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Comment by DIVx0 | Hacker News Reader

I really have zero desire to touch my laptop screen. Maybe it's years of conditioning to not smudge my screen or it could be that lifting my hands off the keyboard to pinch and swipe at my screen would be more irritating then using a mouse.

With that being said. I'm all for high density screens in laptops!

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You know, I thought the same thing but it's surprising how often I touch my Surface when I'm using it as a laptop. I don't think about it, it sort of just happens sometimes...like to tap a button or go back in IE by swiping backwards, or even just scrolling in a webpage I sometimes use the arrow keys and sometimes use my thumb. It's odd.

Equally surprising was how I would have to restrain myself from touching my non-touchscreen desktop monitor sometimes that I've had for much longer (i.e. years). Happens a lot as I'm sitting down and want to launch a few initial apps.

I think if you ever get a touch screen laptop you'll be as surprised as I was to see how much you do end up using the touch screen, even if it is "unintentional".

I've had exactly the same experience. I've always hated people touching my displays and rolled my eyes every time I watched someone demo Windows 8 touch screen computers on stage. I was very sure that I'd never want to use them like that.

After I got my Surface, I can't imagine buying a laptop without touch. I had to use my MacBook Air (which the Surface has largely replaced) for a few hours last week and found myself unconsciously reaching for the screen very often.

This was more or less exactly my experience when using the Transformer Prime in laptop mode. Touchscreens give you much more space and comfortable gestures compared to a typical laptop trackpad.

Isn't that just because their touchpads are so tiny? If you sit at a larger laptop with good touchpad, do you still feel that need?

Unsure since I don't have a larger laptop. Though I'll say that I don't find the Surface's trackpad lacking for what I would use it for - and yet I don't always use it. It's mostly unconscious like one of the other people said.

I'm kind of opposite. All these years now of using touch tablets makes me frustrated that I can't touch the screen to do simple things that would be much easier with touch than with a mouse (dragging stuff around, for example, which requires holding a mouse button down and moving the mouse at the same time).

I can see uses for a touchscreen, for example I think some of Apple's trackpad gestures would be better. Think three finger swipe to switch virtual desktops on a 15" screen instead of a 4" trackpad.

I do hope they work out a good solution to smudges.

indeed.

Perhaps stuff like this will make it more practical:

http://blog.liangzan.net/blog/2013/02/06/first-impressions-o...

Gorilla arm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#.22Gorilla_arm.22

Gorilla arm really only applies if you have your arm extended the entire time (or simply "a lot"). With a touch screen laptop you'd a) still have mouse/kb input so you wouldn't always be using touch and more importantly b) when you're not interacting with touch, your arm will be resting - i.e. you only extend your arm for a few seconds at a time and don't hold it there for long.

I haven't experienced gorilla arm at all on my Surface (which I use in "laptop mode" often - for what it's worth I no longer use a laptop.)

I think the more common use case for a touchscreen laptop would be when it is sitting on your lap, which feels a lot more natural than sitting a desk and trying to swipe your 20+ inch monitor that is 2 feet away from you.

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