Another week, another trade show. This time it’s the Computex 2012 show. It’s always interesting to look at the trends in what’s being reported at such events, and this year I’m seeing one big, yet unsurprising trend — touch.
Not that kind.
In the last few years, heavy tablet adoption on top of years of touchscreen smartphone use has gotten the consumer used to touch as an interface. Couple that with the way Microsoft has designed Windows 8 to be their most touchable OS well, ever, and you can see why manufacturers are coming out with so many touch devices.
Seen here: Microsoft's most punchable OS.
Some examples, you ask?
Viewsonic, makers of lots and lots of screens, have whipped up a 22″ Android 4.0 screen. This may be the first major-brand Android all-in-one PC. While it’s running an ARM chip instead of a more traditional x86, it’s worth wondering if we’ll see a similar device for Windows 8.
Acer, is trying to change things up a bit. Yes, the company has released two very nice looking Windows 8 tablets — the 11.6′ Iconia W700, 10.1′ W510 — but they’ve also added touchscreens to Ultrabooks, an unexpected and interesting move. Will it be as comfortable to use as a tablet? Time will tell.
Asus isn’t afraid to hedge its bets by announcing a new all-in-one desktop that dual boots Windows 8 and Android, an entire line of Transformer laptop/tablets running Windows 8, and most interestingly of all, a new form factor — the Taichi.
No, not like that.
I could be mistaken, but I think the Taichi is a totally new form factor. Instead of docking a tablet with a keyboard or making a laptop where you can swivel the screen around and click it shut, the Taichi actually has a screen on the lid. In other words, fold the laptop closed and BOOM, tablet. Part of me wonders how practical such a device is for day-to-day use. The rest of me yells at the other part to shut up because this sounds like a cool gadget to play with.
Keep in mind that those are all just from one day of Computex and only three companies. That’s not even counting the new touchable desktops that HP and Lenovo have recently made and what else we may see at the show. Will the consumer public embrace touch as much as the hardware makers seem to want them to? I’d argue that we already have, and this is the market responding to what they absolutely know we want.
And by we, I mean me.
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