03.09
When I walk into a PC store I’m seeing touch enabled PCs, usually all-in-ones, more and more on the shelves. I’m betting that some people are buying with Windows 8 in mind.
I was talking with some MVPs about this last week and one of them brought up a really good point. Much of what we do in Windows 8 touch devices such as getting the charms bar, the app bar, bringing up the start screen, or switching apps, is done by swiping from the “magic pixel”; that’s the extreme edge of the screen.
Question: If the screen has a thick bezel, then how exactly do you touch that pixel on the edge? Do you use a stylus (yuk!), do you squeeze your little finger in there? Sounds kind of icky to me. The suggestion I got was to ensure that if you do by a touch screen then make sure that the bezel is flush with the screen, just as it would be with a tablet or slate PC.
Other things to watch out for:
- The resolution should be a minimum of 1366 * 768 – shouldn’t be a problem for a PC monitor
- It should support 5 or more touch points
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I have read an interesting article on ARS TECHNICA by Peter Bright, that is related to the issue you spoke of here. It states that Win8 has a 20 pixel buffer from the edge so that screens with a bezel will not be an issue. Here’s the link:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/03/microsoft-talks-touch-hardware-in-windows-8/