I'm waffling on my pre-order because I realized Frameworks don't have touchscreens, which I really enjoy when reading long articles. Kind of wild that they offer all these other features that seem very niche, but a common one these days is absent.
A nice 12-14" tablet is great for reading long documents, or for writing them with an external keyboard.
Do you keep the laptop on a desk when you're using the touchscreen? I don't think framework has hinges that convert it into a tablet-esque form, so I'm kinda flummoxed on how a touchscreen is useful for long articles. Something about reaching out and touching the screen seems laborious compared to scrolling on a mousewheel or swiping slightly on a trackpad (or even just pressing spacebar). Laptops just don't seem to designed for that.
- I think it's a better zoom experience. You can get a similar experience with a touchpad, but it's just nicer to touch the screen where you are pinch zooming IMO.
- Signing documents. I don't do this often but much prefer to use a touchscreen over a track pad when I do have to.
- Some games are better. Again not a big part of my life, but occasionally I'll play some drawing game where a touch screen shines.
- My kids understand a touch screen better. Occasionally I am on my laptop showing them something and them having the ability to reach over and touch the screen directly is a better UX for that situation.
- I do kind of like to scroll with it sometimes, but I can't really say why.
Again, not a make or break it feature for me, but all things being equal I'd choose to have it rather than not.
When you're sitting with a laptop on your lap using the keyboard, you typically have it pushed out resting on your thighs toward your knees so that your hands can access the keyboard and touchpad.
When you have a touchscreen, you can pull the laptop closer so that your hands are behind the screen like when holding a book or magazine. The touchscreen allows you to thumb scroll up and down. And because it's a laptop and not a tablet, you don't get fatigued holding it in this reading position because the chassis is supporting the screen and not your hands.
It's actually quite nice and I will likely never purchase a laptop without touch again for that reason alone. The touchscreen is definitely niche, like Thinkpad nubbins.
Is there some specific quality-related reason for this? I’m not a fan of touchscreens on laptops but absent some glaring technical issue I can’t imagine that being a blocker for my purchases.
i don't use it at all and it's mostly a waste of battery power, as there usually is no way to explicitly power it down (except maybe opening the laptop and snipping the right cable -- but who wants to do that ?)