If you bought a laptop in the last five years,
you've probably had to decide
between a model that had a touch screen
and one that didn't.
Some people love touch screens,
others don't see the point.
Touch screen laptops have come a long way,
and they're finally starting to become mainstream,
but there are still a bunch of issues holding them back.
Both Microsoft and Google have made a big push
towards including touch on their laptops.
Apple, on the other hand, hasn't included touch screens
on any of its Macs.
You basically have three options.
You can have a traditional laptop with a touch screen,
a detachable keyboard tablet device,
or a 2-in-1 that can fold into a tablet.
2-in-1 laptops, sometimes called convertibles,
are way more useful with touch
compared to traditional laptops.
2-in-1s are great for watching videos,
and even reading articles can be a nicer experience
thanks to portrait orientation.
In tablet mode, 2-in-1s can be quite thick
and heavier than a traditional tablet,
but it's nice to have the option when you need it.
Regular laptops, on the other hand,
force you to reach across the keyboard
anytime you want to touch the screen.
This feels a lot less useful than the 2-in-1 design.
Finally, with detachable options like the Surface,
you usually get a better tablet
paired with a smaller, less functional keyboard.
If you want a touch screen laptop,
a 2-in-1 is definitely the way to go.
But there's one big issue
that all touch screen laptops share: the fingerprints.
Every time I open my Chromebook,
I'm greeted by a dozen fingerprints and smudges.
This may seem like a petty complaint,
but who wants a bunch of greasy smudges
on their screen when they're trying
to watch Netflix or YouTube?
And because laptops have a much bigger display
compared to phones, it's a hassle
to constantly clean the screen off.
A mosaic of fingerprints aside,
the real issue is on the inside, the software.
Windows 10 makes it really obvious
which apps were designed for touch
and which were designed with a keyboard and mouse in mind.
Newer apps like the calculator or the Settings page
have big buttons that are easy to press on a touchscreen,
and touch is great for scrolling down a webpage
or hitting play on Netflix.
But File Explorer has so many tiny places to click,
and it has a ton of options hidden behind context menus.
Because it was designed with a keyboard and mouse in mind,
using touch with File Explorer is a huge headache.
Chrome OS actually has a really nice file browser
that is touch-friendly with easily accessed context menus,
but I don't want File Explorer to change
to the new Windows 10 design,
and maybe that highlights an underlying issue with touch.
The design of touch apps and desktop apps will always clash.
Apple, for example, has an easy-to-use touch interface
on the iPad and a great desktop UI on the Mac,
but these two look very different,
and Apple has been adamant about keeping touch
and desktop separate.
Windows 10 does have a tablet mode,
but it forces all apps to be full screen
and eliminates the benefits of using a desktop OS
with floating windows.
But Microsoft isn't the only company with programs
that aren't touch-friendly.
Chrome OS works great with touch
and even has support for Android apps,
but certain commands, like closing a tab in Chrome,
are really tricky to perform with touch.
Touch is supposed to be a more seamless way
to use your computer,
but tapping six times on a Chrome tab
to get it to close is infuriating, not seamless.
Besides software, the hardware
of touch screen laptops often falls short.
When you have a touch screen,
you really don't want your laptop to do this.
Screen wobble shows up on a lot
of Windows laptops and Chromebooks,
but it becomes really obvious when you use the touch screen.
It just doesn't feel like a premium experience
to have your screen shake every time you launch an app.
And touchscreens are usually glossy displays,
which makes them harder to see in bright light.
Picking the right laptop can be even harder
when manufacturers make you pay more for the touch screen
or bundle it with higher-resolution displays,
like Dell's XPS 13.
Why can't you get the touch screen without a 4K display?
Sometimes touch screens and laptops
still feel like an experiment.
They aren't perfect, but they can be really useful.
It all depends on what you need in a laptop.
It's important to look for a device
that doesn't sacrifice the mouse
and keyboard experience for touch.
Hopefully over time, the touch experience will get smoother.
It's an important technology that bridges the gap
between mobile and desktop computing,
but they aren't ready just yet.