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All the laser printers I have used have a low-tech user interface, with an LCD screen and a bunch of buttons. The problem is that the buttons that the user can press (the "active" buttons) are dependent on context. Imho it would be much better if laser printers had a smartphone-style interface (touchscreen).

Same for office phones (which have a plethora of buttons e.g. for conference calls that are not useful in many contexts).

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Maybe that's the distinction - if you are making a product that needs to do exactly one thing (or category of things), it should not have a touchscreen, it should have a button and a dial (eg toaster, oven, hob, clock). If you cannot map all common uses of the product to a single button press and instead rely on context, a touchscreen might be the better option

I used a few office printers with touch screens, and they were much better.

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