Betting the Company on Windows 8

Re:Betting the Company on Windows 8 by ori_b on Monday July 09, 2012 @04:51PM (#4220342)

I can't imagine getting real work done on a touch device. Touch device implies it's screen is small enough to hold in one hand. In other words, the screen is too small to spread a few browser windows on. Touch implies discouraging the use of a mouse. Fingers are fuzzy and annoying for precise selection, and onscreen keyboards suck. By the time you've gotten an external keyboard and mouse to work around this, you no longer have a touch device.

I can't imagine buying a touch device for work. I wouldn't object to getting one to watch movies or read books on.

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Re:Betting the Company on Windows 8 by jiggy2011 on Monday July 09, 2012 @05:05PM (#4220435)

I guess this is why hybrid devices like surface exist. The question is whether the future is to have a single "do everything" device like a Surface laptop or several discreet pieces of hardware for different jobs.

People with high disposable incomes don't seem to have any problem owning a PC/Mac desktop , a laptop , a tablet , a smartphone as well as several games consoles and other gadgets. Assuming you already have an iPad I don't see any huge benefit to having a Windows 8 laptop over a Windows 7 one.

I know people who bought touchscreen monitors to run Windows 7, in combination to keyboard and mice. They found these a novelty for the first few days but they never really use the touch functionality.

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Re:Betting the Company on Windows 8 by jules on Monday July 09, 2012 @05:04PM (#4220422)

There are larger touch devices out there, e.g. Thinkpads. I don't see why a screen has to be small to have touch.

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Re:Betting the Company on Windows 8 by ori_b on Monday July 09, 2012 @05:16PM (#4220527)

You're right. It can be clunky instead.

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Re:Betting the Company on Windows 8 by cooldeal on Monday July 09, 2012 @05:06PM (#4220443)

>Touch device implies it's screen is small enough to hold in one hand

That's a very mistaken assumption for Windows 8 devices. There are going to be a lot of form factors with touch which are not small.

Eg. IdeaPad Yoga.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SHKFYngqOM

Acer All in One http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/03/acer-announces-windows-8-...

Even an 80 inch computer. http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/05/25/microsoft-sell-80-in...

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Re:Betting the Company on Windows 8 by ori_b on Monday July 09, 2012 @05:43PM (#4220703)

Anything that size will give me arm fatigue using the touch in any meaningful way. For occasional interaction, it's fine, but standing in front of it all day, the touch will mostly get ignored.

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Re:Betting the Company on Windows 8 by jpxxx on Monday July 09, 2012 @06:01PM (#4220793)

After wrangling with some HP TouchSmarts, I agree. The hitboxes suck, the on-screen keyboard is fatiguing after a few sentences, and playing a game with touch only sounds like work.

Eventually you forget that your PC has a touchscreen. Even when you do remember that you can just jab something with your finger, your internal context-switching brain-lobe-thing tells you to not bother because the next few micro-tasks will involve the keyboard and mouse anyway.

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Re:Betting the Company on Windows 8 by stcredzero on Monday July 09, 2012 @07:09PM (#4221088)

Basically, to get the benefit of touch, you have to make it the physical desktop.

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Re:Betting the Company on Windows 8 by jpxxx on Monday July 09, 2012 @07:25PM (#4221154)

I think so. Maybe it all works well on wall-sized touchscreens where you're standing up, but it does not work with vertical glass sitting down.

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