I bought the Macbook Air M2 15-inch and compared to my office laptop which is a Macbook Pro M1 16-inch, the trackpad texture feels much coarser. The best way I can describe the difference is that the MBP's trackpad feels like smooth glass with gloss finish when I scroll but the MBA's trackpad feels a tad like frosted glass with matte finish. The difference isn't huge but noticeable and I am wondering if anyone else has the same experience.

Doesn't sound comfortable. I'm planning on upgrading my 2018 MBP to the 15 air, and I've always loved that glossy feel. it's like butter.

arnolds1 said:

I bought the Macbook Air M2 15-inch and compared to my office laptop which is a Macbook Pro M1 16-inch, the trackpad texture feels much coarser. The best way I can describe the difference is that the MBP's trackpad feels like smooth glass with gloss finish when I scroll but the MBA's trackpad feels a tad like frosted glass with matte finish. The difference isn't huge but noticeable and I am wondering if anyone else has the same experience.

Yes the texture on my MacBook Air is "coarser". I have the MacBook Air M2 15 and the MacBook Pro M1 16.

TinaBelcher said:

Doesn't sound comfortable. I'm planning on upgrading my 2018 MBP to the 15 air, and I've always loved that glossy feel. it's like butter.

That's correct, doesn't feel right at all.

polee said:

Yes the texture on my MacBook Air is "coarser". I have the MacBook Air M2 15 and the MacBook Pro M1 16.

So glad to hear someone else who noticed this - this has been driving nuts. Was your an upgraded unit or did you buy the standard 8Gb configuration in store?

Here is the strange thing, the trackpads on the Macbook Air 15's in the Apple store also had a bit coarse of a texture on the trackpad but nowhere as bad as my upgraded SKU which was shipped directly from China.

In terms of smoothness if the MBP's trackpad was 10/10, the store MBA was 9/10 and mine is 8/10. I know this seems trivial, but I always associated the "Macbook" feel to the glossy trackpad and am bummed now. Have just 2 days to make up my mind on whether I return it.

Mine was from the Apple Store. 8gb/512.

What color is your MacBook Air?
Maybe the color is to blame. I just remembered, that my black Magic Trackpad (that I use with my monitor) also feels "dry". Like as if it's coated in nano texture or something. I've gotten used to it, so I don't think about it anymore, but I suddenly remember how much it bothered me the first couple of days. And now that I'm aware of it again, I'm just as bothered 🤣 the white one had this cheap yet buttery feel which I loved

TinaBelcher said:

What color is your MacBook Air?
Maybe the color is to blame. I just remembered, that my black Magic Trackpad (that I use with my monitor) also feels "dry". Like as if it's coated in nano texture or something. I've gotten used to it, so I don't think about it anymore, but I suddenly remember how much it bothered me the first couple of days. And now that I'm aware of it again, I'm just as bothered 🤣 the white one had this cheap yet buttery feel which I loved

Space grey.

TinaBelcher said:

What color is your MacBook Air?
Maybe the color is to blame. I just remembered, that my black Magic Trackpad (that I use with my monitor) also feels "dry". Like as if it's coated in nano texture or something. I've gotten used to it, so I don't think about it anymore, but I suddenly remember how much it bothered me the first couple of days. And now that I'm aware of it again, I'm just as bothered 🤣 the white one had this cheap yet buttery feel which I loved

Mine is Silver - I purposefully avoided any color/coatings, but doesn't seem to have helped at all with the trackpad.

All of my MacBook's trackpads are smooth without much variance between them - this is true for both my 13" and 15" M2 Airs. If some do feel smoother than others, it could just be due to supplier and or factory line variances that are found with just about any part that is mass produced.

I don't think the color or finish of your MacBook would make a difference as I think all trackpads are covered in glass and the color matching is laminated underneath the glass. I don't think the top glass itself if tinted, is it?

Not as smooth as the apple magic trackpad I use with my iMac, returning mine tomorrow trackpad is faulty won't double tap.

weird, I have a 13' m2 in silver and the trackpad is definitely smooth

Add me to the list. Just bought a 14" M2 Pro MBP and have been using it for a week...mostly testing different workloads and paying attention to battery and fan noise because I got the 12/19 core version. But after a few days of use I started to notice it seemed like when I was scrolling through large amounts of stuff I was having "mis-scrolls" like I was accidentally not performing the scroll correctly. I'm a heavy desktop Mac with Magic Trackpad and iPad with Magic Keyboard user and don't notice that in daily use. I grabbed the Magic Trackpad from the Mac and connected it to the MBP and it is almost night and day difference in how much smoother the texture is (actually like glass) and it also didn't seem to have the mis-scrolls. I also hear my fingers rubbing the trackpad like shhhh shhhh on the MBP where on the Magic Trackpad it's so smooth you don't hear anything, you just feel the glassy smoothness. Even my 2008 MB trackpad has a much smoother feel to it. Feeling irritated by this, the trackpad has always been a highlight for me. Going to head up to BB and see how their demo unit feels and behaves.

