hi Rob,

I'm afraid it's not up to Dell, and I've seen this canned response posted from Microsoft support multiple times. Microsoft spec'ed and supplies the drivers for the PTP touchpads.
1. The Microsoft driver adds the horizontal/vertical scroll lock, as evidenced by people who fell back to older synaptics drivers to eliminate it. I've also confirmed these issues with your touchpad team that manages the the driver. I've seen the same issue on Dell, Samsung, and other Windows laptops.
2. There's also a 2:1 horizontal:vertical movement bug in the driver that makes moving diagonally another challenge. You move 30 degrees instead of 45. This again is across multiple PTP machines.
1. Inertial momentum really doesn't happen properly for wheel events.
2. Edge doesn't send wheel events on PTP laptops.
I'd just like to see my Windows touchpad work like my Mac, and right now with all of the bugs I don't use my Windows laptop much.
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Anonymous

2017-09-09T18:15:09+00:00

I may not understand the specific "Dell" issue that you are referring to. There's are numerous identical reports from Dell, Levono, Samsung, and other laptops that are all strongly encouraged to adopt the PTP touchpads. Microsoft had trouble with IHV's shaving $0.50 by sticking dirt cheap touchpads and drivers while Apple got this right. So I bought an HP Envy 15 for $1500, and they stuck a $3 touchpad on it that was unusable. Then my second Win 10 update bricked it.

The PTP driver on all of the machines I've looked at comes from Microsoft. So ultimately, yes, these hardware vendors will need to decide whether to supply an updated driver from Microsoft, but the root cause and fix starts with Microsoft fixes these issues. They supply the hardware and certify that their hardware configuration works with the Microsoft OS and drivers (and any third-party drivers).

If you want any more evidence, then I've repeated all of this on an old Microsoft SurfaceBook and Surface and new SurfaceBook. So now the ball in really in Microsoft court. Talk to Ross on this thread. He really cares about improving this dilemma.
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@CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2017-09-09T18:17:23+00:00

It really just doesn't matter. As much as it stinks, Dell has to be the one to send the flaw report to their MSP representative. Even if it's entirely Microsoft's problem, Dell is the implementers and legally required to be the initiator. We can all huff and puff forever but it won't matter unless the OEM reports it.
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Anonymous

2017-09-09T18:52:12+00:00

The end user really doesn't care who's legally required to initiate what. That sounds like policy Microsoft put into place to avoid accountability. All we want is for Microsoft to take responsibility and fix a problem that's clearly theirs. Untill then this issue will remain unresolved.
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