The Acer Aspire S7 was one of many touchscreen laptops released as part of the Windows 8 launch.
When Microsoft launched Windows 8 in October 2012, many OEMs also launched touchscreen laptops and notebook-tablet hybrid products to go along with Microsoft's vision of the touch friendly OS. Many analysts predicted that consumers would be more interested in buying touchscreen enabled notebooks than the old fashioned laptop that had just a trackpad for interaction.
Now it looks like the PC buying public has not embraced the touchscreen future of laptops as previously predicted. Computerworld reports that Bob O'Donnell, an analyst with IDC, said that the firm at first thought that between 17 to 18 percent of notebooks sold in 2013 would have touchscreens. Now he says IDC's numbers look like touchscreen notebook sales will take up between 10 to 15 percent of all laptops.
What happened? A big problem is price; touchscreen notebooks are still more expensive than their non-touchscreen counterparts. O'Donnell says that currently, the average price of a touchscreen laptop is between $699 and $799, which is about double the price of some low end non-touchscreen models.
Another problem is that there are just not that many touch enabled apps on Windows 8 that are attractive or compelling for PC buyers to use.
Source: Computerworld | Image via
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