2019-10-28 14:40:39

Hi.

On my hunt for a new laptop I came over convertibles. i didn't hear the term convertible for the first time and know what these things are, but I never actually checked how modern day screen readers like Narrator, Jaws and NVDA keep up with touch based screens.
as far as I found out there are convertibles and normal laptops with a touch screen s the normal monitor.
I'm curious how well NVDA works with windows 10 devices like for example the Surface by Microsoft.

Are there any experiences with touch based screens you guys have?
Would be curious because I never worked with a windows 10 tablet before.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2019-10-28 15:54:42

It works better with a keyboard because with a touch screen you can lose your focus, but it works decently well.

2019-10-28 16:06:59

Hi.

Thanks for the answer.

Well, I think you can lose your focus with every touch screen device, iOS, android or Windows, but if you are familiar with how things work, I suppose you could work decently with it, at leased i hope so with windows beeing more complex then your mobile OS.

greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2019-10-28 21:13:41

Yeah, I find I lose focus when i'm using the pen with  my surface rather then just swiping, witch i guess makes sense. I have a habit or dragging the pen around, not swiping it as if it's my finger.

2019-10-28 22:03:52

Hi.

yeah I also looked at the surface because it seams quite interesting, the only thing holding me back really is that it doesn't seam to have any sort of external security installations like a finger print reader.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2019-10-29 14:51:17

Would you generally say that the Surface would be a good device getting in regards to system speed and general quality of the device?
I'm currently trying to decide between the surface pro 6, surface book 2, HP g3 and g4.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2019-10-29 15:56:51

I say the book. While i don't have one, they at least come with a keyboard.

2019-10-29 18:16:20

Hi.

Oh, I thought that the surface pro devices also came with a keyboard, not that you had to purchase it seperatlly.

Yeah I'm thinking about the book, or some ultra book if touch screen usage is more tedious than helping.

greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2019-10-29 20:06:02

My surface didn't, and the keyboard was an extra 150$. Not really happy with microsoft about that one. They might have changed it, though.

2019-10-29 20:20:14

@Ty

Sadly, they haven’t reduced the price much directly... See
https://store.microsoft.com/
, for details on that.

For example, if ya wanted deals on a ‘Surface Go” with a keyboard cover alongside, ‘Amazon” would be your best shot. Least here in the USA anyway...

2019-10-29 21:02:01

Hi.

Hmm, that's a pitty, but sorta understandable with the surface pro beeing marketed as a tablet.
I suppose I can get it for a lower price at a retail store, just need to see if anything comes up.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2019-10-29 23:01:09

At costco I saw it with the keyboard included for a lower price, it was a bundle. This was a while ago though.

2019-10-29 23:53:13

I got the 13-inch surfacebook 2 a couple months ago. First of all If I'm being honest there are definitely computers with better specs to price rayshows out there. I picked it up partially because I got it along with a new braille display because I can just take the tablet portion and leave the base, and it works really well for this. It has a camera which can do Windows hello, which is essentially face ID for windows and in my experience it just works. If you're sitting in-front of the computer and have your head at screen level it'll pick you up just fine though it's quite sensitive to lighting changes. I set it up in ambient lighting in my bedroom, and in indoor areas it picks me up fine. But if I go outside with sunlight I usually have to enter my password. Other positives, the batterylife is great. Microsoft claims 11, 12 hours. I don't know if I ever got that much but I'd say 8 9 ish is definitely doable with basic computing stuff. It's also absolutely quiet. The 13-inch version doesn't have a CPU fan, there's only a fan in the base for the GPU which comes on only if the discrete GPU is in use. And because the CPU is on the tablet portion if you're using it as a laptop, the keyboard and bottom never heat up. On the topic of the keyboard, typing experience is very comparable to an old-school (pre-butterfly) macbook. The keys look and feel very similar, though the layout of the FN keys is a little weird. They put Mute on F4, and the FN key acts like capslock. So if you press it, it just toggles FN lock on and off or you can hold it down in conjunction with a function key. Microsoft actually fixed this with the latest Surface laptop 3 by moving mute to a different key and they also added API's so that screen readers will be able to figure out the state of the FN lock, but for the moment I find myself muting my audio while trying to close out of apps more than I want to admit big_smile

