Touchscreen Netbooks To Shine At CES 2009

i4u writes "The new generation of netbooks debuting at CES 2009 will add touch and have twistable screens to use them in tablet or notebook style. Intel is set to introduce a new Classmate netbook with a twistable screen and touchscreen at the CES 2009. Back in October Asus said it was planning to introduce touchscreen Asus Eee netbooks in early 2009. Asus is exhibiting at the CES Unveiled pre-show that takes place on January 6th. Expect the Asus Eee Touch to be unveiled then. Gigabyte has outrun all of them with the Intel Atom-powered M912V that has been on the market for a while. Adding a touchscreen is rather easy. More difficult is to offer a touch-optimized UI. Let's see what the netbook vendors are going to invest on the software side."

Touchscreens

[bradgoodman]

Touchscreens - here's a technology that's been lingering for what, 20? 30 years?

Just because we can build them, does not mean we should. They never have been in mainstream use, and never will be.

The proof is in the actual usage.

The reasoning is simple. Touchscreen technology may be cool for a second, but having to raise your hands for an extended period of time (touchscreen) is exhastive and prohibitive, vs. lying them flat (keyboard, mouse) is easy to do for prolonged periods of time.

In conclusion, this may be just yet another round of "touchscreen fads".

btw - one possible good use would be multitouch with "surface" computing. But that would be more of a "tablet" or "surface" PC vs. a "laptop" - and that would be a bit more of a shift in overall UI (and hardware).

Re:Touchscreens

[BikeHelmet]

While I see what you mean, I partly disagree.

Touchscreens can be useful for certain tasks, such as... note taking during a lecture, or drawing something in a paint program. They're also handy on smaller handhelds where keyboards aren't feasible.

They're already super popular in cell phones. I don't see why they wouldn't be viable in a netbook, although I fully agree that there's basically no market for them on full size laptops.

Re:Touchscreens

[TeraByte911]

Touchscreens are popular in mobile phones because the way that mobile phones are used is conducive to touchscreens replacing more traditional forms of input.

For netbooks and laptops, however, the act of physically keeping your hand raised with a stylus in order to make effective use of the touchscreen would be a huge strain on your hand and arm.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome sufferers everywhere, rejoice.

Re:Touchscreens

[dargaud]

I see touchscreens as useful only on netbooks, if you can turn the screen around and use it as a tablet. If you have to raise your hands every time, then the novelty will wear off fast (see 'gorilla arm [wikipedia.org]' syndrom). I'd love something like that so I can read cbr comic books in bed. But keep your greasy fingers off my big main desktop monitor!