Help No Multitouch Trackpad on my x301?

Hi,
I recently purchased a Lenovo x301 from ebay. When I did a parts look up search on the lenovo website it showed that my laptop came with a FRU No 44C4872 Palm rest assembly with fingerprint reader

Mfg part FRU part Description
42W7835 44C4872 MECHANICAL ASSEMBLIES AND SUB-ASSEMBLIES

I came across a thread started by chrixx which said that the touchpad which I have received is an Alps touchpad and it does not support multitouch. The synaptics touchpad which supports multitouch comes with FRU No 45N5570. Is it possible to enable multitouch on my trackpad with the help of any drivers or is a hardware replacement the only option?

I would like suggestions/opinions from users of x301 who have the Alps/synaptics touchpad and their thoughts on the quality of it ? I thought that x301 always came with a multitouch trackpad. If not, when did lenovo start putting multitouch trackpad as a standard option. I searched for the prices of both the FRU's online on the IBM website and the difference between the Alps and the synaptics touchpad was only 2.5$ more for the synaptics one which costs $53.5. Only $2.5 extra for a multitouch trackpad does not make sense to me.

Can anyone confirm whether lenovo x301 always came with a multitouch trackpad or was it always optional ? Now on the Lenovo US website it clearly mentions it comes with multitouch trackpad.

Can I request Lenovo to replace the part for me with a synaptics multitouch touchpad? The build date of my Lenovo x301 is 3rd June 2009.

 

I also have an X301 however mine was purchased a while back so I had the non-multitouch edition.

I did purchase a newer touchpad that had the multi-touch feature. It was around $70 for the whole palm rest which includes the new touchpad. I called Lenovo for the part originally but they said it was backordered until March. Found someone else selling it online.

I don't think it is worth spending too much time or energy on as the multitouch is nowhere near what you may expect (as compared to an Apple machine for example). The touchpad is too small and too rough for major use of multiple fingers.

If you look at the newer ThinkPads, they all have larger touchpad areas as I believe they see that it needs to be larger than what the X301 has to be useful.

 

Thanks for the info. So it is not worth the time and the cost to purchase the multitouch touchpad. If you don't mind me asking Could you tell me what trouble,if any you faced with the Alps (non multitouch) touchpad which made you to shift to synaptics (multitouch ) trackpad. I have heard about lots of issues on the Alps touchpad like tapping, trackpad sensitivity during scrolling, freezing etc. Did you face any such issues ? Did you notice any difference between the two touchpads other than multitouch ? Thanks

 

Actually I had no trouble at all with the Alps. Very reliable and had no issues with it. To be honest though, I use the TrackPoint much more than the touchpad so there may be issues I don't know about.

The only reason I purchased the Synaptics trackpad was to play with multitouch. I still barely use the multitouch features as it seems the X301 was not optimally designed for it in the first place (rough surface, area not big enough, etc.) Maybe the newer laptops released today will have better multitouch options.

I would save your money for something else. Plus you have to take part of your laptop apart so not sure how comfortable you are with that as well. Not that difficult, just time consuming to make sure you do it right.

 

See, this is a tough one. I am very sensitive to touchpads and I can feel the difference in responsiveness and accuracy between the Alps and Synaptics, which is why I decided to replace the part.

My general advice is if you aren't having any trouble with your existing touchpad, there is no need to perform any modifications. Multitouch is a "nice to have" feature, and isn't essential. I do like the two finger scrolling though.

 

Thanks for your inputs guys. At the moment I am not experiencing any issues with the touchpad and the sensitivity seems right to me. I have no plans of changing the touchpad in the immediate future as multitouch on such a small trackpad on the x301 seems more of a gimicky than useful feature as bdoviack has mentioned.