Touch Screen Laptops

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
1

I’m looking to buy a new laptop because my 2 year old Asus is dying a slow death. While I’d prefer to buy a MacBook, since I once had one, financially I’d be better off getting something less expensive.

I’m looking at some Windows laptops that offer touch screen. I am wondering if Scrivener would operate differently on touch screen laptops or not. I just want to make sure I am purchasing something that won’t make Scrivener difficult, though I can’t see how it would. Then again, I know little about touch screen laptops, so any information would be much appreciated!

2

You’ve been using either a mouse or a touchpad for some time, so I doubt that a touchscreen will add much to your computing experience, other than finger prints and lots of wiping down with a 3M cloth. :smiley:

Perhaps I don’t have the slim, supple fingers that work easily on a virtual keyboard, or in a touch interface. After I launch an iOS app, that’s the last touching for me. Your experience may vary.

Right now, your main choices are a few tablets running iOS, Android, Windows, and Chrome. Scrivener is either not available or not so hot (Windows) on any of them.

Personally, I think Chromebook offers the best value in new laptops, starting at $199.
google.com/intl/en/chrome/de … books.html

For Mac values, you might check to see the latest in Refurbished and Clearance. There’s a 13.3" MacBook Pro offered today for $999.
store.apple.com/us_edu_82019/bro … ecialdeals

3

Thanks. I’m not looking into tablets though, just laptops.

I’m looking into Chromebooks because they are much cheaper than Mac, Lenovo or Asus (I’m on a tight budget). Any word on how well Scrivener operates on those?

ETA: Sorry, I just saw on these forums that Scrivener is not compatible with Chromebooks. But I have a Mac PC in my room, so if I were to put Scrivener on that, maybe that would be better? That is, does Scrivener accept copy and pasting from Google Docs easily? I’ve had problems with Word Docs and Scrivener.

4

A Chromebook is a device that boots up to a web browser, the Chrome browser, and that is basically it. So don’t expect to be doing much with it that you cannot do on the Web. If you can’t run “program X” inside your web browser, then it’s not available to the Chromebook. Remember all of that “thin client” stuff a while back? Chromebook is basically that idea, but using the WWW instead of a local network as its “OS”.

5

Megan, stick to Scrivener on the Mac if you can.
Ioa, you need to update your thoughts about Chrome.
Yes, the browser is the OS. It’s a brilliant idea.
And it can run on any hardware platform, not just Chromebook.

Memory management, updating of apps and system, virus protection
Are all built in; just relaunch Chrome for the latest version.
Yes, you need Internet, either through wi-fi or wireless phone options
But many of the apps now run offline; they synch up when the Net returns.

As for program X, the only one I still use on Mac is Scrivener.
Everyday I chuck something else: most recently, it was Things.
Look at all the problems L&L has trying to service the old “thick” platforms.
A lite or draft version that ran on the Web would bring hosannas

Already there are several web-writer apps emerging:
Fargo, Fountain, Gingko, Oak, LitLift, to name a few
I wish you had the time to try them out.

6

If you’re looking for suggestions I just purchased one of these two in one hybrid laptops last week which I’m pretty happy with so far. There are also a number of other options available for the 2-in-1s by other manufactures and/or in other sizes. I’ve used win 8 without touchscreen and let me tell you it sucks, but with the touchscreen it is by far a more pleasant experience.

Just a note if you don’t like the Metro UI used in Windows 8 you can always use apps like Start 8 (or Start is back which more or less does the same thing, but is slightly cheaper) with Modern Mix to make it look and feel closer to Windows 7. With the touchscreen interface, I think the Metro UI is much more bearable and haven’t found these applications neccessary to use. Also, if you want to avoid Windows 8 at all costs HP has just started offering Windows 7 as an alternative to 8, but you’ll more than likely have to order from their site.

I like being able to detach the keyboard and use it as a tablet. Scrivener’s interface isn’t the most ideal for touchscreens, but It stills works reasonably well if you use the onscreen keyboard. When in tablet mode I mostly use scrivener for error correction and other light edits. Since it uses a SSD boot up is lightning fast (faster than my Moto X even) and the system runs quick and is very responsive. I haven’t experiences any application freezes or hangups as of yet.

7

I will chuck my ten pence worth in here.
I found Scriviner, because Microsoft managed to lose an entire book that I had written on their servers and then flatly refused to take any responsibility, the utter arrogance and contempt that there customers ‘service’ offers has led me to not want to use any of their products again. Be warned that if you are using Word on Windows 8 and assume that you are saving a hard copy on your hard drive - well, Microsoft has other ideas for you, and are too arrogant to tell you about them.

So like you, I would love to afford a Mac, but they are out of my price range.

I too looked into Chome, for all of the good reasons given above, However, for me it is a non-starter as it ties to the google system completely, and you can do nothing with it if you are away from an internet connection. I am sure that it will be a viable alternative to the wretched Microsoft at some point, but not yet.
The advice to keep away from Windows 8 is sound. I am going to be ‘downgrading’ (actually, upgrading) to windows 7 on all of my machines. Not only is Windows 8 a poor experience, but it just does not work. It is broken software, and everyone knows it.

