Touch Laptops • Hacker News Board

Re: Touch Laptops

#101

Post by meaty » Tue, Nov 20, 2012, 11:06 AM UTC

lutusp wrote: post #84

meaty wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it wouldn't in my Citroen C5. The fuel efficiency peaks precisely at 60mph/100kph. Something to do with the power transmission ratio. I get 2.83l/100km or 83mpg in old money out of that if I don't drive like an asshat.

Yes,okay, I've heard stories like this so I cannot discount them. I find it hard to believe that a car could deliver better gas mileage at 60 MPH than at 37 MPH, unless there was something very strange about the number of gears and how they related to road speeds. But ... there it is. There really are such cars out there.

It's more down to the sorts of roads. If you're doing 37mph it's usually in residential areas and extra-urban areas. These are notoriously full of traffic lights, other cars and humans which result in braking regularly and therefore costly energy sucking acceleration. Also engines are usually have peak energy transfer from fuel to distance at certain speeds due to gearing, revs, torque etc. This is by design.

If you're doing 60mph, you're probably on a relatively obstruction free A-road where the only energy required is to offset friction to maintain speed. I have driven from London to Leeds (195 miles) with not one single change in speed (apart from to take a piss and get a Burger King at Leicester Forest services!)

Also roads are a hell of a lot smoother and have less friction in Europe compared to the US. That makes one hell of a difference!

For ref, my car is a 1.9l diesel as well. These Citroen engines are super-efficient which is why I own it. I also have low rolling resistance tyres which make a 2-5% difference.

American cars are poorly designed guzzlers usually, even the ones they ship to Europe.

Re: Touch Laptops

#102

Post by davidlumley » Tue, Nov 20, 2012, 9:36 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #93

davidlumley wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The touchscreen solves my long standing problem with using laptops - I find touchpads nearly unusable. Have you used a macbook running OS X before? I find the touchpad handling much better in OS X than I do in Windows so would be interesting to know what sort of touchpad you're comparing to.

I've played with a mac laptop in the Apple store. The problem with the touchpad is suppose I want to scroll. I have to carefully position the mouse over the scroll bar. Then click, or click and drag, whatever, which is just freaking awkward with a touchpad. (It's no issue with a mouse.) Yeah, I know that the right side of some touch pads acts as a scroll bar. But that depends on the right window being the "top" and I…

>But that depends on the right window being the "top"

Not on OS X

>I also have problems with accidentally brushing my palm over the touch pad and "what the hell just happened".

Palm brushes don't register on OS X

That's why I wanted more clarification on what you're comparing it to. The only positive I can see of a touch screen compared to a __good__ touchpad is that you can see the content below your fingers as you interact with it - I wager it's the difference between the Intuos and the Cintiq.

I don't know if that's a big enough difference for most people to have to deal with all the negatives that using a touchscreen on a computer monitor comes with. For me it's not.

Re: Touch Laptops

#103

Post by mkl » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 2:18 AM UTC

flyinRyan wrote: post #97

mkl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is gorilla arms, screen bounces, and screen smudges. These things keep being repeated as if they're showstoppers, and it seems usually by people without any experience in the matter. I have been using a laptop purely by touch screen for 1-8+ hours a day for two years, and here's my experience: - Gorilla arm simply doesn't exist. I use the laptop in a variety of setups and haven't had any problems. Yes, if your…

>- Gorilla arm simply doesn't exist. That's a pretty strong statement for an anecdote of precisely one person.

As I said, this is purely my direct experience. Based on it, I hypothesise that the idea of gorilla arm arose from people using touch screens as if they were regular screens, i.e. inappropriately. I have certainly never heard of gorilla arm from iPads/Android tablets.