Touchscreens -do you ever use them on a laptop?

Soldato
Joined
18 Mar 2010
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I have a Dell XPS 15 with a touchscreen, I dont recall ever using it. I have had previous touchscreen laptops and dont recall using them either.

With the working from home and home-schooling I have been letting my 10yr old daught use the xps 15, while I work at a desk as it is kinder on my back/neck.

I was intrigued when she showed me her work she used the touchscreen a lot, scrolling, zooming tuning pages etc. This is not a habit from phone/table use as we dont really let her use our phones and have only recently got an ipad. She explained that it is because the first computer we gave her was the dell duo (a horrificly slow computer) and that has a touchscreen. I asked her if the computers at school were touchscreen, and she said that they arent, but out of habit she touches them!

I think it relates to forming habits - computers only became touchscreen when I had been using them for years, so it didnt feel natural, whereas my daughter was using touchscreen from the start, so it is a more normal part of computer interaction for her. Her computer skills havent been enfeebled by touchscreen (which i think is often the case for tablet-raised kids), she can touch type and uses keyboard shortcuts.

TLDR -do you use touchscreen on a laptop?
-do you notice young'uns using it differently?
 
Associate
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My current laptop is the first I've had with touchscreen and I do find I use it on odd occasion, but it certainly wouldn't be a 'must-have' on a laptop in the future. It can sometimes just be a bit quicker to select a link, close a programme etc by touching rather than using the trackpad, plus its quite handy when working with an external monitor if you want to scroll through 2 documents/programmes etc at the same time.
 
Associate
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7 Feb 2019
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I have a Lenovo Yoga 2 I bought early 2015, I think... I use the touchscreen sometimes, depends what I'm doing really, but it is super handy occasionally for zooming and stuff, and of course if I'm using it as a tablet. Probably 90% of my use would be zooming, rotating or scrolling. While not necessarily required, not sure if I'd get a new laptop without it if I could help it as long as the price premium over a standard non-touchscreen wasnt too much.
 
Soldato
OP
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18 Mar 2010
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While not necessarily required, not sure if I'd get a new laptop without it if I could help it as long as the price premium over a standard non-touchscreen wasnt too much.

Agreed, though I don't really use it much, I think that I would take it as an option, probably partly fear of missing out! Plus obviously even if I won't use it, it seems the rest of my family will.
 
Associate
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I have a touch screen on my ThinkPad X1. I don’t really use it though. I also don’t like fingerprints on the screen! However, I was surprised how well touch is implemented in W10.
 
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