One silver lining to all of this for me, is that I have found Scrivener and find it a fantastic piece of software. So much so, that any operating system would now have to accommodate it for me to be interested.

As to touchscreens I agree with the comments made above. After much research, I bought an Asus T100 asus.com/uk/Notebooks_Ultra … _Book_T100
I am very pleased with it, I find it a very good experience to type on, although if you have big hands, you may disagree and it is super portable. However, Scrivener does not work well on touch screen, but really - who cares? At the moment touchscreens are a gimmick in my view. It would be nice if scrivener worked well on just tablet, as many writers now use Ipads and the like. However, I am in no rush.

So I would focus on what works for you and gets the job done. Steer clear of windows 8 and Microsoft altogether if you have the option. At the end of the day, the security of your files are paramount.

8

Chris, that’s a sad story about your loss of a book to the Dark Force.
Although I do make backups on cloud services like DropBox,
I also use an external hard drive with Apple’s Time Machine
To make a constant backup of all my programs and data.

Before Ioa crunches me once more for my Google centrism, :frowning:
I will confess that I had a scary experience with Chrome today
The Mac browser version of Chrome got hijacked by malware
Which came from a bad extension I bought on the Android store.
It was meant to synch Chrome bookmarks to a Kindle Fire.

So I had to use AppCleaner to delete Chrome entirely
And then download it (via Safari), reinstall it, and launch
Once I logged in, all the familiar settings returned.
The error was mine: use extensions only from the Chrome Web Store.
:blush:

9

If you find Windows 7 or earlier versions of Windows, and the Windows version of Scrivener (still at v1.x versus Mac version at 2.x), acceptable then I would guess that with the assist of the two following cheap ($5 each) utilities, you would find a Windows 8 touch screen laptop acceptable… even if that meant not touching the screen for Scrivener use.

Stardock Start8 (re-adds Windows start button AND lets you force Windows to always start in traditional user interface rather than the new Metro/Modern user interface, if you wish (can still toggle back and forth)). 5$. Free time limited eval available to download and try.
stardock.com/products/start8/

Stardock ModernMix (enables Windows 8 style Metro/Modern tile apps to run in their own non-full-screen windows while using Windows 8 in traditional user interface). 5$. Free time limited eval available to download and try.
stardock.com/products/modernmix/

Don’t know off hand how this would interact with the touch screen (I’m assuming presence/use of keyboard and touch pad or mouse)… Worst case, just don’t touch the screen?

10

I mentioned both of those options in my previous post. Honestly, I would go with Startisback (link) over Start 8 because startisback fully integrates into windows whereas Start 8 runs as a service on top of windows. Because of this you’ll get fewer delays with Startisback and have an all around more pleasant experience. Plus, it’s cheaper. :smiley: That beings said Windows 8 was designed for touchscreens and the experience is far more pleasant if you actually have one.

I’m primarily a Linux user and am far from a Microsoft Apologist. I only keep Windows around for a few things. A few people have mentioned windows 8 being buggy. Perhaps that was the case with the intial release, but running 8.1 (it’s available for a free download for all windows 8 users) my system is pretty stable. Well, for windows anyway. :wink:

11

One quickie, as you point out, 8.1 is a free download for the sufferes of Windows 8 - and one of the useful things it does is restore the start button.
One thing to be very careful of with Windows 8 is Microsofts policy of moving towards cloud storage.
They are implimenting this with an arrogent atitude, in not telling customers exactly what they are doing.
To give an example. The case I cited above where I lost an important file. Word actually saves by default to the Microsoft server, you may not know this (I certainly didn’t), to save to the hard drive you have to actually go into the Word options and set this up. So if there is a problem with their servers, you can kiss goodbye to your hard work.
Conclusion, Scrivener works, word is not to be trusted.

12

Scrivener works fine on my Lenovo Yoga 13.3". Because my eyesight is changing, I’ve changed my font sizes for the Binder & menus to be larger, which incidentally makes it easier to pick out the things I’m touching.

Personally, I’ve long been a keyboard girl, preferring not to have to move to a mouse. So I actually don’t use the touch feature much in Scrivener. or Word. But I love it for other programs. And drop & drag is so much easier!

You might consider refurbished or discount/clearance models of non-Chrome laptops. Maybe still not as cheap, but worth a look.

13

My recent experience laptop shopping suggests that the touch screen adds a hundred pounds or so to the price for an otherwise equivalent spec. I went for the one with a CD drive and a slightly better processor instead, but I’m a bit of a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to computing environments. Windows 8.1 isn’t that hard to set up to default to the proper desktop (and has a ‘start’ icon in the corner now), at which point it behaves very much like Windows 7 apart from the extra levels of obfuscation in the virtual folder structure and the business of signing in with a Microsoft account. I spent a week getting used to it and then carried on more or less as normal.