Comment by marknutter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marknutter | Hacker News Reader

"Within minutes of using it, GoNote turns years of web browsing on its head, and you intuitively touch, swipe and pinch the web rather than reaching for your mouse. GoNote’s resistive touchscreen recognises 2 finger inputs so you can pinch to zoom into webpages and get a close up with your digital photos."

This strikes me as incredibly naive. Since when is "reaching for your mouse" a bad thing when using a laptop? If adding touch screens to laptops was all anybody needed to do to improve our computing experience Microsoft would have run away with the tablet market years ago.

Pinching to zoom is a pattern that makes sense on tiny mobile devices, not large laptop screens. If I have to zoom in on a webpage to make it usable on my laptop, it's time to increase my font sizes. Zooming into a photo perhaps makes more sense but why not simply support the pinch gesture on the trackpad like Apple does on it's Macbooks? Instead I need to gorilla-arm it every time I want to zoom into a photo?

Tacking multitouch screens onto traditional laptops does not a better computer make.

My arms already hurt just seeing that thing.

I don't get this 'stretch to reach the screen and swipe'. I agree with another user below that a gesture-enabled touchpad would be a better idea.

That said, does anybody know of any usabiltiy study concerned with this kind of interface?

I've used a Lenovo Ideapad 10" touch screen netbook. After using it, I keep trying to touch my Thinkpad's screen. Using the trackpad is awful in comparison to just touching exactly what you want to manipulate. On a small laptop, it doesn't seem too bad. It's not hard to move the entire laptop to a position that's comfortable to touch the screen, then resume typing. After switching back to the Thinkpad, using a mouse just seems like a layer of unnecessary abstraction.

Just my experience.

I have no data or studies, but two people at work have Asus transformers and they use the touch screen all the time even when in laptop mode, and they don't seem to have any problems or complaints.

I can confirm this. I have a Transformer Infinity with the keyboard and have almost no problem going back and forth between keyboard and screen. I usually have the tablet/laptop sitting on my desk at a comfortable distance, so that I can keep my right thumb on the screen for scrolling. I never pinch to zoom on my tablet/laptop. Its screen is plenty big.

So can I, if my transformer lost it's trackpad I don't think I'd notice, reaching for the screen is much more natural and it feels much more responsive than a trackpad mainly because you're not manipulating an arrow in to position before you do anything. I'm not sure I'm ready to ditch the mouse on my desktop yet but for most day to day tasks I find the touch screen to be king.

...and if I'm really feeling lazy I use the two finger gesture on the touchpad to scroll.

On my Asus Transformer I find that touching the screen as opposed to a touchpad is the best mechanism.

The direct interaction it allows is very useful, and I would be fine with just a USB socket for plugging in a mouse for when precision is needed.

You're putting way too much thought into what will be a drug store computer.

On a 10" screen it might still do - it feels fine on the Asus Transformer.

How many people use touchscreen monitors for desktop computers, anyway? They make sense for tablets, but mice and trackpads are easier if your using a (physical) keyboard.

How successful is HP's Touchsmart brand?

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