Don’t be like Apple and try to buck the market advances - all modern high-end laptops have touch screens. We need a touchscreen option. I don’t use it that much, but really like to have the option to click a box or scroll through a long document with the tap or swipe of a screen. The current screen looks good, but for those of us photo & video editors a 4K option would be nice… (or should that be another request?)
Bucking the market is exactly what Framework is about.
I am VERY happy that the screen is not touch sensitive as folks tend to point to the screen as we are having a discussion.
That said, in the future offering one as an option (not forcing it down our throat) is undoubtedly a good thing for many people who actually use it often.
26 Likes
A lot of laptops offer it as an optional upgrade. I just wonder if there’s enough of a market to warrant different screens in this size/ratio down the road. It’s not cheap to get LG or whoever to custom cut panels for you if you’re only going to sell a couple thousand at most 
4 Likes
So besides the fact that a touchscreen has been talked about at length in other topics, the current monitor is a 40-pin which could already include support for a touch screen. With absolutely no insider information, I imagine the biggest hurdle is finding high quality, reliable, 3:2 screens as is. Let alone touch screen panels. A 4K screen would also have the same difficulties. Perhaps that’s one of the drawbacks of the framework. Perhaps when the framework team has sent out its final revision they would consider a second product.
Or perhaps they could be willing to accept a few undergraduate interns into their ranks to do rough sketches for them.
2 Likes
Crosslinking two similar threads:
3 Likes
Microsoft, Google, HP, and probably others have using high resolution 3:2 laptop touch screens for years, so I can’t image it would be that hard.
5 Likes
I wonder why make it difficult and not make it compatible with most screen replacements out there or just let us know which one is compatible?
2 Likes
Bit of a novice in this department, but I look to the Framework as my ambition for a hackable solution; I’ve heard them say how they strive for us to be able to full-on make our own chassis for it if we dare.
What’s to stop me from simply cannibalizing the touchscreen monitor of another laptop & connecting it to the Framework?
I look at it almost as simply “teardown the XPS 13 2-in-1, remove that screen. Attach it to the Framework, configure the drivers, and done!”.
It could fuel a great demand for Ebay’s broken/as-is market. Is this unreasonable, though?
Technical answer? It needs to be a 40 pin EDP connector for starters. If you have that, then you might be good.
In theory if you have the stuff, you could wire it to a driver board and connect it via the side connectors as if it were a standard monitor.
1 Like
Definitely an important upgrade in my book.
A lot of laptop now offer this option, like XPS 13 and others.
It s so common that a friend of mine yesterday touched my screen to zoom when I was showing him pictures on my laptop…
He looked at me thinking my computer was broken !!!
His wife -in rememberence of old computers - said “there is no touch screen , you cannot do this”. My friend looked back at me , like if I was coming from another age, thinking " you are a computer ingeneer and you have old stuf like this 
"
Touch screen are just there, it s evolution… framework needs it now, more than the '30th gen intel ’ or super power GPU.
Here we are talking of usage, user interface… You cannot ship today a PC without a mouse…you could in 1970. In 2022 you cannot ship it without a touch screen. Phones now are 95% touch screens to.
8 Likes
I think this is just muscle memory/habit from using touchscreen phones and tablets for so long. I had the instinct a few times when I was switching between a tablet and laptop.
Can somebody explain, outside of design/drawing (aka stylus) why touchscreens are desirable? Not hating just don’t get the desire I have seen on the forums.
Is it just because of how common they are in other devices it is jarring not to have the functionality?
I see OP mention about scrolling docs and clicking a box here and there while acknowledging using it infrequently.
To me reaching past the touchpad over the KB seems like more effort and less comfortable especially given PC interfaces do not seems currently well adapted around touch.
More on the topic I assume touchscreen laptops have a glass front cover this is weight the current setup would likely not handle well. Unless people use touchscreen without glass? 
3 Likes
I am coming from an X1 Yoga (ThinkPad) and I use my touchscreen daily. Things I use it for are scrolling through longer articles, it just feels so much more natural. Sometimes I flip my Yoga into tablet mode and scroll that way but most of the time I just touchscroll even in the normal laptop configuraiton.
I also use it for certain forms, especially checking off large checkbox lists.
I don’t use it to navigate make or refresh webpages with gestures, because the default Gnome (Linux) gestures take too much hand movement right now.
I also use it to quickly select a text field or sometimes a tab on my web browser.
It did take a while to incorporate the touchscreen into my workflow but I wouldn’t give it up ever now, I am more efficient at some tasks and when I need it, I need it and it makes using a computer so much more enjoyable. Also, yes, pinching to zoom in on photos is really nice too.
I also use it when my partner is asking for help on their computer, because it is too awkward to use their trackpad, I just touch their screen.
My children also use the built in stylus on my X1 Yoga to free draw on https://canvas.apps.chrome/.
A touchscreen for me is a very real thing that is a real blocker for me moving to a Framework. It would be a notable regression in my workflow to not have a touchscreen. I would be less efficient and a bit aggravated without one. It makes sense in this modern world to have touch parity with our pocket mobile and compute mobile devices.
9 Likes
We are a K12 school and we are forcing our students to buy a Touchscreen Laptop!
So please add this as an option!
I would be very happy to order every year: 400+ Framework Laptops with Touch, integrated Pen and convertible Option! (With a Swiss-German keyboard-layout 
I am tired of Acer, HP, Lenovo etc.
IT Gymthun
10 Likes
Thank you for taking the time to reply 
I can see how it would feel more natural/become more integrated in your work flow especially with a convertible.
1 Like
Definitely. You’d be surprised how quickly you get used to it.
Second that. Once you have touchscreen option, my order will go out the next day … 
A good multi-touch touchscreen is kinda an essential option for a laptop in the price bracket that FW is in.
I’ve been loving the GNOME experience on a TS. I’d really hate to give it up.
Recently got my 12th gen Framework and I’m loving it! But I would definitely like a touchscreen, or even pen support (like the Microsoft Surfaces, or the Dell Inspirons). It was not and is not a deal breaker for me, but I would definitely pay for an upgrade kit to add that functionality if one was available.
1 Like
I think you would be surprised if you could get a glimpse into the politics and bureaucracy involved in the laptop industry. Imagine tribes hording as much of the supply chain and tech as possible and you wouldn’t be far off. Microsoft, stipulates for example that the panels they use cannot be supplied to any other company. (Just as illustrative example, it is not intended to be factual in anyway.) In such an arena sourcing anything is an exercise in persistence and patience. As Framework grows, such clout could aid them in getting access to things as you imagine, but for now, it is not easy to do anything that Framework has done, or is intending to do in the future.
2 Likes
I’m a bit of a novice in this department but I was wondering, would it be possible to use the screen that the Framework already has and just add a touch digitizer on top? If they can’t source dedicated touch screens I feel like having a touch screen on top of the regular screen they already have would be a good solution as long as people don’t mind the air gap from it being unlaminated.