Does anyone use touchscreen laptops?

[andymc]

I'm buying a new laptop soon and can't decide whether having touch screen will help with android development work. Do android emulators work with Windows touchscreens? So I could test my app/game on the laptop screen using touch instead of mouse? Does multitouch work?

 

[lemonisdead]

Yes the emulator works (and any other software do) with touch screen. Is it of any interest : not in my opinion. Touching the screen is exactly as touching it with the mouse (it is even slower)

 

[NJDude]

I have a Surface 4 Pro at work, I carry it with me all the time due to the kind of work I do, however, I do not use the touch screen at all, in fact, I believe the touch screen is only useful if you are browsing the net or playing videos and things like that, as to coding or working I don't see that happening, too cumbersome.

 

[ilan]

i would not buy such a laptop for developing. they are normally not powerful enough and not very comfortable for developing. i would preffer a laptop with a bigger screen or a desktop pc then such a laptop.

 

[Cableguy]

I have an ASUS T100 with touch-screen, and I bought it exactly with the same idea you had, to help me develop android apps... 2 years later, it still rocks, but I don't use the touch feature much.
My laptop is a low-end machine, but there are really powerful alternatives like the surface and some HP laptops that also come with touch-screen.

 

[sorex]

the touch is fine for the first week you have it. then you won't use it anymore or you need to clean your screen every day.

if you can flip the screen entirely so that you can use it as a tablet it makes more sense if you do stuff while walking around in a factory or so.

 

[keirS]

i would not buy such a laptop for developing. they are normally not powerful enough and not very comfortable for developing. i would preffer a laptop with a bigger screen or a desktop pc then such a laptop.

My Dell Precision 7510 has a touch screen. That is a workstation class laptop. The HP ZBook (another workstation class laptop) is also available with a touch screen. The Lenovo Thinkpad P40 Yoga is a 2 in 1 (so touchscreen) and is also a workstation class laptop. There are plenty of powerful touchscreen laptops around. If I didn't need to run CAD applications I would be quite happy using something with a lot less power for most development.

 

[KMatle]

I like need a real mouse and keyboard. Touchscreens are ok for an enduser (if it's an app which is focused on "touch") but suboptimal for keyboard inputs (like coding) I think.

 

[andymc]

I've order a 2nd gen refurbished x1 carbon laptop on ebay from a good seller. It has a 14" touch screen. I wanted touch screen so I could test my multi touch andorid games, that's why mouse pointer is no good.

I also wanted a very light but good spec laptop so I can keep it in my backpack for taking it to work. It has 8gb ram, 256 SSD and an i7 so should be more than enough for my retro android games.

 

[AnandGupta]

Andy,

Touch screen is great to quickly check an app in an emulator. I have one and I love it to quickly get the feeling of how the code will response on various touches.
It is not for every day use with your windows programs, as mouse will work faster. Still you can touch popup message box etc. to quickly close them or move about a small window around.

Regards,

Anand