Will be interesting to see what people think. Got some equipment for some customers in my house right now, a HP desktop machine with mice/keyboard and a touchscreen monitor. The monitor I am trying out is the Iiyama ProLite T2250MTS, it's a 22" widescreen touchscreen monitor that supports resolutions up to 1920x1080 and can run over either VGA or DVI (I'm using DVI). I was impressed by the style and look of the monitor, I quite like the bulky looks but I know they're not everybody's cup of tea, and I was also impressed that with Windows 7 the multi-touch worked straight out of the box with no need to install drivers!
However, although this is a nice monitor and the touch facility works well, I do think that touchscreen monitors are a bit of a gimmick. Clicking on buttons and links with this monitor is easy, it's pretty accurate (though I think once the customer gets the monitor they may need to calibrate it) and you don't have to push down too hard at all, you just tap, but dragging windows around is slow and can be hard at times, so I'd recommend using a mouse for that over touching, though the screen does come with a stylus which I haven't used yet but I imagine makes dragging windows easier.
As it's a touchscreen monitor, it's pretty expensive, it's about £220 which is quite a lot especially considering my Iiyama ProLite E2409HDS which is a 24" monitor that supports HDMI as well as VGA and DVI cost me £145 in June and still costs the same today.
What I'm most interested about though is your opinion on touchscreen monitors, what do you think of them? Have you used one? Did you like it? Overall I think they're nice but a bit of a gimmick, a bit like 3D televisions. Using a touchscreen monitor is like using a giant smartphone or tablet, only with the monitor even after a few minutes' of use my arms were starting to ache because I had to reach across.
However, although this is a nice monitor and the touch facility works well, I do think that touchscreen monitors are a bit of a gimmick. Clicking on buttons and links with this monitor is easy, it's pretty accurate (though I think once the customer gets the monitor they may need to calibrate it) and you don't have to push down too hard at all, you just tap, but dragging windows around is slow and can be hard at times, so I'd recommend using a mouse for that over touching, though the screen does come with a stylus which I haven't used yet but I imagine makes dragging windows easier.
As it's a touchscreen monitor, it's pretty expensive, it's about £220 which is quite a lot especially considering my Iiyama ProLite E2409HDS which is a 24" monitor that supports HDMI as well as VGA and DVI cost me £145 in June and still costs the same today.
What I'm most interested about though is your opinion on touchscreen monitors, what do you think of them? Have you used one? Did you like it? Overall I think they're nice but a bit of a gimmick, a bit like 3D televisions. Using a touchscreen monitor is like using a giant smartphone or tablet, only with the monitor even after a few minutes' of use my arms were starting to ache because I had to reach across.
