Advantages and Disadvantages of Convertible Laptops

Traditional laptops are portable enough but many of us are now used with touch and pen interface because of the penetration of the smartphones. The tablets with an i7 processor are just too damn expensive. Within a budget of $2,000, convertible laptops with 2K to 4K displays are simply ludicrous. The convertible laptops are designed for the budget-conscious audience who do not need a graphics tablet but want a good quality display with some features like that of a tablet PC. They are probably for using rarely in tablet mode because a keyboard is already available. Nevertheless, the fact that they have touchscreens is very advantageous in some situations. The main reason to buy such a laptop is getting a notebook avoiding to splash out on buying a tablet. A convertible notebook has certain advantages and disadvantages when compared to any normal laptop out of the effort to make them sleek with a touchscreen and a pen.

Advantages of Convertible Laptops

Most of the high-end convertible laptops have a high-resolution screen with wider colour gamut and optimized for multimedia. This makes them suitable for watching videos. The bigger shops usually run great videos on the demo machines to attract the customers.

Reading webpages and PDF also feels great. This is because you can hide the keyboard from in front in “tent mode”, rotate the screen to landscape mode. These laptops have vents on the back for tent mode. Like the motherboard, processor out in front from the face, it gives a “desktop” like feel. Indeed, you probably discover to use USB, wireless mouse to use in “tent mode”. The landscape mode is also important for the web developers and the webmasters to create the correct layouts. It is common to get used with taps, drags on the screen instead of using the mouse. Tap on the close button, using a calculator with a tap, dragging the slider of running video, pinching the images and so on.

As for the pen device, these days there are lot of apps from handwritten font creation, taking notes, calculation, ordinary drawing as an example of some of the common applications. It is not possible to use a 1.5 KG device in hand-held mode. But it is possible to place the device on the table, on the bed, on the carpet to nicely draw (it reminds me of childhood). Of course, it is a compromise when compared to the thin high-end tablets.

As the screen required to be a touch-screen, the material of the screen is of better glass, quite closer to the material we are used to seeing on the smartphones. Even if the display of a particular convertible laptop model is of 2K resolution, Intel Graphics and Windows 10 helps to use your 4K/UHD television as a secondary display. There is definite difference of the colour temperature between Samsung 7100 and HP Pavilion x360. The displays of the convertible laptops are optimized to deliver a paper-like feel. Extreme Blue, Red, Green will not burn your eyes. This often misunderstood by many as a “light grey overcast”. The handwriting recognition with a pen is not bad and useful for a quick web search to launch of application.

Most of the advantages are related to the touchscreen, pen and the hinge. You can make the laptop flat on your bed and work lazily.

Disadvantages of Convertible Laptops

As most of the advantages are related to the touchscreen, pen and the hinge, the disadvantages are also related to them. Unfortunately, Microsoft Windows (and many of the desktop applications) are optimized for use with a mouse. It is not easy to use Windows file explorer with fingers. Using pen when required disturbs the mood. Using an external mouse often proves to be practical. You will not find doing what will deliver you the best position to use the fingers. It takes some time to learn a new system which is in-between a smartphone/tablet and a laptop. You’ll find a lot of fingerprints on the screen exactly like smartphones. It is easy to get scratches on the screen exactly like it is easy to scratches on the smartphones.

The biggest issues are, however, overheating and shorter battery life. An i7 or i9 processor inside enough slim casing tend to get overheated. This is a serious matter and ignoring it may invite a burned motherboard. You’ll find a lot of customers on the web whose motherboards got burned. The shorter battery life results from the great display and work of the fan to fight with overheating. It is too important to give importance to external cooling and less CPU load.

The keyboards usually do not give a feel of durability for the high workload. As the total thing is tried to make slim and small, the typing experience while using the touchpad is not great. Many of these convertible laptops lack driver support for GNU/Linux. So you are forced to use only Microsoft Windows. You are not getting an optical drive.

Conclusion

Avoid purchasing a convertible laptop as a primary laptop for regular huge typing or longer CPU intensive workload. For keeping the convertible laptops healthy use cooling pad, an external mice and keyboard and get a minimum of 8GB of RAM with a graphics card (cost of adding another 8GB RAM is lower). Try to have an SSD instead of a mechanical hard disk. Do not rotate the device roughly like a smartphone or a tablet with a mechanical drive. Not to forget to mention – buy the extended warranties to enjoy some peace of mind for the first 3 years.

As most of the peoples on this planet are forced to be budget-conscious, we can not recommend a high-end convertible laptop as primary laptop unless one is winning on casinous on a regular basis. The cost of repair and parts are also high. Although the convertible laptops look like traditional laptops, they lack the “stamina” of the PC laptops.

To sum up, the matter is about balancing usability against performance. Whenever your need is raw CPU power for a longer duration, convertible laptops become a worse choice. We have written an honest article about our HP Pavilion x360 which probably point you to find a grab a piece as secondary laptop with good discount (a 30% discount is fair). Overall, the convertible laptops are great gizmos for certain peoples as secondary laptops. Many works of today including blogging, freelancing in technical works need a pen device. You need a desktop for the continuous high graphics card, RAM and CPU usage.