How long until there’s a system dashboard running on that thing. That’d be really cool spot for it on a laptop. Especially if the touchpad works as usual and you can just glance at it for system updates.
Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a 5.5-inch touchscreen
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Re: Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a 5.5-inch touchscreen
#52Why? As far as visuals go, the Touch Bar (which dislike) is at least in line of sight and you hands are not over it all the time.
Regardless, why not just improve on using one's phone the way you can already with some 3rd party apps... since almost the first day touch screen phones were available? It can at least be positioned anywhere that works for you.
You'd also save the world a cycle of e-waste for the sake of “we too” 2nd hand innovation.
Imagine Microsoft would have actually worked with them to salvage and re-purpose the millions of Windows phones (now in dumpsters and land fills), as detachable touch pads.
Re: Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a 5.5-inch touchscreen
#53I think Asus's Project Precog[0] deserves more interests than this. We programmers always complain about display size , ratio and amount. Using this dual screen laptop vertically with your beloved external keyboard could be sublime. It's like having two Surface Pro tablets right in front of you, or a dual screens desktop setup that fits in a backpack. As long as my way to interpret this product works, I don't care whatever Asus comes up with to make it feels like a normal laptop.
Re: Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a 5.5-inch touchscreen
#54>Unlike Apple’s limited and unhelpful MacBook Pro Touch Bar…
I’m not big fan of the touch bar either, but to state an opinion as fact is just bad journalism.
Re: Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a 5.5-inch touchscreen
#55I'm glad someone is experimenting with new interfaces, but for me this is kind of a gimmick, like the MacBook touchbar or the big touch-sensitive screens in cars. Any interface that requires looking at it will slow me down/distract me. There's huge value in the keyboard keys all being in the same place and in not shifting your gaze in order to move the mouse pointer.
I don't see the value in this myself either but nice with experiments I guess. I've never used my laptop and wished for a small screen in the touchpad. But for some tech, you have to try it to understand.
Re: Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a 5.5-inch touchscreen
#56This could be useful for app development. A 1080 landscape device on the keyboard, mirrored at 4X on screen.
(Although the digits used are different. When in landscape, my fingers cradle a phone at a 45-60 degree angle with both thumbs used for input. On a horizontal touchpad the index finger(s) are doing much of the input)
Re: Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a 5.5-inch touchscreen
#57The biggest question I have is if the input resolution and latency are better than a traditional touch pad. The additional display will never be useful enough to overcome a mediocre touch pad experience.
It seems to support acting as a second display so I'm feeling optimistic about Linux.
Re: Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a 5.5-inch touchscreen
#58>Unlike Apple’s limited and unhelpful MacBook Pro Touch Bar… I’m not big fan of the touch bar either, but to state an opinion as fact is just bad journalism.
There isn’t any real description of how the thing operates either. I mean, a big part of the reason I’m using a MacBook Pro is because it’s touchpad is damn near magic.
I don’t care about office integration, all I care about is how well it operates compared to the trackpad on a MacBook, and I donut I’m the only one.
Re: Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a 5.5-inch touchscreen
#59The Zenbook is a decent looking computer, and this completely cheapens the look of it. The trackpad display is trash - it's a low-contrast LCD with bad backlight bleed and aggressive matte finish... something out of the parts bin of cheap phones and old car infotainment systems. When compared to the higher quality main display it looks totally out of place.
If they fixed that, there'd still be the issue of usability & utility. This doesn't seem like a complementary feature, it seems like two separate devices bolted together that require heavy context shifting (e.g. if the music card is up, you can't just use the trackpad to access something else on your computer). As implemented it seems like yet another electronics company gimmick like 3d TVs - made because its easy to build, not because the feature offers enough utility to justify its complexity.
That said, I hold out hope for a lay-flat dual-display clamshell with proper haptics and that re-thinks the entire input UI around that paradigm.
Re: Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a 5.5-inch touchscreen
#60I think this is a wonderful idea, given that touchscreen responsiveness and power optimization have been a focus of research over the last decade. At worst it's a touch pad, at best it's so much more. Of course a lot depends on how software developers will embrace it - and I hope Linux users get some love. (I wish Asus and reviewers will stay away from gimmicks like watching movies on it.) In any case, far better tha…
> I think this is a wonderful idea, given that touchscreen responsiveness and power optimization have been a focus of research over the last decade.
Are you familiar with the state of the art? Is this thing going to be as responsive as a regular touchpad?