Touchscreens on laptops play a curious role as input. They’re not the primary input method (unless you’re using a 2-in-1 as a tablet?), but they’re far from a niche feature and you can find them on most Windows laptops. The closest parallel as an alternative input method is probably a keyboard or mouse hooked up to a smartphone, but in that case, the user can just hook a keyboard up any time. This isn’t the case with laptops, where you need to include the touchscreen when you buy the rest of the thing.¹

I’ve been pretty lukewarm about touchscreens on laptops, but after using one for a few months, I’ve been starting to come around. It’s a good input method for making a couple taps in an app when you’re doing something else, like playing or pausing a song while walking around the kitchen. I found myself trying to touch the screen of my touchscreenless MacBook Air. If you truly don’t want to touch, then it stinks you’re getting charged for the feature whenever you buy most laptops, but I’m led to believe they can hold a natural supporting role in user input.