DBot0 said:

Add me to the list. Just bought a 14" M2 Pro MBP and have been using it for a week...mostly testing different workloads and paying attention to battery and fan noise because I got the 12/19 core version. But after a few days of use I started to notice it seemed like when I was scrolling through large amounts of stuff I was having "mis-scrolls" like I was accidentally not performing the scroll correctly. I'm a heavy desktop Mac with Magic Trackpad and iPad with Magic Keyboard user and don't notice that in daily use. I grabbed the Magic Trackpad from the Mac and connected it to the MBP and it is almost night and day difference in how much smoother the texture is (actually like glass) and it also didn't seem to have the mis-scrolls. I also hear my fingers rubbing the trackpad like shhhh shhhh on the MBP where on the Magic Trackpad it's so smooth you don't hear anything, you just feel the glassy smoothness. Even my 2008 MB trackpad has a much smoother feel to it. Feeling irritated by this, the trackpad has always been a highlight for me. Going to head up to BB and see how their demo unit feels and behaves.

Click to expand...

Spot on with my experience - including the sound that my fingers make. I am still on the fence on whether or not to return it since there is no guarantee that the replacement will be any better :/

arnolds1 said:

Spot on with my experience - including the sound that my fingers make. I am still on the fence on whether or not to return it since there is no guarantee that the replacement will be any better :/

I've noticed it seems a lot worse in the Photos app for me. It's almost like the inertial scrolling isn't working right. Like sometimes you swipe and it will do a nice momentum and slow to a stop and other times it just abruptly stops in a choppy fashion or doesn't pick up the expected amount of acceleration (like it scrolls slow even though I gave the trackpad a quick scroll). I've been loading up some long pages in Safari so I have plenty of room to scroll and it seems better in there. So...maybe software? My desktop Mac with trackpad and the iPad both scroll smoother in the Photos app.

Just got back from Best Buy, take this for what it's worth. What I'm seeing is most noticeable in the Photos app...also seeing it in the App Store app, Safari, for me, actually seems to scroll pretty good so I used those as test cases. I tested an M2 14" MBP, a 15" MBA and a 13" M2 MBA. Opened the Photos app, selected all photos and duplicated them to get the library up to around 800 so there would be plenty of scrolling that could be done. Started scrolling and could replicate the issue. Jumped over to Safari and didn't see it the issue...so basically the same as what I see with my MBP. Moving over to the MBAs, both seemed to scroll fine under the same circumstances in Photos and Safari.
I hooked my Magic Trackpad 2 up to my MBP (via USB, if it matters) and just switched back and forth between scrolling with the MBP trackpad and the external trackpad and the difference was easily detectible. The built-in just seems to miss scrolls, you can be scrolling with velocity and things will fly and then you do another scroll with the same velocity and it will stop in its tracks or only move a couple of inches. Using the external trackpad I can scroll all over, not trying to be careful about finger placement or how much trackpad I use or how long I wait before the next swipe and it acts just as you'd expect and are used to seeing from Apple trackpads...very reliable and predictable, pretty much perfect.

Can confirm the trackpad on my 15in MBA feels almost "sticky" and coarse.

edit: maybe this is happening because it needs to be worked in.

Apple_Robert said:

My 15” trackpad is smooth.

so is mine..

Just saw this thread and want to draw your attention to some microscopic differences between two MBA 15"s I purchased in the last few months: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mba-15in-trackpad-speed-at-max.2396904/post-32369703

In summary, I bought two midnight color 15" MBAs, and the trackpad on the first one feels coarser and more sticky, with higher stiction and a sluggish feel that makes it unpleasant to use. The second one feels normal and like any other MacBook. The surface coating looks different, so this may be something they fixed in later batches. The keyboards don't feel the same either, the older one is lighter, the newer one is heavy and tiring to use. Can't win.

I'm curious, if you have or don't have this issue, what color you have, and what the manufacture date is. To find out, open Terminal, type "ls -l /", and look for the "cores" row.

Midnight, Mar 17: sticky feeling
Midnight, May 5: normal and smooth

CloudsNeverDie said:

Just saw this thread and want to draw your attention to some microscopic differences between two MBA 15"s I purchased in the last few months: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mba-15in-trackpad-speed-at-max.2396904/post-32369703

In summary, I bought two midnight color 15" MBAs, and the trackpad on the first one feels coarser and more sticky, with higher stiction and a sluggish feel that makes it unpleasant to use. The second one feels normal and like any other MacBook. The surface coating looks different, so this may be something they fixed in later batches. The keyboards don't feel the same either, the older one is lighter, the newer one is heavy and tiring to use. Can't win.

I'm curious, if you have or don't have this issue, what color you have, and what the manufacture date is. To find out, open Terminal, type "ls -l /", and look for the "cores" row.

Midnight, Mar 17: sticky feeling
Midnight, May 5: normal and smooth

Click to expand...

Remind me where to find the date ?

kp98077 said:

Remind me where to find the date ?

To find the date (or something close to it), open Terminal, type "ls -l /", and look for the "cores" row in the output.

CloudsNeverDie said:

To find the date (or something close to it), open Terminal, type "ls -l /", and look for the "cores" row in the output.

can you find it in "about this Mac" also?

kp98077 said:

can you find it in "about this Mac" also?

Unfortunately no, and the serial number no longer encodes the manufacture date either…