- Messages
- 11,513
- Name
- Stewart
- Edit My Images
- Yes
I might be in the market for a new laptop. It's about 6 years since I bought one, and I'm way out of touch with the market. So yesterday I stopped in at PC World to browse around.
I was amazed to find that just about every single laptop - with the notable exception of Apple ones, which is suggestive - featured a touchscreen.
To my mind that feels all wrong as far as the ergonomics are concerned. When I use a laptop, my hands usually rest on the keyboard, which is relatively far from the screen. It's a bit of a stretch to reach the screen in order to do something. I totally appreciate that touchscreens are intuitive. But I certainly wouldn't want to use a touchscreen desktop machine, because I'm sure that after a few hours I'd need physio on my arm/shoulder, and I'm concerned that a laptop would be the same.
So what's going on here? Are we all being forced to buy touchscreen laptops just because Microsoft thought it was a good idea when they bodged their desktop OS and their mobile OS together into Windows 8? What are the ergonomics like in real life usage? Would it be smart to ensure I buy a machine with a touchpad that supports multi-touch gestures (pinch, swipe, scroll etc) so that I can do as much as possible without having to lift my arms from the keyboard?
Any insights and advice welcomed. Thanks.
I was amazed to find that just about every single laptop - with the notable exception of Apple ones, which is suggestive - featured a touchscreen.
To my mind that feels all wrong as far as the ergonomics are concerned. When I use a laptop, my hands usually rest on the keyboard, which is relatively far from the screen. It's a bit of a stretch to reach the screen in order to do something. I totally appreciate that touchscreens are intuitive. But I certainly wouldn't want to use a touchscreen desktop machine, because I'm sure that after a few hours I'd need physio on my arm/shoulder, and I'm concerned that a laptop would be the same.
So what's going on here? Are we all being forced to buy touchscreen laptops just because Microsoft thought it was a good idea when they bodged their desktop OS and their mobile OS together into Windows 8? What are the ergonomics like in real life usage? Would it be smart to ensure I buy a machine with a touchpad that supports multi-touch gestures (pinch, swipe, scroll etc) so that I can do as much as possible without having to lift my arms from the keyboard?
Any insights and advice welcomed. Thanks.