I have never been convinced by the idea of a touch-screen laptop. Even though I sometimes find myself prodding the screen of my MacBook Air immediately after a session with the iPad mini, the ergomonics of touching a near-vertical screen are appalling. As ZDNet points out in this article, Apple has perfected touch control on its latest MacBook Airs. The only difference is that manipulation is achieved by using the trackpad instead of by moving your hands from the keyboard in order to use the screen. Author James Kendrick says:
The MacBook Air recently released is a laptop that sets the bar for the genre. Even with all that Apple has accomplished with the new laptop, a common complaint is the lack of a touch screen. The support for touch screens in Windows 8 is creating an expectation that laptops need to have them. The fact is that OS X handles multi-touch on a trackpad better than Windows 8 does on a touch screen.