Most Windows 11 laptops I review have touchscreens and that isn’t changing any time soon. At CES 2026, I went hands on with lots of laptops and most of them had touchscreens. But it’s not like PC manufacturers were showing them off. Indeed, touchscreens on laptops now feel like an afterthought.
Which means if you’re in the market for a laptop, that’s how you should see touchscreens: a feature you almost certainly don’t need.
Do laptop makers even care?
At CES 2026, I was in one PC manufacturer’s demo space. As the representative talked about the laptop’s features, I spotted its matte display. I ran my finger over the screen and shared how impressed I was: it was a surprisingly smooth touch surface for a matte touchscreen. Most touchscreen PCs I see have glossy displays, and most matte touchscreens I’ve used are a little rough.
The PR person seemed surprised I was even talking about the touchscreen at all. That wasn’t something they were even demonstrating!
Mark Hachman / IDG
And that’s the modern reality of touchscreens on laptops: lots of laptops have touchscreens, but there just isn’t much to say about ’em.
When I see laptop makers demonstrating new hardware, they almost always ignore the touchscreen. I’ve sat through lots of demos about AI features, PC performance, battery life, gaming, and productivity. But in recent years no laptop maker has demonstrated a vision of how their Windows PC’s touchscreen can be useful in the real world.
In the past, touchscreens were compensating for something else
I used to be a bigger fan of touchscreen PCs. A few years ago, I endorsed using a touchscreen to scroll web pages and other documents. On a past Windows 10 PC, I really enjoyed that experience. Even without specialized apps, touchscreens were great for navigating documents. I didn’t want to give up my Windows 10 laptop’s touchscreen.
IDG / Matthew Elliott
Years later, now that I have experience with modern Windows 11 PCs, I realize what the problem actually was: Windows 10-era PCs had terrible, unresponsive touchpads.
These days, with the capable and responsive touchpads that are ubiquitous on modern Windows 11 laptops—even budget Windows laptops!—there’s no need for me to place my finger on the screen when I can scroll using the touchpad instead. (Apple has long known this.)
PC apps aren’t optimized for touchscreens
If you want to use a Windows PC as a touchscreen device, you can still find touch-first PC experiences out there. Microsoft’s Surface Pro is one such example (with Microsoft selling the keyboard separately).
In fact, many PC manufacturers still make 2-in-1 convertible laptops with screens that can hinge backward 360 degrees, so you can use them in “tablet mode.” This has always been strange to me, though. The feeling of holding an extra-thick tablet with physical keys on the back? That’s an odd and imperfect compromise.
Foundry / Mark Knapp
And there’s no need for such a compromise. In 2026, there aren’t many Windows applications that are designed for touchscreen experiences anymore. The starry-eyed idealism of the Windows 8 and 10 eras is gone. Now, the touchscreen PC experience is just an alternative to mouse cursor usage in regular Windows apps.
While Microsoft went a little too far when it tried to make Windows 8 a “touch first” experience, Windows has now swung to the opposite extreme. Even if you’re using a Windows 11 tablet, it feels like a “mouse first” experience despite not having a mouse at all.
Even Windows isn’t ready anymore
While there’s no fully touch-optimized interface anymore in Windows, Windows 11 does technically have a “tablet mode” you can enable by removing the keyboard or rotating your 2-in-1 device into tablet posture.
You can’t use this mode on many touchscreen Windows laptops, though. If you can’t physically rotate the screen and put it into tablet position, you can’t unlock the touchscreen-optimized interface. (Back on Windows 10, you could’ve at least toggled it manually.)
IDG
And even if you can get Windows 11’s tablet mode activated, it’s been watered down over the years. Like, there’s no full-screen Start menu. All you get is more space between touch targets on the taskbar… and that’s the biggest noticeable change. The gestures are different, too.
Speaking of gestures, Windows 11’s touch gestures are objectively worse than they were in the past. On Windows 10, swiping in from the left opened the Task View interface for switching apps. On Windows 11, it opens the Widgets pane full of viral news stories. Yuck.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
It’s a shame because we’re seeing more and more dual-display devices, from the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i to the Asus Zephyrus Duo and beyond. When I reviewed the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i, I used it primarily as a portable dual-display with a Bluetooth keyboard at a desk. The touch experience would’ve come in handy… if it were any good.
If Windows was more designed for touchscreens, these machines would be even more compelling. But without a serious touch-optimized interface and ecosystem of software, these machines don’t live up to their potential for large tablet-like experiences.
Pen input is the one exception
Convertible 2-in-1 laptops like the Surface Pro have one killer feature: pen input. For taking notes in applications like OneNote and using professional drawing tools, this is still a great experience.
Of course, technically speaking, an active pen doesn’t really need a touchscreen. With a battery-powered pen that supports multiple pressures of input, all you really need is a screen that has a digitizer layer that can accept pen input.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
But most PCs that support active pen input also have touchscreens. This is the killer feature that makes Windows tablets feel useful, yet even so, most people aren’t using a pen very often. I know too many who have bought 2-in-1 PCs with pen support and rarely ended up using it.
Buying a laptop? Ignore the touchscreen
These days, touchscreen laptops aren’t all that rare—but when you run into one, it feels like the touchscreen is only there to check a box on the spec sheet. “This is a touchscreen laptop,” the manufacturer can proudly say when advertising it. Is it enough to sway someone when they’re stuck between that and another non-touchscreen option? Maybe…
But unless you need a touchscreen for a specific reason, my advice is to not go out of your way for one. If the laptop you want has a touchscreen, fine, no problem. If it’s between two equal laptops for the same price and one has a touchscreen, sure, pick that one. If you can get an equal laptop for cheaper without a touchscreen, maybe go for that instead.
In the end, you won’t be missing much. (At least until Microsoft starts putting effort into the touchscreen experience again!)
Further reading: The best laptops on the market right now
