touchscreen -- fad or trend?

I walk into best buy the other day and seriously 50% of the laptops are all touch screen.

Is this a fad that will pass or a trend that will stay.

Have any of you that seriously used such a laptop in the desktop mode of Windows 8 actually found the ability to touch the screen useful?

 

All I know is that I don't want my dirty fingers smudging the screen. Nor do I have the energy to lift my arm off my desk to touch the screen.

Though I don't think touchscreens are going anywhere. Seeing how crazy people are for tablets, as touch screens become cheaper, I can only imagine demand for them increasing.

They might not have mass appeal at the present moment but wait until Apple adds it to their Macbook Airs - the whole world is gonna be like "oh wow! A screen that you can touch. So original! I want one."

 

No.

It will stay, however, just how long "Windows" will take to catch up however is a different matter.

I've had a Touch Screen tablet for awhile now and usually forget it's a touch screen until I point at something on the screen and it moves

It's come in handy once or twice, but generally hasn't been useful. I haven't found any Win 8 apps that are worth anything, maybe a couple of games are okay, but touch mode in the desktop is a non starter as the resolution makes everything to tiny to navigate via touch.

 

Who knows. Right now I think it's a fad and frankly I'm baffled why, after spending so much effort marketing tablets over the last few years, PC makers are now trying to push touchscreen PCs on us. It just smacks of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. I can see a solid niche for hybrids like the yoga or helix, but not touch on traditional laptops.

I'm also not convinced Microsoft went down the right path making Win8 the OS for everything, touch and non-touch. It results in an OS that makes compromises in too many areas, both in terms of design and functionality. All eggs in one imperfect basket. Compare to Apple, which has OSX and iOS. One day they might merge or borrow more from one another, but I think Apple's right to keep them separate for now - one for touch devices and one for non-touch.

Haha, so true. But I'm not convinced Apple is gonna simply slap a touchscreen on an Air. I suspect it's approach will be far more sophisticated and, while not necessarily original, will result in a far better experience that Win8 on a half-baked touchscreen PC.

 

I think the software has under-utilized it (blame the Microsoft monopoly that has killed their creativity).

Human beings touch - it is their most basic communicative ability. We touch to communicate emotion, to relate external verbal and internal cognitive direction, to sense our outside world. It is the sense only 2nd to our eyes in how we understand our world.

Pessimism aside, I think it has amazing unknown benefits for ergonomics. Time and time again research shows us that repetition and stagnancy are BAD for our bodies. If you can change up your interaction by touching and stretching your joints and bones will thank you in 40 years.

The same goes for stylus, but I think unlike touch the stylus is repetitive and stagnant in the same way type and touchpad is.

 

Touch is important, but I'd rank smell, taste and hearing well above it in terms of importance in life

Also not convinced a touchscreen laptop is gonna be any more ergonomic. Quite the opposite, in fact. Repetition and stagnation might be bad in some cases, but creating an ergonomic workspace requires setting everything up to minimize movement and thereby stress on the body. Constantly yanking an arm forward to touch a screen is far from ergonomic IMO. My arm would thank me more in 40 years for using a properly positioned mouse rather than a touchscreen.

 

There are actually some well thought out and good replies here, thank you. Keep them coming.

 

I've always been a fan of Lenovo's X series tablets with multi-touch, Anything else is gimmicky at best.

 

I would never take a touchscreen over a mouse, but lets be honest here, I'd imagine that a touchscreen would be worlds above most trackpads. My Asus has some Chinese sympatic clone that is just enraging.

I don't have a touchscreen coming on my t440p because it is not currently offered, but I would certainly consider it to just lie in bed and browse the internet or whatever.

 

Look at the Yoga 2 Pro. Touch is great if implemented right instead of tacked on for a gimmick.

 

The idea of a single OS for tablets and laptops (and XBox One, and ...), or at least a common interface, is actually pretty sound. Microsoft just need to learn to sell it end users better.

There are compromises, but we have seen it before. Why would an average consumer want keyless phone + MP3 player + calendar + email client + video + browser in a single, and quite bulky, device? Surely, it would be a compromise in all possible areas, a bad one too. MP3 players can and should be small, much smaller than a pack of cards. Phones are easier to use when they have physical keys, and they can be very small and still usable, in gloves too. Browsing and watching movies on a device with 3-4" screen is crazy unless you spend hours a day standing in a packed bus. Yada yada yada, all statements are logical, yet... look around...

