1080p and touch screen on a 15.5" laptop

spaceboy

How important are these two option? I cannot decide. Will touch screen become more and more significant?

penrhyn

If you want to make the most of Windoze 8.1 it does.

Johnmcl7

On some of the smaller hybrid devices which are a mix of tablet and laptop, I find the touch screen handy but on larger laptop designs I wouldn't be bothered about having a touch screen as I find it a bit awkward reaching over the keyboard rather than just using the mouse and keyboard as normal.

Although there's numerous claims about needing a touch screen to use Windows 8 properly, I don't agree as I use it on several non-touch systems in preference to Windows 7 - the desktop interface works well with a keyboard and mouse and I don't like the touch interface (bar the touch version of IE) even on my touch systems, everything is too big, the gestures are mainly annoying and multitasking is a mess compared to free floating windows in the desktop mode.

The importance of 1080p depends on what you're doing, in many cases it will just make everything look a bit prettier and have sharper text so not completely a necessity but if you're working with software that has a lot of toolbars the extra resolution can definitely be useful.

John