Finally, briefly about the audio. You have stereo microphones, and they sound great for both voice chat or even just making recordings. The speakers are on the 2 sides of the screen. Maybe they don't have as much bass as Mac speakers, but have really decent mids and highs and project sound toward you very well and you can definitely tell the stereo spread, to the point I gamed on the internal speakers before with great success. There's sometimes a bug with the sound channel closing too quickly with some more responsive synthesizers like Eloquence and NVDA, but it only happens if there's no other sound playing and restarting NVDA fixes it so it's not too big of an issue.

Over all, I'm really happy with it, especially about the portability and quietness. But if you don't care about the ability to detach the 2 sides there are cheaper options with better specs, even from Microsoft themselves like the Surface Laptop 3

<Insert passage from "The Book Of Chrome" here>

2019-10-30 02:10:01

Hi.

At Pitermach oh urm, lol, don't ask me how I scimmed past the surface laptop all the time, I thought it might be a translation error in German translation and they ment surface book xD.

Well, I don't know really if I would use the tablet portion of the device without the keyboard, to judge that I don't have enough experiences with NVDA on touch displays or found podcasts or written review about it. I found a touch enhancements addon for NVDA, but that's all.
The surface laptop looks quite nice, apart from windows 10 S, but I suppose you can put a standard issue win 10 on there.
As I said, I also looked at the Asus Zenbook, problem there is the throttling of the CPU and the quite slow SSD, it seams when you have found a laptop, convertible or ultra book you like there's always something not up to par with what you want.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2019-10-30 02:59:14

Yeah, you can put normal win 10 on there, I had to help a friend do that actually.

2019-10-30 16:28:59

Hmm, sounds good, argh I just don|t know what to get xD.

I just created a portable copy of NVDA on an older USB Stick, I'll see if I can convince a person at the electronics store to plug my stick into a win tablet so I can play around with it a bit.

Can I find basic NVDA touch commands somewhere? The manual isn't really talking about touch controls.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2019-10-30 17:18:22

In terms of ultrabooks, I've heard great things about Huawei's Matebook lineup. You can find more about that with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqBkuyK … mp;t=309s.
In that video, the Huawei had a touchscreen. The computer also came with a fingerprint sensor. It might be a good computer but it's pretty pricey though that obviously depends on where you buy it.

If you for whatever reason wish to contact me, the best way to do so is through Discord (@Minionslayer0). You'll get the quickest response times, and by extension, a higher priority. I also sometimes post my thoughts (for the better or worse) over on Mastodon at @Minionslayer.

2019-10-30 17:29:54

i'M using schools smartboard with NVDA lol ant its good so far
i evin began to  write it, if your familior with the layout you should be good to go

2019-11-01 12:30:04

NVDA on a tuch screen is ok i guess, the keyboard is actually a lot better.

best regards
never give up on what ever you are doing.

2019-12-29 05:13:39

Hi all.

yeah I'm bringing back an older topic of mine, but some questions came up again regarding touch screens.

Someone said that NVDA and touch screen is sorta doable. Thing is, what does work and what doesn't?
for example, do I have to swipe to every option or can I put my finger at the point where I think an item is located? I sometimes do that for my iPhone, when I know where a certain item is, I don't swipe to it I simply put my finger on the item, and I'm mostly correct with the item positioning.
So, does that work with NVDA as well?

What about typing on the tablet. Do I need to double tap the letters, can I use a similar typing mode as in VO where you tap a letter, lift your finger and it types?
Or even better, is there a way for direct touch typing? So tap the letter and it types? I use that on my phone the hole time, and it works better than the search letter and lift finger mode, at leased for me.
So, some more answers would be cool, or does anyone know of an audible demo where someone demonstrates touch screen behaviour with windows 10?

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.