Hacker News Reader

For me personally, I just don't want it. As a developer/ student, I love being able to step away from my laptop with all its notifications and what not, pick up my ipad and read, study, or watch netflix. The tablet has become my haven when works and school get crazy. I love that it doesn't vibrate and doesn't encourage me to multitask. I love that by doing specific tasks very well, it helps me a ton!

In other words, I love that my ipad doesn't try to make life more busy than it needs to be. It's as close as I can get to unplugging when I need it most.

I'm sorry but I'm not buying it. Whenever I hear someone say "I hate to bring up Apple" it's always followed by a "but" that essentially amounts to "I've put my blinders on and trying my best to sound objective".

"I really think the blending of tablets and laptops is a bad idea."

Reason? What's the problem with "touch interfaces plus a keyboard"? Many thought the iPad was a bad idea, but its sales suggest the opposite. After all, an iPad is a "touch interface with a smaller keyboard on the screen", right?

"you've got to take into account the types of gestures people are naturally accustomed to plus the size of touch targets" Were people accustomed to the iPod touch interface when they first used it? No, it was completely new and different at the time of its introduction but younger generations picked it up really quickly because it was intuitive. I still find older generations struggling to use the iPod/iPhone/iPad.

You're making too many assumptions with this post. Go out, give the Microsoft Surface Pro a try, an unbiased try, and then report on your findings. It's much more credible that way.

To your points, the reason I think the blending of tablets and laptops is a bad idea is because they're made for very different tasks. The moment you add a keyboard to a tablet, no matter who makes it, you've put distance between yourself and the device and negate a lot of the benefits you're supposed to get from it. Are there times when the keyboard is necessary? Absolutely but I'd argue that having it attached lends itself to being used more often and thus you end up with a really small, low power laptop-ish thing. From my experience and what I've seen others experience, having the keyboard as something totally separate and only pulled out on a rare occassion makes a person less apt to use it and therefore they end up using the device how it was meant to be used - as a portable computer made for really quick tasks that don't require tons of precision like checking movie times, shooting of a short email, etc.

To your second point, I don't think I'm making too many assumptions. The laptop with a touch screen isn't a new idea, we've had them for a few years now. If you've got a laptop that responds to touch you need a Metro-like interface for it, which like I said, is cool for a tablet but when you get down to business you end up just going for the mouse and keyboard and the touch screen ends up as a gimmick until you're back in I'm-carrying-this-thing-around-one-handed-and-doing-a-quick-thing-here-and-there mode.

Yeah, I haven't used the Surface pro, you're right. And if I had used it I would then be a credible source but I'm not trying to be credible here. I'm not a journalist. I'm a guy on HN like a lot of others who's sharing my thoughts, experiences and opinions. I'm not claiming to be an expert and you can see I use a lot of "I think"'s and "in my experience"'s in what I say. Everyone's mileage may vary but unless I'm making totally off the wall unfounded crazy suggestions or until I decide I'm going to write a report I expect people to cite I think I have just as much right to what I say as a lot of others here who haven't used it but have an opinion. Now, I have used the RT and a bunch of Windows8 laptops and desktops. So it's not like I've been living in a bubble and have no clue about what these devices look, feel, or work like.

I am sitting here typing with my Lenovo x220 Tablet Laptop - a laptop with a touch screen and stylus.

I hate it. HATE it. the touch screen on a laptop is out of place without any way to disable the touch when I want, it overlays the touch technology on the screen which is visible to me in the sun - as well as the screen medium makes the screen more dim than I would like. Especially in the sun/brightly lit areas.

It really needs to be done right in order to make a great experience. Thus far I haven't seen one.

One of the frustrating things about a touch-screen laptop is that I have a very curious toddler. She likes to touch what daddy is touching, so she will come and grab the screen to bend it down so she can see what I am doing and in doing so clicks on things, scrolls and closes windows.

I never use the touch screen on this machine for anything and so it is simply an annoyance.

Just curious, did you buy the Lenovo thinking the touch screen would be a plus? I'm not sure a saleperson at Best Buy would be able to sell me a touch screen computer. The mere idea seems unwieldly, like someone desperately trying to make innovation in consistently wrong directions.

This is a work provided machine, not my choice :)

Ah, sorry to hear that :)

Regarding your "touch what daddy is touching" comment, why is that not true for a keyboard or touch pad?

Well it's pretty easy to defend the keyboard, and I certainly don't want to prevent her from being curious about what I am doing and computers in general - it's just that her tiny hands an fingers appear to be magically attracted to the little red X in the corner of the screen as that is typically where she grabs the screen to bend it toward her so she can see.

I just would like the ability to disable the touch functionality when I want.

I think such a device does make sense, but I think the trick is getting it right, and doing the transition well. I suspect that the right choice is to actually morph the UI between a keyboard/mouse-centric mode and a touch-centric mode, trying to satisfy both modes simultaneously with some common interface is probably a mistake.

I agree with you and I think I could have phrased that better. I suppose what I was really trying to say was more along the lines of "I haven't seen such a device that makes sense yet" because really, so far, there hasn't been a single "hybrid" that blends the two worlds in a natural way. But I wonder what's the real purpose of such a device? Is it just about the touch interface for the sake of novelty or are they adding it because it somehow makes the experience of using a small laptop better? What I personally see, so far, is companies making these things to kind of capitalize on the whole tablet thing. If I were to imagine the perfect "hybrid" it would have pretty much the same form factor but the software would just be different. I picture an ultra thin, ultra light, device about the size of an 11" Macbook Air that works in two modes. When you open it up to reveal the keyboard you're in desktop OS mode. You don't touch the screen because there's no need. In desktop mode you need precision, multiple windows, and a UI that's easy to interact with for more than an hour. You'd code, write, organize, and just work in desktop mode. Then you'd somehow kind of swivel and close the lid so the screen is facing out and you've got yourself a tablet. The UI then goes into tablet mode where you're tapping, pointing, pinching, and swiping at your screen, focused on one task at a time. Those tasks are more recreational or more "read-only" like watch a movie or check email. I can't deny that there have been many times that I wished I had a keyboard when using certain apps on a tablet however those times are rare and I think sacrificing that one convenience for everything else that a tablet UI gives is worth it. Putting a keyboard between you and your screen automatically puts the device further from you, forces you to sit still often on a flat surface, and just generally negates a lot of the benefits of tablets in general like the ability to just carry a small screen around in one hand and still be able to effectively interact with the apps on it. I know people who use an iPad as their main computer because they thought they could get a keyboard and it'd be cool and it just fails miserably. "Normal" users often complain about how complicated a normal computer is to use and point to tablets as beacons of hope but there are times when you're trying to accomplish certain tasks that the same simplicity that was supposed to save them comes back to bite them and makes things even harder (having to switch back and forth between multiple apps to get one thing done sometimes).

I think that maybe for as long as each form factor lends itself to certain kinds of activities there may not be someone who gets it right without literally combining both the laptop and tablet experience into one device. This means more like a two-in-one device than a hybrid. There is a difference. A two-in-one has the complete features of each device and they are completely separate from each other while a hybrid is trying to be all things to all people at the same time.

Or, maybe, just maybe, someone really will get it right and I'll eat my words.

visualcsharp, you have been hellbanned for quite some time.

My guess is that he knows, and posts anyway. I have come across this a few times.