$600 seems to be the entry price for touch

whs

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I was reading the Sunday ads and at Staples they show 4 laptops with touchscreens all around $600. They are from Lenovo, Dell, Acer and HP (which is a convertible). Processors are i5,i3 and Atom. I think the Lenovo is probably the nicest deal.

Ocala Staples Weekly Ad
 

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You might want to play with a touch screen lap top or wait till someone that has one can comment. Unless the hinges are stronger on them I'd think there might be problems keeping contact without readjusting the screen position often. My All In One takes a little pressure to make things work.

Also you might want to take a look at Lenovo's forum and see what is said of their service, it is not pretty. There service is nill and many of the questions go unanswered. They have not supplied drivers for windows 8 for those they encouraged to update from windows 7 either.

If you opt for the Lenovo, be sure to burn the restore disks, you do not want to buy them from Lenovo, my AIO disks were 60 bucks when I called - needless to say I did not buy them. One person said his were 80.
 

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Yeah, unfortunately you are right. Service of most of those companies is dismal. The best used to be Gateway when they were still independent. The service teams were in Utah and South Dakota. But now that they are part of Acer, they are just as bad (from India).

Burning the recovery disc is a good idea. Better even is to make early images and keep those.
 

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you should have your touchscreen checked out. if it's capacitive screen, there should be zero pressure needed to make it work. I'd understand if it was a resistive screen but I doubt any modern AIO has a resistive screen.
 

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When I installed windows 8 one of the several problems windows informed me would be a problem is that the touchscreen is not compatible with 8. I did get a hint on this board that allows me to get to the charms menu finally but the touch is not what it was on 7. I've calibrated a number of times with little to no change.

It doesn't take a lot of pressure but the laptops I've had I'm guessing they would have been a pain.
 

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How about using a stylus. I use that a lot on my tablet and it requires less pressure than with the fingers - and keeps the screen clean of smudges.
 

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When I installed windows 8 one of the several problems windows informed me would be a problem is that the touchscreen is not compatible with 8. I did get a hint on this board that allows me to get to the charms menu finally but the touch is not what it was on 7. I've calibrated a number of times with little to no change.

It doesn't take a lot of pressure but the laptops I've had I'm guessing they would have been a pain.

Yes, I use a stylus at times. Big shaky fingers make a stylus nice addition :)
 

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exactly what screen do you have?

because the way a capacitive screen works is conduction of electrical charge. when you touch a screen, your finger is pulling some charge away from the screen. the software detects this decreased charge and can pinpoint its location from it. it's why you can't wear gloves or use a traditional stylus because they don't allow this transfer. it's why the capacitive pens have a stubby end to allow enough surface area to draw charge versus a traditional pen point of a regular stylus.

a resistive screen works by having multiple layers contact each other and this point of contact is then used to identify the location of the touch. it's why resistive screens aren't that great at swipes. and why a stylus is great because it can maintain a defined point of contact.

the latest capacitive screens on AIOs and laptops have a layer for the active digitizers so that you can have the capacitive touch but still have a good pen.
 

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It is a capacitive but I can run a stylus or my finger up and down with no reaction till I press a little. It is an Elo USB unit from what I've found. Elo gave me a link to their latest driver but it was worse than the generic that windows supplied. Elo said it should work the same with 7 or 8 but not so. Microsoft after the 8 install was quite specific this screen was not compatible. I had the impression they weren't talking about drivers - don't know what they know that I don't know :)

The side swipe didn't work at all till someone suggested I reduce the size of the picture slightly with video settings. I brought it in about 1/8 of an inch on all four sides and the swipe works nicely now.

I've noticed on tablets that capacitive sensitivity varies from update to update as well.
 

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Touch on a laptop is pretty nice, I don't see hinges being an issue though. On the Lenovo Yoga, probably yeah. A display model of it wasn't working correctly when you tilt it around and such.

But in general, they last. Although I think they should make them a tad more stiffer so the screen doesn't move around too much. Actually though, there is this Acer netbook for about 400 dollars I recently saw with a touchscreen. It was weird to see a device that was considered dead due to the tablet form factor back on display with a touch screen and touchy OS.

100 dollars seems to be the actual add on price to a typical PC. It still pisses me off that a 27 inch touch screen costs an arm and a leg, it's still roughly 100 dollars per extra inch over the standard 23 inches.
 

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Well, at the end of the day, touch on a laptop or a desktop is a gimmick. I could not see myself using it with a proper OS. Maybe something the kids will like. It would probably go well for them with the playmobile UI.
 

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Well, at the end of the day, touch on a laptop or a desktop is a gimmick. I could not see myself using it with a proper OS. Maybe something the kids will like. It would probably go well for them with the playmobile UI.
Using the mouse was a gimmick when it was first introduced, along with the GUI, but that's not the way it went now did it?

