The future of touch screen laptop: Wacom multi-touch

As the name suggests, touch screen laptops are computing devices where the input can be provided using the touch of the finger on the screen. The touch screens are also used in many handheld devices like iPhone, where the input can only be provided through the touch screen. On the other hand, almost all the available touch screen laptops also have the option of input through traditional devices like keyboard and mouse. This makes the laptop usable as the main computing device.

Currently the touch screens in the laptops mostly have single-touch technology. This means that the computer understands instructions a single touch at a time. Some laptops do include multi-touch capabilities; however, these capabilities are very limited and not really useful. More advanced technology like the one from Japanese Company Wacom, would bring multi-touch capabilities where people can work on more than one object simultaneously. This would bring the touch screen laptop computer capabilities nearer to the real world where people can work with their both hands with great coordination. These laptops with touch screen would allow you to touch, drag, rotate many applications or objects simultaneously, increasing the work productivity. This would help people to work naturally rather than with input devices like mice and keyboard which can become a bit cumbersome specially when creating images.

The touch screen technology already showed by Wacom has touch accuracy within 0.5mm, tracking the multi-touch inputs at a rate of 100 fps (frames per second). Moreover, this technology can also be configured to work with battery-free, cordless digital pens. It can therefore be used not only in laptops but also in any other computing device like PDAs, smartphones or tablet PCs. The success of this technology might take the world of computing to a new dimension. People would be able to work on these touch screen laptop computers and other devices by using their hands for input, exactly like they do in the real world.

HP Touchsmart TX2 can be quoted as one of the best touch screen laptops available in the market as of now. It does not have the Wacom technology but performs reasonably well. It has a 12.1 inch display and weighs about 4.5 lbs, making it little heavy for a portable laptop. However, the tablet is implemented efficiently. This laptop with touch screen recognizes some multi-touch gestures, but not across different windows. The screen resolution is 1280×800 pixel, which is quite sufficient for touch laptop screen. This laptop does have decent multi-touch gestures but nothing which can significantly improve the user experience. We might have to wait some more time before the advanced multi-touch technology is available in electronic devices.

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4. Mini Tablet PC 2011 – Touch Screen
5. Latest Touch Screen Mobile Phones