Skip to main content

Touchscreen PCs and laptops are all the rage, but are they worth the hype?

Whether it’s a laptop, a convertible hybrid, a desktop with a touch-capable monitor, or an all-in-one, the available options for powerful, touchscreen devices are more plentiful and varied than they’ve ever been before.

But as with many technologies that have come and gone in history (we’re looking at you zip drives) just because you can do something, doesn’t necessarily mean you should. Are touchscreen PCs and laptops a good investment for you, or something that’s better left to the enthusiasts alone?

Recommended Videos

Laptops

First, there’s touchscreen-ready laptops.

Convertible laptops (or hybrids as they’re better known), have quickly been gaining in popularity over the past several years, though the devices are still struggling to achieve the same kind of rapid upward trajectory that tablets did when the iPad was first introduced.

Nowadays you’ll find that a lot of capable laptops which do fine on their own in the classic clamshell design also come with the choice of adding on a touchscreen for a nominal fee. Generally this ranges anywhere from a $20 to $100 difference in cost, a number which tends to scale depending on the resolution of a particular display and the amount of power packed into the device itself.

 

But do you really get much more productivity for that increased sales price? Objectively, we think not.

Even with hybrids entering the market by the handful, there’s still only a select number of touchscreen applications which can actually take full advantage of the technology on a day-to-day basis. As such, the need for touchscreen laptops is reduced to a select group of field professionals who require a special combination of versatility and power out of their machines, and that’s about it.

Otherwise, light, agile tablets do almost the exact same job, and usually cost a fraction of the price to boot. The compromise comes in the form of entries like Microsoft’s Surface 3, which offers a perfect middle ground between workers who need touchscreens, but also want a device that’s light and portable enough to use wherever the job takes them.

All-in-Ones

All-in-ones can be great teaching tools for younger children who learn more through touch than they do interacting with content on a classical mouse-and-keyboard combo.

Windows already has a slew of educational games that are designed to take advantage of the technology, and if you’ve ever seen a toddler pick up an iPad for the first time, you know just how quickly that system of interaction clicks with the way they understand the world.

Touching, tapping, and seeing immediate feedback makes sense to them, and more often than not it doesn’t take more than a week with one before they’re already figuring out tricks and shortcuts that their parents never would have been able to think of on their own.

Toshiba All-In-One
Digital Trends

Along that same train of thought, all-in-ones do benefit from being able to offer the same amount of flexibility and usability as tablets, however the waters get a bit cloudier once you go up in age range.

The problem with all-in-ones is the same with convertible/hybrid tablets: general usability. No matter which way you spin it, the novelty factor of being able to scroll through web pages or zoom-in on pictures using your hands quickly wears off as you realize that 99% of programs and software on normal computers is built for a mouse first, and everything else second.

Sure, it might be nice to have an all-in-one in the kitchen for looking up recipes while you’re cooking, but other than that, the general utility of an added touchscreen is nill.

Software and Operating Systems

Much to the dismay of the most faithful, Windows 8 and its Metro UI was made almost exclusively with touchscreen technology at the forefront of its design. The classic desktop we’d all come to know and love since the days of Windows 3.1 had been shoved into the background as an afterthought, as Microsoft attempted to force its users into thinking about Windows as an OS you used with your hands, instead of a mouse.

Windows 10 Start Menu
Digital Trends

The move backfired of course, with many of the Metro stylings being chucked out just in time for the upcoming release of Windows 10. That’s not to say touchscreen users will be completely left out in the cold (the Start Menu will feature a combination of both tiles and regular icons), but if there’s any lesson that Microsoft learned from Windows 8, it’s that neither the mouse, nor the people who prefer to use it over touchscreens, are going anywhere anytime soon.

Conclusion

Whether you find touch worthwhile comes down to how much utility you think you might get out of any one feature. If you think your workday will be made easier by trying to mimic the subtlety of a mouse with your index finger, then a touchscreen could be a reasonable upgrade for your next laptop or all-in-one.

That said, the reason the mouse-keyboard combo has dominated our interaction with computers for so long is because even though carpal tunnel is always a risk, it’s simply easier to rest our hands and arms on a desk for eight hours a day than it is to flail them about randomly in the air over the same period of time.

Arm strain is a real problem that no technology company is equipped to solve on its own, and as long as a mouse does everything we need it to, a touchscreen will continue to remain a luxury, rather than a requirement. Most users don’t need it, and if you’re uncertain what you choose, you should probably save a few bucks and skip touch.

Chris Stobing
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Self-proclaimed geek and nerd extraordinaire, Chris Stobing is a writer and blogger from the heart of Silicon Valley. Raised…
Topics
Best student laptop deals: Laptops for college from $200
online web browser game list

When a lot of folks think about budget laptops for students, they're probably thinking of really cheap and low-end laptops, but these days, there are actually quite a few options, especially since some classes need to be able to run some heavy-duty software. Granted, you may not be able to play games, but they should manage all the basic tasks that you might need to get done on the day-to-day. For example, there are a lot of great Chromebook deals you can take advantage of that are a lot cheaper than Windows laptops, although if you do need Windows, then there are a lot of great laptop deals for that, too.

Whatever you're looking for, we've collected some of our favorite student laptop deals from that include HP laptop deals, Dell laptop deals, Acer laptop deals, and Lenovo laptop deals.
HP Laptop 14 -- $700 $1,000 30% off

Read more
HP Envy deals: HP’s most popular laptop starts at $830
An HP Envy 17-inch laptop sits on an office desk.

There are a lot of excellent laptop brands out there, such as Dell and Lenovo, but you're probably just as familiar with HP, which has been around for a couple of decades now and knows its stuff. While there are a lot of specific lineups we could mention, like the XPS, that are pretty great, there's another lineup that is worth considering. The HP Envy lineup is pretty great for both work and school, which also makes it a good option for those who just want a general-use computer. They can get quite pricey, though, as can be expected of some of the best laptops, which is why we've searched for some of the best HP Envy deals we could find and collected them for you down below.

Of course, if you haven't quite found what you're looking for, then be sure to check out these other HP laptop deals and our roundup of laptop deals from other brands.
HP Envy 16-inch laptop 16-T-H1000 — $950 $1,500 37% off

Read more
Best 2-in-1 laptop deals: Turn your laptop into a tablet for $349
Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 Gen 7 laptop sits on a small desk folded like a tent.

Tablets are great for portability, they don't always have the same sort of power that you'd find on a laptop, and if you grab yourself a 2-in-1, then you'll get pretty close to a tablet in terms of usability. While 2-in-1 laptops are heavier than tablets, they can give you a similar experience while packing a lot of punch under the hood, making 2-in-1 laptops the perfect middle ground. You also get a lot of 2-in-1 laptops with variable specs under the hood, depending on what you need, and some of them even show up on lists of the best laptops on the market, so you're not giving up on specs if you don't want to. Of course, some of the best 2-in-1 laptops can get quite expensive, especially when you're buying them from some of the best laptop brands out there.
That's why we've gone out and looked for our favorite 2-in-1 laptop deals to help save you some effort. We've pulled from HP laptop deals, Dell laptop deals, the classic 2-in-1 Surface Pro deals, and more.

HP Envy 2-in-1 — $800 $1,170 32% off

Read more