[Closed] Anybody moved to a Win8 Touchscreen Notebook?

Does a Surface count?

I have a full size laptop, an airbook, a couple of ipads and a 7" android tablet in the house as well.

I use the Surface.

It does depend on what you plan to do with it though.

I was liking mine until rain stopped play*.

Planning on replacing it with another (should order it today/tomorrow) - probably a Dell XPS12 rather than the Sony this time as I like the idea of being able to fold the screen out of harms way with a couple of toddlers.

*ie it got rained on and that knackered the motherboard!

I have a win 8 non-touchscreen laptop. Is it standard for the touchscreen laptops to swivel the screen flat in some way like a tablet? Because jabbing your finger at the screen of a laptop seems like it would be a horrible way to use a computer.

Because jabbing your finger at the screen of a laptop seems like it would be a horrible way to use a computer.

See you think that, but my sister's just got one (she likes it) and my parents were visiting her, then me in a recent trip. My mum was trying to jab at my laptop's screen after only a couple of uses of the W8 device....

So I guess it is fairly intuitive?

(she is used to using an iPad though, but also uses a laptop for work)

I haven't played with Win8 yet. No start button sounds terrifying.

But it is the future of home pc/laptops until someone is able to break Microsoft hold on the market. I though Linux was on the way but it's still perceived as too techie for the masses.

Problem is Win7 offers nothing different from Vista/XP/2000 and with tech a part of it is wanting something different - not necessary better!

Decisions decisions...

Depends on what budget you have really. If I was spending £800+ I'd probably get a touchscreen one just in case it came in handy at times but below that amount and you'll be compromising too much on the important stuff (CPU, RAM, HDD, GPU, screen quality etc.) to make it worthwhile. I'm far from convinced a laptop with a touchscreen is an ergonomic improvement to but if it's one that turns into a tablet mode and you think you'll use it that way quite often I can see the appeal.

I agree with the OP's concerns and I too would probably go for a foldable laptop where the keyboard folds under. I quite fancy those actually, particularly the Lenovo ones.

I'm quite liking the surface pro I have from work but as above it does depend what you want to use it for.

I still tend to use my iPad for general browsing etc because it's lighter and the battery lasts longer. On the other hand, the surface pro avoids all the frustrations i have with the iPad, is much better for typing (with foldable keyboard), can run windows applications properly, etc. It also costs almost the same as a cheap laptop plus an iPad though, and the screen size can be a bit small compared to a laptop.

Oh, and it is surprising how quickly I found myself using the touchscreen instead of the touchpad while using it in laptop mode!

I've tried Windows 8 on a friend's laptop, I set it all up for them, personally I hated it, without touchscreen it is not very intuitive of user friendly at all, quite the opposite, you don't need huge tiles and swipe features when you're using a mouse and cursor.....

You can download a program to give you a start button however (classic shell), and change the settings to skip the start up and 'metro' screens so it boots straight to a traditional looking desktop. Programs/apps still load in new way though, and are difficult to close.

Windows have now done an update to give you some of the above features anyway I think.

Any business users on Windows 8 yet? Corporate IT seem slow on take up of new OS' normally?

We're still rolling out Windows 7 here...

Same at my work (Council), just gone over to 7.

Reason I asked is girlfriend uses accounting software (Sage), and is having problems with updates, the line they're taking is that most people are now on Windows 8 and updates are geared towards that, but my thoughts are that there are very few corporate users yet.

Corporate IT seem slow on take up of new OS' normally?

Even worse when it comes to operational kit. We need to spec machines and software for maybe 15-20 years of use. That's a lot of Windows and Office versions! And yes after 2 full migrations of hardware and software mid-project just because of OS/hardware availability, it gets annoying. Corporate don't want bleeding edge bling, but stability.

Any way... I have no plans for either Win8 or Touchscreen laptop (really don't see much point for the latter). But then the only real use I can find for an Ipad is to surf while on the bog.

I've got a relatively cheap Asus x201 touchscreen (cost about £250) and have to say that while I only use the touchscreen rarely, it's quite handy.

I mainly use it to navigate around the interface, and when scrolling around webpages etc and for that it works with no real problems

Just started a new job and they presented me with a Sony Ultrabook with solid state disk, touch screen, and Windows 8.

Was dreading it as I'd heard so many bad things about Win 8 and I'm not exactly an early adopter these days as I don't even have a smart phone.

Have to admit though that I was pleasantly surprised - the thing starts in an instant when you open the lid, dare I say Mac-like, rather than taking minutes to boot up like I'm used to with all previous versions of Windows. And against my expectations I've found myself just naturally reaching for the screen to open aps, swipe across spreadsheets, and click on websites. The keyboard and mouse still get used, but I like having the option of touchscreen as well, and it makes for a better communal experience when there's two of you pouring over data or web sites to just reach out and swipe rather than awkwardly sharing a mouse or keyboard.

However, I can see how if you didn't have a touchscreen, Win 8 would be a real pain, as its big 'buttons' and hidden panels don't work well with mouse and keyboard.

So, a fan here, and I think its the future - making the PC interface more smartphone/tablet like, but definitely go with a touch screen to make the most of it.

I agree with the OP's concerns and I too would probably go for a foldable laptop where the keyboard folds under. I quite fancy those actually, particularly the Lenovo ones.

Have a Lenovo one on the way (trialling for work) - currently using a Samsung 'convertible' and to be honest it's not working for me - there is still too much of a disconnect between touch enabled parts and traditional mouse+pointer apps for my liking. However it's clearly the future, and I have a feeling many of my reservations are specific to this model (I've had to spend a lot of time reconfiguring wireless access point connections, that shouldn't be necessary, and seem to be awkward to do with touch) so maybe the Lenovo will fair better.

I got the Missus a Sony Vaio Touchscreen laptop for Christmas, and she took to it like a duck to water, agree with the comment above about boot times with SSD being a revelation. She now hates going back and using her old works WinXP laptop - which will be needing a new screen soon as she keeps prodding it by mistake!

Glad I paid extra for the touchscreen version as I have since used Win8 on a standard machine and it is no where near as good