I don’t get it. Why aren’t companies listing what type of multi-touch support is included with their systems? Is it optical? Is it capacitive? Is it resistive? Is it two-point touch? Does it support more? Does it support Windows 7 Touch? I want to know. I think potential buyers need to know too.
With Windows 7 purportedly coming this year it’s more important than ever what type of multi-touch is supported.
Check out this Dell Studio One 19″ Desktop, for instance.
The specs mention whether there’s an Intel Celeron 450 or Core 2 Duo or Quad Core. It even gives the NVIDIA MCP 7A chipset and whether the memory is 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM or that the speakers are 4Watts. But why is touch only called an “optional multi-touch screen?”
Even when you walk through the customize build wizard the touch screen is simply listed as a “touch screen.” That’s not very helpful.
Minimally, I’d like something like “optical multi-touch” or “two-point multi-touch.” Consumers need to know.
Beyond this, the manufacturer would be nice too. For instance, if it has an N-Trig capacitive digitizer, I’d like to know that too. And does it support two-touch or five-touch or more or less?
As more software supports multi-touch, we’re going to need to know what hardware is available.
I understand why the manufacturers are downplaying the type of touch in PCs. They expect consumers won’t know the difference between the types of hardware available as well as are only looking for very high-level experiences. Not to mention, it’s unlikely they will know what type of manufacturer is involved with the hardware. In this case, the label “generic” is implied I imagine.
Again, once Windows 7 comes out and more multi-touch enabled software starts coming out, I expect consumers will care more and more about what hardware they have. Companies like Dell need to get ready for this and make this information clearly available on their websites.