Multi-touch gesture laptops

FooTemps

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
286
I've been using a 1000he for the past couple months and have found all the multi-touch gestures to be incredibly useful. I've been using it so much that I generally don't even use the mouse clicks except to drag and drop or select multiple items.

I'm giving my 1000he to my dad so I was wondering what other laptops have multi-touch capability for a replacement for the 1000he. Just trying to compile a list of multi-touch laptops for any sort of future reference, couldn't find anything in the search. Looking at both track pads and screens btw.

I'd also like any input on the functionality if you have any experience.

Trackpad based
  • Acer Aspire One
  • Apple Macbook: Sensitivity for gestures is more accurate than the 1000he. More trackpad space for easier gesturing and scrolling. Only got a few minutes to mess around with a friend's macbook plastic so I don't have much more to say than that.
  • Apple Macbook Air
  • Apple Macbook Pro
  • Asus 1000HE: gestures have limited personalization/customization. Rotation is difficult, usually mistaken for zoom. Most gestures can be bound to actions using stock drivers and support. Three finger swipes locked at alt+tab, open my computer, back, forward. All sensitivities can be adjusted or gestures turned off.
  • Lenovo Thinkpad x301
Screen based
  • Dell Latitude XT2
  • HP TX2Z
 
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My understand of current laptops here are:

Dell Latitude XT2
HP TX2Z
 
Just throwing this out there, I won't limit multi-touch to just tablets or trackpads.

Also, organized OP and added my impression of the multi-touch gestures on the 1000he
 
Given what you're going from, you'd probably want to go for an aluminum 13-inch MacBook. The trackpad is even better for multi-touch than the plastic model (or any other notebook that isn't a higher-end Mac, really), but it's not too big compared to what you're used to, the battery lasts for a long time for a "real" notebook (4 to 4.5 hours of realistic web use) and the GeForce 9400M will actually work for some light gaming.
 
good to hear that the macbook has imroved on the multi-touch functionality. I'm not looking for something too powerful and I always felt that macs were overpriced for their performance, even with student discounts or refurbs. I'll most likely got another eee pc if there are no other options.
 
I am going back to school in January and am looking for a table PC. I am seriously considering the XT2. They claim the battery life is like 9 weeks (actually 11+ hours) on the 6 cell slice battery and have found that they are selling on the refurb site for ~1300.

http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnline...28&l=en&lob=LAT&MODEL_DESC=Latitude XT2&s=dfb

I would upgrade the ram and install an SSD, but the machine is the same as the ones being sold right now for ~2400.
 
Problem with the mac is that, since you're not specifically looking for one, I would assume you plan to run windows. While the trackpad is awesome in osx, it sucks in windows because the drivers are crap.
 
My Acer Aspire one has some (limited) gestures, I find it odd that it's rarely mentioned on any of the reviews when it's often such a highly touted feature of the ASUS line... Surely there's gotta be other netbooks/laptops out there w/a similar array of gestures as mine, as it uses a Synaptics touchpad which I think are amongst the most used. Like I said though, it's only two or three gestures... There's pinch/stretch for zooming, which I haven't used much tbh, then there's a swirl motion for scrolling (which I find very very handy and more intuitive or easier to control than the scroll bars along the edges, which are still there), and there's one more I'm forgetting. The swirl gesture rocks though, small/slow swirls for slow scrolling, large fast ones for fast scrolling.

Between that and the dedicated Page Up/Down keys on the Asprie One (which most netbooks lack), I'm really really glad I went with this one. It looks like you're enamored with some of the other extra gestures of the EEE PC line though... Edit: There are other touchpad-based shortcuts which aren't necessarily gestures too, you can map actions/programs to the corners, etc. I'm sure you've seen that on other laptops though. It's a pretty accurate touchpad for such a tiny one though, I've heard complaints of ASUS and even Apple's gesture-focused touchpads for a while now.
 
My Acer Aspire one has some (limited) gestures, I find it odd that it's rarely mentioned on any of the reviews when it's often such a highly touted feature of the ASUS line... Surely there's gotta be other netbooks/laptops out there w/a similar array of gestures as mine, as it uses a Synaptics touchpad which I think are amongst the most used. Like I said though, it's only two or three gestures... There's pinch/stretch for zooming, which I haven't used much tbh, then there's a swirl motion for scrolling (which I find very very handy and more intuitive or easier to control than the scroll bars along the edges, which are still there), and there's one more I'm forgetting. The swirl gesture rocks though, small/slow swirls for slow scrolling, large fast ones for fast scrolling.

Between that and the dedicated Page Up/Down keys on the Asprie One (which most netbooks lack), I'm really really glad I went with this one. It looks like you're enamored with some of the other extra gestures of the EEE PC line though... Edit: There are other touchpad-based shortcuts which aren't necessarily gestures too, you can map actions/programs to the corners, etc. I'm sure you've seen that on other laptops though. It's a pretty accurate touchpad for such a tiny one though, I've heard complaints of ASUS and even Apple's gesture-focused touchpads for a while now.

yeah, I had no clue the Aspire one had multi-touch. Could you explain the swirl motion more though? I don't really get how you can scroll vertically and horizontally with it.
 
