Yes.

I’ve bought a Sony Vaio touchscreen laptop – after a lot of research and button pressing in showrooms –  and have used the machine for long enough to give a good opinion of it: the touchscreen rocks.

Assuming you’ve used a touchscreen-anything for long enough, I don’t need to explain the benefits; to have that feature in a laptop is a feature I already can’t live without.

This isn’t an iPad with a keyboard, this is a touch-enhanced laptop. A big difference. Everything I want to do as a laptop, works. However, everything that is better to do with touch, is available. Here’s a few of the best things.

Working in a different position.

I work on my laptop; play on my laptop; write fiction on my laptop, and I’m worried about developing RSI: I’m starting to worrying less. For the first time ever, I can change my writing/operating position and still get things done. I can take a break from an unhealthy wrist/finger position and still be effective. Take Photoshop for example, I don’t need to fiddle about with mouse pointers and trackpads to locate areas I want to edit; It is quicker and more intuitive to use the screen. Practice using touch on every program you have. Try to figure out what it is helpful for, and what doesn’t make a difference.

Maps

I love viewing maps with a big screen. I do a lot of walking and am always looking around for forests and woods to wander through. The full screen map view is perfect, because I’m often sharing the screen with my partner whilst a decision is made. Simple.

Reading

Browsing long-form content (Readability, Instapaper or PDF pages) is instantly better touch. I enjoy it on my phone and I can now enjoy it just as much on my computer. No more trying to navigate with the mouse.

Lean back media

Like Maps, any website or content that is presented in a large scale is instantly more enjoyable with touch. Take the big fat play button on the BBC News videos for example, or clean websites with enough white-space around the content to make easy (finger) clicks. Full-screen photo galleries are another joy; I’m sure there’s many, many more. I have become aware that some websites want me to ‘lean-back’ a little and enjoy the content. Without touch, it is not so easy to do – I’ll give an example next…

1-to-few Presentations

When you want to show a presentation to one person or perhaps a few (maybe going through a guide, report, or project timeline), the keyboard is a waste – it’s like a pretty button paper-weight. Sure I could use the left and right keys to navigate, I could use a pointer device, but using the screen gestures to navigate is way, way better. You simply have to try it to feel the joy.

Most software and applications have ‘keyboard short-cuts’ – which in work-mode is invaluable – but touching the text (the pages, the screen) kinda feels less tech not more. It feels like you’re interacting with the document, it feels like you turning pages, it feels like – now I don’t want to get all hippy on you – but it’s like you’re ‘at-one’ with the words, aaaaaaaand, because of this it feels like people are trusting you more. You’re not distracting people or yourself with keystrokes, you can pay more attention to the conversation, the interaction with the individuals and you can listen more. I know: weird. But it does.

Stealth surfing

You can rest your hand on the side of the screen and scroll with your thumb and people would never know you’re reading Moby Dick in the meeting. They can’t hear you clicking a mouse, scratching on the track pad or tapping the keys. Until everyone has touch screen computers, this is a joy that only a few will benefit from. I’ve already found it sweet. People might think I’m just staring at the monitor, in deep thought, they certainly are not aware I’m browsing webpages or reading something completely different!

So there you have it. I think touch + laptop wins. I don’t think Win8 adds anything to the experience, though. I have done my best to remove every stupid little icon it created on installing software. Also, the new float-y panels screen of apps which comes up when you press the Win Key = the Aero panels from Win7: pointless. But that’s just my tu’penny 🙂

Stay slippy – Mark