I, for one, would love a 15" laptop of T/W5xx class, with flippable screen, touch and stylus, even if it still weights 5 pounds. Coupled with a few external touch screen monitors, and a 80" touchable LCD TV ala Perceptive Pixel. Not instead of TrackPoint, or mouse, or keyboard, or Kinect, but in addition to. Even in Apple garden there are people who want smth like this - Modbook Pro, the One and Only Mac Tablet Computer | Modbook Inc. . Ironically, while W510 was available with a touchscreen option, current large screen Thinkpads aren't.

 

I don't know, this whole touch thing just smells like Microsoft and PC makers think they know what we want, i.e. touch, which comes from the fact tablets are taking serious market share, but are way off base. While I'm sure there are some users who want this, I've never once wanted to touch the screen of my notebook or PC and based on my experience, I would say that holds true for most users. I would much prefer to use a mouse, trackpoint or even track pad. Now on a tablet or even something like the Helix, the Yoga or a convertible, it makes much more sense. It sorts feels like they're jamming it down our throats, just to make it more tablet like, without much thought going into it. Thoughts like do notebook and PC users want touch.

 

I find if i use the laptop as a tablet with wacom digitiser, then the touch aspect becomes important. Otherwise, i don't really find touch to be something i use all that often. For reading, i would not be using the a full weight laptop as an eReader, i have android or iOS tablets for that.

But Microsoft has cemented the place for touch within the MS Windows OS, it will become more persuasive as time goes on.

 

So true, I have RSI in my right hand . Because of this, I wanted a laptop with a touchscreen and so I got a x220 tablet. My hand feel good when it's not stuck to any one input method for too long. So I have the touchscreen, TrackPoint, touchpad and, sometimes, a mouse when I working on my laptop. Alternating between them to best fit on whatever task I'm currently doing. Touchscreen works great with reading PDFs, scrolling and multi touch zooming.

 

I prefer a matte IPS screen. Like the one on my T440s.

 

In first place blame Intels Ultrabook campaign and it's absurd requirements

 

The Acer S7 is another great example of a laptop with a touchscreen. It is probably the best ultrabook right next to the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus.

 

I still don't see touchscreens (**in clamshell laptops**) to be nothing more than a gimmick. Not only do you have the minor annoyances associated with it (dirty display, it's "far away" compared to its keyboard), but I can't help but thinking that using a touchscreen for any extended amount of time (say, every day for the next few years) would lead to hand/wrist medical issues. Of course, keyboards aren't perfect either, though you certainly can get more work done with them and hence you spend less time working. But if potential medical issues are a problem, just get up and move around every so often, touchscreen or non-touchscreen.

Touchscreens, at best, are nothing more than an odd replacement for the computer mouse (and touchpad, etc.). But, why would touching your screen repetitively be any better than moving your finger around on a trackpad. Or better yet, using a TrackPoint? That way, your finger barely has to move at all and you don't have to move your hand too far away from the keyboard (preventing you from using it efficiently).

50% of BestBuy laptops are touchscreen? Doesn't surprise me, considering how gullible the Average Joe is to fads and neat tricks... If anything, the only "touchscreens" I'd ever want to use on a laptop would be one using a stylus; however that'd only really work for convertible laptops.

 

I own and/or utilize several laptops that are touchscreen-enabled and have never used anything but a stylus on any of them.

Of course, I'm one of those people who can't tolerate a smudge on the LCD for more than three seconds, if that long...

With Intel and M$ pushing the envelope of touchscreen ultrabooks, we'll be seeing more and more of these...the chances of BOTH of them admitting that they've fallen for a fad are slim to none so yes...the next time you visit Worst Buy it's going to be 90% instead of 50%, unfortunately...

 

I think it's a bit of a gimmick, but one that is probably here to stay. For me, like many of you, I have no interest in touching my laptop screen - despite owning a number of touch devices - I'm on my 3rd iPad and use it every day, I have a Surface Pro at work, etc. I think Apple really went down the right road with laptops by making the touchpad a replacement for having to reach out and touch the display, and that behavior is implemented well on my T440s - all of the normal Windows gestures I use on my Surface work perfectly fine with the touchpad, without me having to reach the display. In fact, even on the Surface Pro, the tablet side of Windows 8 is still so weak that the only thing I really use the touchscreen for is handwriting in OneNote...

That said, I think this will probably be here to stay for one big reason. Most of us here have been computer users for a long time so 'touch' is relatively new to us. We are well adapted to keyboards, mice and touchpads. However it's a different story with my twin boys who are under 3. It has been amazing to see them learn, entirely on their own, how to interact with the touch screen devices we have. It is completely natural to them. They have no idea how to use a computer, but they can unlock an iPad, find the games or pictures or music they want, and navigate all over those devices. The other day I watched as one of them walked up to the news playing on the tv where the headlines were scrolling across the bottom of the screen, and he reached out and tried to scroll it the other way! In his mind every screen is touch-able, and why not? I think as this generation grows up this phenomenon is going to stick with us.