You start the swirl along the right or bottom edge of the touchpad, and that determines whether you're doing vertical or horizontal scrolling... Once you're swirling (doing circles basically) you can stop, slow down, or speed up and as long as you haven't taken the finger off the touchpad it remains 'active' (waiting for you to start swirling again or reacting if you speed up or slow down), once you take it off it stops obviously.

In apps where a scroll wheel's default action is to zoom, the swirl motion zooms instead of scrolling. I like it because it's much quicker to reach the bottom of a page using this method than a regular scroll area, and it's also easier to scroll a few lines at a time. Only downside is there's no coasting (as there is with scroll bars if you enable it), but you can have the swirl gesture and scroll bars enabled simultaneously w/o conflict.

I dunno, it's a lil' thing, but I really like it. I'll check what the other available gesture was later... I did try installing updated Synaptic drivers on a Dell laptop I have from work and it didn't add the same functionality (or pinch/stretch to zoom for that matter, but I didn't expect that one), so I dunno if there's any way to tell what Synaptic touchpads have it (or what laptops for that matter).
 
thinkpad x301 comes with a multi-touch gesture touchpad now that i have disabled in favor of the red nipple. just thought i'd inform you of its existence though.
 
I think the gesture issue is really nothing more than a software thing. I also have an AAO, and the swirl is simply the driver tracking your movement, it's not hardware related.

Heck, i've used an older laptop and looking at the mood utility that came with it, it can actually potentially interpret two finger and pinch gestures long before they were 'developed'. If newer laptops are anything like that, then it's simply a matter of interpreting those signals via software.

If i were to somehow get that laptop working again, and find new drivers for it, it'll be able to read gestures too.

The AAO's mood utility only shows estimated position which really doesn't show you how the trackpad works, but other mood utilities may show you exactly what the track pad is seeing.

I think the reason Acer isn't bragging about it, is because they weren't the ones that developed it. Just like the wifi (intel), audio (Realtek), webcam (dunno who made it), all those features simply came with the standard drivers when they commissioned the components.
 
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To give my own explanation of the swirl motion. The right side of your trackpad is now interpreted as a scroll wheel. Placing your finger on the top right, and then dragging it down, is interpreted as a mousewheel scrolling down. Dragging it up, is a mousewheel up.

The swirl is you doing that, but instead of letting go when you reach the other corner, you move your finger to the left which the driver will now consider as a continuation of the scroll. As long as you don't let go, your trackpad is now the same as the iPods wheel.
 
I think the gesture issue is really nothing more than a software thing. I also have an AAO, and the swirl is simply the driver tracking your movement, it's not hardware related.

Heck, i've used an older laptop and looking at the mood utility that came with it, it can actually potentially interpret two finger and pinch gestures long before they were 'developed'. If newer laptops are anything like that, then it's simply a matter of interpreting those signals via software.

If i were to somehow get that laptop working again, and find new drivers for it, it'll be able to read gestures too.

Hmm, I agree with you regarding the swirl gesture (it's just a feature of the driver, can and probably is completely implemented in software) but disagree on the pinch/stretch gesture for zooming... If that can be implemented in software why aren't more laptops doing it? If you install updated Synaptic drivers on other laptops that gesture doesn't show up as a feature, and other touchpads I've tried just flip out whenever you put more than two fingers on it, dunno.

Maybe it's a case by case thing, there's so little info on the brand/version of the touchpads used on most laptops/netbooks today... Even if it's all software based and the most basic of touchpads can interpret mutli-touch gestures there's also the issue of whether the manufacturer can A) actually develop a driver that reads that input B) can actually release said driver. Apple's suing Palm over the use of multi-touch gestures on it's new phone, who knows how many ridiculous patents there are on the whole concept.
 
the thing is that the swirl gesture you're talking about sounds like a single input gesture. It's not like pinch and zoom such as impulse was stating. I'm really curious how many companies have paid licenses or are allowed to implement multi-touch funcitonality.
 
That must have been an exceptional 2nd (or maybe 3rd) hand laptop i've gotten then. From what i could tell, it doesn't actually have multitouch ability. But when you put two fingers on it, say 1 inch apart, it thinks you have a REALLY big finger and then centering the cursor on it. Based on that, the pinch gesture is just a matter of the pad detecting the shift in the diameter, and using the driver to tell if it was intentional. I think you see this in the utilities as the 'Pressure' variable.
 
the thing is that the swirl gesture you're talking about sounds like a single input gesture. It's not like pinch and zoom such as impulse was stating. I'm really curious how many companies have paid licenses or are allowed to implement multi-touch funcitonality.

It is a single-input gesture, we were kind of talking about it in the same breath as the multi-touch stuff even though it has little to do with it... Just because the thread seemed to be about interest in laptops w/touchpad gestures in general rather than multi-touch necessarily. Sorry if it seemed confusing. My comments about patents/etc regarding multi-touch still apply to some of these less-advertised gestures like the pinch/zoom on the AAO though. I've no idea if it's an aproximation of multi-touch as Sly suggests (and plausibly how they get around some of those issues) or if it's true multi-touch.
 
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