It's 50% magic, and 50% actually caring about the product. PC laptops are a race to the bottom because the only way they can sell laptops are by advertising their specs on Best Buy counters or Amazon pages. Review that average consumers bother to read rarely rate laptops on how enjoyable they are to use. Most customers (in my experience) will have a few key metrics they want (generally battery life, web browsing performance, and storage). Everything else, from quality to screen to input devices, are effectively cost centers to the manufacturer. Dell XPS and Surface are getting there on trackpads, but they still haven't put forward the full effort for it.

And the thinkpad's nipple mouse is way better than their touchpad. I feel like a caveman on any touchpad.