I've used the modern aspect along with the Desktop on several touchscreens, the thing I have to say is don't rag on it until you've tried it (by trying it, this does not mean poking randomly at it and saying it's awful). On a laptop, touch is just the same as using touch with a tablet, you're closer and personal to it. On a desktop, touch has to be adapted to to a certain extent. It can't be done well when you're sitting four feet away from the screen, the screen needs to tilt down like a drawing easel so you can get closer and personal to it. Size is another factor as well. Motion gesturing will also be great with that setup if you want to use a desktop but don't feel like getting to close to it.
 

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I have tried a lot of touchscreens. In 2009 I was close to bying an HP 13" convertible with a touchscreen. But after further consideration I really did not see what advantage that would have.

The fact that MS now prostitutes the desktop with a tablet UI is not enough reason for me to go touch - the reasons are the same as in 2009 - I don't see any advantage.

It is handy though on my 7" tablet. There it makes sense. But that is a completely different world. On the tablet I don't do any work. I only consult resources for information.
 

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The fact that MS now prostitutes the desktop with a tablet UI is not enough reason for me to go touch - the reasons are the same as in 2009 - I don't see any advantage.

True. Touch is perfect for small devices, but I really dont see my desks following that path.

I like a confortable chair and a good mouse.

:winkey:
 

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I have tried a lot of touchscreens. In 2009 I was close to bying an HP 13" convertible with a touchscreen. But after further consideration I really did not see what advantage that would have.

The fact that MS now prostitutes the desktop with a tablet UI is not enough reason for me to go touch - the reasons are the same as in 2009 - I don't see any advantage.

It is handy though on my 7" tablet. There it makes sense. But that is a completely different world. On the tablet I don't do any work. I only consult resources for information.

Prostitutes it... well then!

I can knock out some Office documents with my 4.5 inch Windows Phone, then go to a Windows RT tablet and knock out some more Office documents, then go on Windows 8 and knock out an AutoCAD drawing, all with touch. That's the world that Microsoft is prostituting themselves out for, three different devices with a similar UI with a similar input. A tablet is still a computing device, but limited terribly by the software and the hardware. Windows 8 changes that. Just because what has been considered a "tablet" for a few years (not regarding the fact that tablets or touch enabled laptops have been around in rarity since xp) isn't the set definition of what it can do or what it should do. Why do I need a different device so I can interact with it through touch when my PC could? Seems deathly pointless to me to keep a PC, a simple tablet, and a smartphone. Too many devices for me when the vast majority can literally be done with a touch PC, and when mobile, a Windows Phone (or smartphone). One device used for everything, one device for cellular communication, which actually, a tablet PC can do with a SIM card and Skype.

I don't see any advantage in having a superfluous amount of devices just because it's considered "correct" or "proper."
 

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Your world is too complicated for me. All I need is my 22" screen with my desktop and my little $230 tablet for entertainment on the road. I really would like to see you making a spreadsheet on your 4.5" windows phone.
 

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Your world is too complicated for me. All I need is my 22" screen with my desktop and my little $230 tablet for entertainment on the road. I really would like to see you making a spreadsheet on your 4.5" windows phone.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=B1CE3CABEDC58B85!1488&authkey=!ABzYgspxLaWVKJQ

I just made this with my Windows Phone in about a few minutes. Thinking of what to do for an Excel sheet took longer than actually inputting the data.

Good show.
 

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Your world is too complicated for me. All I need is my 22" screen with my desktop and my little $230 tablet for entertainment on the road. I really would like to see you making a spreadsheet on your 4.5" windows phone.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=B1CE3CABEDC58B85!1488&authkey=!ABzYgspxLaWVKJQ

I just made this with my Windows Phone in about a few minutes. Thinking of what to do for an Excel sheet took longer than actually inputting the data.

Good show.

Thank you!

I can also view PowerPoints made on my PC on Windows Phone, albeit, not always in the same glory. But that's due to the software for some reason, probably because of the device's use and form factor.

There is also a Word document I can do, that is MUCH easier I'd say. I can already tap type on my Windows Phone pretty quickly as it is (along with a very good auto correct that seems isn't on android and DEFINTELY isn't on ios for sure) and then save it, print it off from my PC's browser, or edit it from that. But there is the potential that Windows Phone 8 handsets should get printing support from the Office hub, honestly, if you take the printer compatibility drivers from Windows 8 and enable that on Windows Phone, :what:, the amount of printers you could wireless use that don't need to be specially made for ios; I would imagine the enterprise would go to the bathroom in their pants. Maybe.
 

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    1 TB Seagate Barracuda (starting to hate Seagate)
    x2 3 TB Toshibas
    Windows 8.1 is installed on a SanDisk Ultra Plus 256 GB
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    OCZ 500 watt
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    A current work in progres as I'll be building the physical case myself. It shall be fantastic.
    Cooling
    Arctic Cooler with 3 heatpipes
    Keyboard
    Logitech K750 wireless solar powered keyboard
    Mouse
    Microsoft Touch Mouse
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender, but I might go back on KIS 2014
There are several apps in Android that make typing on the screen real easy - including self correction or look ahead where they are suggesting the word if you only typed a couple of letters.
 

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