T480s Upgrade | Mylar Trackpad Replaced with X1YG3 Glass Trackpad
Firstly, I would like to thank u/nombre44 for his amazing guide into getting the glass trackpad to work.
His guide can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/jlbj1e/t480_trackpad_replacement_guide_windows_driver/
I've had the T480s for about 2 years, getting me through the last leg of undergrad and Officer Training School and it's still working like brand new. Like many of yall, the Thinkpad name has a lot of sentimental value to me. My first laptop was an IBM Thinkpad R60.
I personally did not mind the mylar trackpad, but after using the glass trackpad on a Dell XPS 15 (9510), I felt my Thinkpad could use a well-deserved upgrade.
I purchased an X1 Yoga 3rd gen trackpad (FRU 01LV0556) from Lenovo. I'm sure you can find similar parts cheaper elsewhere, but I wanted to play safe: https://lenovo.encompass.com/item/11587322/Lenovo/01LV556/
The installation process was hassle-free. If you are unsure, iFixit has a guide online on replacing the trackpad.
The X1 Yoga glass trackpad compared to the Mylar trackpad that's in the laptop
Now the fun part starts...
If your laptop has the vPro variant (in my case I have the i5 8350u instead of 8250u), then you will need to find your BitLocker recovery key. I was able to find mine by logging into my Microsoft account. This will be needed to access the advanced start up setting to disable driver signature enforcement.
Before you follow the guide, I recommend that you either uninstall or rollback the ELAN driver in device manager under mice and other pointing devices. After a reboot, your touchpad should be something like "PS2...".
For T480s owners, I used the same FRU on step 6. There was only one line that needed to be changed.
So, was it worth going through all this trouble?
The glass trackpad is definitely much smoother and nicer feeling. It makes the T480s much more enjoyable to use. Let me know how it went for y'all.