Attachment uploads are currently disabled. This is a temporary situation and will resume as normal in the coming days.
UNSOLVED
Closed
Synaptics vs. ALPS
I have a Latitude CPi that has a Synaptics touchpad and I have a Latitude CPx that has a ALPS touchpad. I notice that the Synaptics was able to sense the relative pressure or coverage over the pad but the ALPS is not. This seems to make a difference in the smoothness and I find the ALPS a little annoying. Anyone else agree/disagree?
Synaptics all the way!
More than just the feel, I appreciate the neat tricks it can be set to do with 'corner taps' etc..
After several years of Email requests, web search and telephone contact with Dell Sales, could not get any idea if any new Dells were equipped with Synaptics now,
For any other Synaptic adicts, Microsoft UpDate has the latest (August 2003) Synaptic Driver for download and automatic installation.
- Well, the Latitude D800 has an Alps driver for download, so I would guess that the Alps hardware is used in that model, which happenes to be one of the more recent models. In my current C840, it uses the Alps driver as well, but my older C800 uses the Synaptics hardware/driver.
JersWork,
That is interesting, in early May'03, Dell Telephone Sales told me that the C840 was the only one that they knew had a Synaptics. At that time, the D's were replacing C's in the Latitude Catalog so I declined.
Best info I could find was this Dell Knowledge Site dated November'00: <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>
Synaptics had no idea what the OEM's put their product in (except 100% of HP/Compaq) and said to ask before purchase or "...look for the Synaptics driver when you are playing with the demo... I was lucky in that the Corporation I Fly for buys a lot of Dells and they have all had ALPS recently.
The human interface is such an important factor in these wonderful devices.
LOVE my Latitude LM p133!!!
Message Edited by Art on 11-09-2003 07:47 AM
- I would like to start off by saying I have had over 200 Dell laptops, dating all the way back to the Latitude XPi-CD, and the Inspiron 3000 models. I used to resell them when there was still a profit to be made in the portable computer market. I have personally owned many Inspirons, and Latitudes myself, and the Alps touchpad is completely inferior in every way, shape, and form in contrast to the Synaptics pad. If you have an Alps pad, and do not like it, the only way to make it even close to responsive is to completely uninstall the Alps Touchpad driver, and use the built in Windows mouse driver, although, you will lose the scroll ability, but, it will give you some response in return. I will never purchase another notebook with the Alps pad in it. I just purchased 2 Sony VAIOs in hopes I could deal with the Alps pad, but no dice, they are both going back to the retailer. OEMs may be able to get ALPS cheaper, but they should not ever use those pads in my honest opinion. If an Alps touchpad is your first experience with a portable computer, you may not ever know the difference, but coming from someone that has owned many laptop computers, one would never use an Alps pad after using a Synaptics, for both software and harware reasons. Just my .02 cents. I truly wish the engineering dept of DELL Computer find these threads, and choose not to use the Alps product for customer preference reasons, instead of budget.
You know I agree, Wish it were easier to find out what systems have Synaptics, the link I put in a post above was out of date when I first saw it.
Another way (for Dells) is to look at this type of page:
<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed / replaced from this post by Dell>
which is a recent Synaptics Driver and then click on the 'Systems' link for a list of newer Dells with Synaptics Touchpads:
Systems
Inspiron 1100
Inspiron 1150
Inspiron 300m
Inspiron 5100
Inspiron 5150
Inspiron 700m
Latitude 100L
Latitude X300
Latitude V740Operating Systems were XP and Win2000 and the Synaptics Website will have Drivers for other OS like LINUX and cute "toys" for the TP
as well.
Dell already lost a sale of a high end portable to me in May of 2003.
This was when I got a Sony VAIO which at that time came with Synaptics TouchPads, and sadly now Sony has dropped down to ALPS.
This D800 has the best ALPS pad that I have used yet, no comparison with the VAIO's Synaptics though and the VAIO was never quite
the silky smooth operator that Dell had installed on my Latitude LM in 1997 (and which I still have, use and love). I suppose years of use
polishes that membrane and makes it more responsive.
It had been my first visit to Synaptics website: http://www.synaptics.com/support/index.cfm To update the TouchPad's Driver,
In August '98 (after Dell had quit adding LM downloads) that got the TouchPad really working nice.
Compare this site with the ALPS website which offers no consumer support at all:
I really want my next portable to be equipped with Synaptics and I hope it can be a Dell.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edit: Credit where credit is due; the Sony VAIO was far more stable in its operation than any Dell that I have seen, never had any
problem with Standby or Hibernate and I never saw a BSOD that was not directly caused by something that I had just done.
Downside would be that if you messed it up to the point of no boot to OS, (and did not have GoBack to 'rescue' you) the only option
in the Sony Recovery Disk System is a complete Fresh Factory install of one or both partitions of the Hard Drive.
If it was just a deleted 'DLL' or something, you could boot it to a Dell Recovery Disk and then Dell would offer the option
to just repair the damage without any loss of data, so now Dell is repairing your Sony:)
This was one main reason to bring me back to Dell, another would be the reliability of the 'hardware' (over seven years of hard use
{including overheat, coffee spills and three foot concrete drop tests} and no problems with Dell Latitude LM).
Sony did provide excellent hardware support for the two failures during the one-year warranty, first (CDW) just replaced it and second
(11 months later, possible overheat damage?) Sony picked it up at my doorstep and returned it,
repaired in three working days total at no charge.
The most important reason for me to choose the D800 was that my software was more than the VAIO's P4, 1.8GHz could smoothly handle and
now (of course) a VAIO that would be up to THAT challenge would also be CRIPPLED by the same ALPS 'glidepoint' as the D800.
Art
Message Edited by Art on 11-07-2004 11:22 AM
B_McDonnell
1 Message
2003
0
Posted November 22nd, 2000 15:00
So you have one vote for annoying