3 ms·

The opposite is also true. Keyboards and mice are no replacement for a touch screen. I have a laptop with all three and I love it.

kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
The tie-breaker is this—would you rather have a 'laptop' with no keyboard or mouse but a touchscreen or the other way round.
- cptskippy 10y ago
  There's no tie to break. They're different overlapping forms of input. They co-sign just fine on a laptop and you don't have to choose one over the other.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
    There's a tie to break because the discussion was about iPads, which offer a touchscreen but not a KB or Mouse.
Jare 10y ago
My touchscreen Chromebook has been the most cost-effective and versatile computer purchase I've ever made. And with a crouton chroot I can do anything I'd do on a regular Ubuntu laptop outside of high performance and games.
michaelmrose 10y ago
Actually mice/touchpad are a direct replacement that doesn't require you to hold your hand up awkwardly or get nasty fingerprints on your screen. The only things touch does better is allow gestures which could be input on your touchpad instead of directly on the screen. Of course its useful on convertable tablets that can be used in tablet orientation.
- delecti 10y ago
  Have you used a laptop with a touchscreen? Because I thought the same way you seem to until I did. A decade of getting used to touchscreen phones and tablets has made it feel really natural to interact directly with a screen. It's not world changing, but that extra input stream is a very pleasant addition, and sometimes it's just more natural to tap the screen directly.
  - 300bps 10y ago
    Have you used a laptop with a touchscreen? I have for about 18 months and I never use the touch screen functionality. In fact the only time it ever gets used is when someone else tries to point at something on my screen and of course that causes a click and they awkwardly say, "Sorry, I didn't know it was a touch screen."
- cptskippy 10y ago
  > The only things touch does better is allow gestures That's not true at all. There are plenty of Apps that work better with touch than using a mouse or touchpad. When you don't have a 9 Key, such as on a laptop, then touch becomes the preferred method of input for calculator apps or dialers. Media player applications work much better with touch than mouse. There are many apps that don't have keyboard shortcuts and custom UIs that are difficult to navigate with keyboard or mouse. When using a laptop I use to naturally keep my left hand next to the keyboard with thumb on CTRL, index on TAB, and middle finger on ESC. After using a touchscreen laptop for 3+ years I now keep my hand rested next to the screen with for fingers behind the screen and my thumb hovering over it. I can use my thumb to flick the screen or slam the ESC key and change screens with a gesture.
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    That sounds like an awkward and unhealthy hand placement. Not every laptop has a numpad but they usually have number keys.
    - 10y ago
criddell 10y ago
I have a Windows laptop because there's a few key pieces of software that I use that's Windows only. There's some interesting iPad Pro software that I think will be useful, so I'm probably going to buy one of those. The software I use has always dictated the hardware I buy.

kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago

The tie-breaker is this—would you rather have a 'laptop' with no keyboard or mouse but a touchscreen or the other way round.

cptskippy 10y ago
There's no tie to break. They're different overlapping forms of input. They co-sign just fine on a laptop and you don't have to choose one over the other.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
  There's a tie to break because the discussion was about iPads, which offer a touchscreen but not a KB or Mouse.

Jare 10y ago

My touchscreen Chromebook has been the most cost-effective and versatile computer purchase I've ever made. And with a crouton chroot I can do anything I'd do on a regular Ubuntu laptop outside of high performance and games.

michaelmrose 10y ago

Actually mice/touchpad are a direct replacement that doesn't require you to hold your hand up awkwardly or get nasty fingerprints on your screen. The only things touch does better is allow gestures which could be input on your touchpad instead of directly on the screen. Of course its useful on convertable tablets that can be used in tablet orientation.

delecti 10y ago
Have you used a laptop with a touchscreen? Because I thought the same way you seem to until I did. A decade of getting used to touchscreen phones and tablets has made it feel really natural to interact directly with a screen. It's not world changing, but that extra input stream is a very pleasant addition, and sometimes it's just more natural to tap the screen directly.
- 300bps 10y ago
  Have you used a laptop with a touchscreen? I have for about 18 months and I never use the touch screen functionality. In fact the only time it ever gets used is when someone else tries to point at something on my screen and of course that causes a click and they awkwardly say, "Sorry, I didn't know it was a touch screen."
cptskippy 10y ago
> The only things touch does better is allow gestures That's not true at all. There are plenty of Apps that work better with touch than using a mouse or touchpad. When you don't have a 9 Key, such as on a laptop, then touch becomes the preferred method of input for calculator apps or dialers. Media player applications work much better with touch than mouse. There are many apps that don't have keyboard shortcuts and custom UIs that are difficult to navigate with keyboard or mouse. When using a laptop I use to naturally keep my left hand next to the keyboard with thumb on CTRL, index on TAB, and middle finger on ESC. After using a touchscreen laptop for 3+ years I now keep my hand rested next to the screen with for fingers behind the screen and my thumb hovering over it. I can use my thumb to flick the screen or slam the ESC key and change screens with a gesture.
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  That sounds like an awkward and unhealthy hand placement. Not every laptop has a numpad but they usually have number keys.
  - 10y ago

criddell 10y ago

I have a Windows laptop because there's a few key pieces of software that I use that's Windows only. There's some interesting iPad Pro software that I think will be useful, so I'm probably going to buy one of those. The software I use has always dictated the hardware I buy.