 

The problem with this is that I think that most people don't want a tablet any bigger than about 10" - and most of them in fact prefer smaller ones. Laptops may continue to be integrated into convertible tablet devices, but I don't see these ever developing as a singular device for most people. The screen size gap between what's ideal for a tablet and for a laptop is just too big to rectify.

If you want to see a case study of the usefulness and popularity of tablets, take a look around next time you are at a big airport, especially if you ever get into the business lounges. Tablets are EVERYWHERE - they probably outnumber PC's 4 or 5 to 1 already in those lounges. It's partly the convenience, and partly the privacy - one, a tablet is much easier to have a relatively 'personal' experience on even in a busy public location. Laptop screens tend to advertise to everyone exactly what you are doing. Two, in the business world, the fact that a tablet is actually often privately owned and wholly private is a huge bonus for workers who mostly carry work-provided laptops and cell-phones. It's the one computing device they carry that is exclusively theirs and not managed by IT. People don't want a merged device, they want their own device.

 

Following the same train of thought, if you want to see a case stady of usefulness and growing popularity of printed books, visit a local library. Books are everywhere: in any given library they outnumber the number of any electronic devices by several orders of magnitude. The airport, and particularly the business lounges of it, is just a prime example where people who frequently travel by air (a very small % of all people), busier and better paid individuals than average public, are put into position of involuntary idleness for many hours. So, of course, they have to use a content consumption device to entertain themselves somehow, and the environment permits using a larger device than a pack of cards. Visit a packed subway in a rush hour - and you'll see that cellphones outnumber anything else in those trains.

And, of course, little children consume information from TV much easier than by reading (which is harder, and requires education). Yet, after training in reading, the majority would find that obtaining new information of many kinds by reading is faster than by watching. Same about writing, and typing, and skiing, and playing tennis, and all other activities that require education.

Where do all these little facts lead us, I don't know. But if anything seems clear it's that statements about what most people want/don't want are very volatile, and may be proven false by the next successful marketing campaign. Touch in laptops is no different, and has it use in devices with 3" or 300" screens. Vendors just haven't come up with a convincing way to sell it in laptop form factor yet. Whether they will eventually we'll find out

 

I haven't seen any studies to back that up. But anyway, even if it were true, tablets don't offer any sort of enhanced privacy when compared to a regular laptop. I mean, they both use similar displays, both use displays that generally have decent viewing angles, etc. You could apply a filter to the tablet display, but the same can be said for a laptop. And having a company laptop isn't mutually exclusive to having your own personal laptop, either. But even then, it seems like BYOD is gaining traction in the business world, so this is a moot point; I still think it's a pretty stupid idea, but I digress.

 

They absolutely do if nothing else by virtue of the fact that the screen is smaller and held in much closer proximity to the reader than a laptop which is usually set out on a table in front of you or at best your knees. If you think your laptop on your tray table offers the same kind of privacy as a small tablet on a plane, well, I think you haven't flown recently.

I used to know people who travelled with their own laptops in addition to their company ones. That was a practical necessity for the time. Today almost everyone carries their own tablet rather than a second laptop. BYOD is gaining traction, but it's still often managed by IT. Tablets, by and large, aren't.

 

I've flown multiple times in the past year, and I find this false. Most electronics I see at airports is; in order: ThinkPads/Latitudes, Macbook Pro's; then iPads and people's smartphones.

 

Fad (for laptops), though you might see more consumers gravitate towards tablets. It is a desperate ploy to stop the bleed but pointless.

 

I miss 2009, didn't have to care about Tablets back then.

 

Well, you caught me I suppose. Haven flow in anything since 2008, partly due to not having a need, and partly due to how badly airports are ran these days.

Anyway, thew privacy screen filter can easily be applied to a laptop or tablet and make both equally "private". But honestly, nothing you do out in public can truly be private anyway.

If that's true (BYOD devices are managed by IT), good, I suppose. I still think it's a *massively* horrible and stupid idea for a company to implement that "feature". At least IT's taking an active approach to security at least (I'm guessing that was what you were hinting at there?).

 

I've flown on 6 flights in the last two weeks. I go through periods where I travel a whole lot.

