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Touchscreen Laptops, Whether You Like Them Or Not
An anonymous reader writes "With CES all wrapped up, an article at CNET discusses a definite trend in the laptops on display from various manufacturers this year: touchscreens. Intel and Microsoft are leading the way, and attempting to grab the industry's reins as well: '... just to make sure the touch message was crystal clear, Intel issued an edict to PC partners during its CES keynote: all next-generation ultrabooks based on its "Haswell" chip must be touch.' With tablets and detachable/convertible computers coming into the mainstream, it seems the manufacturers have something to gain by condensing their production options. The article says, 'What does that mean to consumers? Your next laptop will likely be touch, whether you like it or not.'"
It's nice to have there as an option if you want it, if you don't care for it, don't use it.
Anonymity of the internet is responsible for the views expressed in my post.
From experience I haven't found anything worse than a desktop or laptop with a touch screen.
From experience I know you are spouting wild hyperbole.
They are ergonomically bad, after 10 minutes I get pain in my wrists and elbows.
OK, so use the touchpad. Oh, you're complaining about laptops with only touch for pointing input? Why didn't you say so?
My lady has a Fujitsu Lifebook T900 with the combo digitizer. When I am demonstrating something to her I can lean over her shoulder and touch the screen, which is fantastic. And the system folds over into a tablet, which is great for art since it has a Wacom/multitouch digitizer.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that touch is bad, because it isn't. Exclusive touch is bad on a device with room for another input device.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The anti-touch commenters here echo the comments of anti-mousers decades ago -- "Not for me." We know how that worked out.
1. Until you work with a touch enabled laptop, you have no basis for comment about touch enabled laptops.
2. Until you work with a touch enabled desktop, you have no basis for comment about touch enabled laptops.
3. After experiencing touch enabled laptops and desktops, different people will have different opinions but nobody should feel obligated to force their opinions on others.
4. I have two months experience using a touch enabled laptop computer and I love it. Your mileage may vary.
5. I have no experience with using a touch enabled desktop computer so I have no comment.
People are different and different people use computers in different ways. Some are amenable to touch and some are not.
I want a touch monitor on my desktop at work. I want to program the computer to play a loud "stop touching me" every time one of my cow orkers touches it. Maybe I can finally stop having fingerprints all over my screen.
Keeping up the price of the final product. If the production cost gets to the point where it's totally dominated by the CPU and operating system, the competitive advantage for ARM or other processors running Linux becomes compelling. Therefore, load up the basic system with enough other high-cost features to hide the "Microsoft tax" and "Intel tax."
Those of us who remember netbooks will recognize the intended series of events.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
My money will go to the manufacturers who will provide "old school" displays.
Here's your VT100 sir.
WATCH TV Commercials, it is how the designer envisions their products to be used. Take cars. Have you seen a single car ad where the advertised car is in a traffic jam? No? Then that car SUCKS at it. Isn't shown in a crowded city with LOADS of other cars, cyclists and pedestrians leaping out of the way for the advertised car? Then it SUCKS at city driving. Doesn't talk about safety or road handling (as in sticking to the road as opposed to speeding) then said car will kill you.
Now look at Intel and even MS commercials for how they see their new products being used. Windows 8 is ALL about media CONSUMPTION, Intel is all about meetings, light choices, consumption, trivial work flows. That is how they envision their computers being used, not for just sitting down for 8 hours and getting some boring but necessary work done.
http://oldcomputers.net/oldads/old-computer-ads.html shows you how old ads pointed at the business applications of a PC, what it could do for your business. Look at modern PC ads... where is the productivity?
Well, it is there... if you world is like the world of "Friends" where a dozen white people spend about 5 second a day at work yet can afford spacious apartments in the heart of Manhattan, then the Intel/Windows ads reflect your work flow. Nice for you. The rest of us sit behind a computer screen, hopefully a big one and enter data all day long. Doesn't matter if that is actual data, code or image designs, we have to do a LOT of it to pay our bills. And then holding your hands up in the air HURTS. Not inconvenient, not different, not going against muscle memory, actually fucking bloody HURT.
Try it right now, READ JUST this story, holding your arms in front of you. If you manage it for longer then 5 minutes, you qualify for the navy seals. And that is not entirely a joke, part of military training is pain exercises like holding your arms up for a long time, they tend to add weights because it looks though but just holding your arms stretched for long enough hurts.
The reason Windows/Intel want you to work this way is because their marketeers LOVE the idea that using a computer is about making a few choices "that picture, that point on the presentation" and the rest is thinking sitting around work. It is NOT, Star Trek STILL isn't real, using a computer for most of us is barely different from sitting at an assembly line putting components in place. Just think about it, just typing this post is just sitting and hitting keys in the right order. Where do I need to touch the screen? What part of this work flow is improved by having a touch screen? Having to raise my hand to hit the preview button?
If you screen setup is right, the preview button is JUST under eye-height because the line you are typing on should be at eye height so you don't have to bend your head down. That means you have to lift you hand 20 centimeters on my setup. That is NOT convenient.
If you are thinking of buying a touchscreen, take your existing PC/laptop and just pretend but NOT for 5 minutes, for a month, day in day out, every working hour.
If you then still think it is a good idea, go ahead.
Want more proof? The Wii. Sold massively, then failed on selling games because hard core gamers do NOT want to swing their hands around for hours at end. It WORKS for casual use. Is your PC use casual? No? Then get a Wii Gamepad Pro and leave the touchscreens to the TV world were you can earn a living without ever going to work.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.