This is an oddity of the PC laptop market I have never understood - Mac trackpads from a decade ago are still better than a top-of-the-line PC trackpad from the current year.
The only thing Apple has done in that decade is make their trackpads slightly bigger (and made the click haptic rather than physical), so it feels like the PC folks should have caught up by now...
Part of it is software (drivers), and that’s something that hardware vendors have traditionally been poor at writing. The bar for a driver is “it technically works and doesn’t bluescreen” rather than “it works well”. It’s just more evident in this case because the continuous-input nature of a trackpad makes the poor functionality much more apparent.
The other is that I don’t think most laptop vendors spend nearly as much on their trackpads. MacBook trackpads have for a long time shared their touch sensitivity hardware with iPhones, which makes them extremely responsive and precise, and this is paired with a high end haptic motor to produce click sensations. Finally, their surface is oleophobic glass which reduces friction. This all combines to produce a great experience, but I’m positive that they cost notably more than the typical plastic diving board fare, and most laptop manufacturers are squeezing out margin with cheaper parts wherever they can.
Apple pours all they have into making their trackpad the best it can be, including working from the OS to the UX to the SDKs.
It's sailant when using the Magic Trackpad on Windows: the acceleration curves don't match, the keyboard combinations are less natural, the gestures clunkier and the overall advantage of the trackpad is I think lesser. Mouses are a better fit on windows in every respects IMHO.
This is an oddity of the PC laptop market I have never understood - Mac trackpads from a decade ago are still better than a top-of-the-line PC trackpad from the current year.
The only thing Apple has done in that decade is make their trackpads slightly bigger (and made the click haptic rather than physical), so it feels like the PC folks should have caught up by now...