Yes, privacy screens help, but what I'm getting at is less an actual need for absolute privacy because you're doing something you don't want people to see, and 'personal' privacy in that you're just not advertising to the rest of the world what you're doing. A tablet just feels more intimate, and in the cramped confines of an airplane, that's a big difference.

I agree with the poster above who says he sees lots of Thinkpads and Macbooks - I do too - but these days I see those mostly in the security lines. In the lounges and at the gates it's a whole lot more tablets and phones than laptops which are less convenient to pull out for short periods.

Some companies manage BYOD's, others don't. I think a lot of tablets are wholly off the record - IT doesn't see them at all, as they have nothing to do with the company.

 

// off-topic rant
Some companies also don't manage BYOD at all, but at any rate I'm strongly against the idea of using my personal devices (laptop, tablet, phone, whatever) for work purposes. Ignoring the fact that it would shift maintenance costs to the worker wholly (not just in repairs, but additional storage space for work-related stuff, etc.), there's also the massive security risk on both ends of the deal. The company has to worry about the employee either (accidentally/purposefully) infecting the company's intranet with malware as well as the possibility of the employee leaking company secrets out to the open (especially, especially important in the medical industry with HIPAA and such). The employee has to worry about the employer expecting the employee to basically be on call any time during the day while not at work (might be a minor issue for laptops/tablets, but has been a major concern with phones), but especially the employee's privacy. Personally, I would not be comfortable with the possibility that an employer could slip in spyware to my personal device along with work-related software.

For me, at least, if a company wants me to use a laptop/tablet/phone/whatever for work, they better provide those resources to me. If they don't want to, or otherwise change my contract negatively as a result of this demand, I guess I'd be better off working for someone else then. In the overall scheme of things, those things are chump change compared to the revenue/profit that most employees can bring to a company, so if they're not willing to provide the tools required for the job, that's pretty disturbing to me.
// end of that rant

Well, then in that case the "privacy" provided by a tablet at an airport is completely subjective then, and has no objective basis. In that case, the whole argument for tablets is a moot point. But I guess we're pretty far off-topic for this thread

 

Speaking personally, pre-lift off I use my phone. Once in the air I use my laptop. So I would agree with sentiment that phones/tablets are easier to pull out or put back in the bag.

With the introduction of user profiles to devices, so your device should not mix personal and business. Also infection of intranet is unlikely as your BYOD device is most likely just acting as a thin client connecting to the cloud. And with new regulations removed on 10,000 feet and faster internet in flight, your not going to get a break any time soon.

Personally though, I prefer to keep my personal and work on separate devices. But that is just personal preference.

 

I would still rather not have any business data physically on my hard drive, if only for the legal consequences and liabilities of having it on there. Not even a cloud-connection to their data on my personal device for the same reasons. I'd rather have a company computer with access to the data and the ability for the employer to log every action I take on said company computer. I just can't see the same model of security working on a personal computer with online access to their data, as that would require I have that spyware on my personal device (because what's to stop an employee from copy-pasting data from an online collection and reuploading it to either another drive or another connection?).

I'm actually okay with being on-call *during reasonable times*, such as a hypothetical airline flight. But if a company's going to be calling me very often, they better provide me with a company phone (or otherwise pay for the part of my phone bill they cause). Call me during dinner, or in the middle of the night, days when I'm not supposed to be working, or something unreasonable like that and I'm having a word with the HR department. Hypothetically, if I agree to such conditions, the company better be ready to pay overtime for such calls.

I might elect to work on work problems in own time if I want, especially if they're more abstract in nature (for example, "How should I go about porting Application X from OSX to Windows?"), though that's my personal time and I have absolute control over what I do with it. But having an employer making me do work-related stuff in my off-time is something I'm not fond of.

 

When virtualizing on the cloud, the data would not be physically on your device neither are you connected to the data in any way. You can't copy and paste the data, doesn't work that way. Think of it like your cellphone like a monitor.

 

Screen capture?

In all seriousness though, I've seen the telecom work my ex's mom does (on a work-provided laptop) for a very-big financial company, and she was honest about keeping it secure (and I would be, too), I can just imagine some of the ways a malicious employee could screw their employer with a non-secured work-provided device.

 

There is a saying, a chain is only as sturdy as the weakest link. So while devices are hardened and come with security policies and all that. At end of the day, if the hacker knows how to get around the security policies, all he needs is a gullible user.

But even without consideration of security, the reason why I keep my work and personal stuff on separate devices is more of symbolical. When I am on my work device, I only do work. When on a personal device, I do my own stuff.

 

A good philosophy for sure. Besides, if I was working on my personal computer, I'd probably become distracted by my bookmarks and other stuff