All Of My Programs And Everything Just Disappeared From My Laptop!!! How Can I Fix It??

ii-in-1 laptops are flawed — Here's how nosotros would fix them

(Image credit: Laptop Magazine)

Every forenoon, our crew of scribes assembles for our daily gathering to exchange ideas for the day'southward tech news over coffee, tea, or scones. We often discuss features we wish laptop makers would include on the devices we review. One of the most heavily debated devices we've all taken umbrage with is 2-in-ane laptops. Although nosotros all hold they've go more than user-friendly over the years, our writers accept a few bones to choice with manufacturers that can't seem to perfect the form gene.

We wrote a like piece back in 2013 when Windows 8.i was struggling to observe an audition. Convertibles, at that time, were beefy, expensive, and came in all sizes and shapes, none of which bridged the gap between tablets and laptops. Many of those issues have since been addressed. Others, unfortunately, have not. So our group of keyboard assassins has compiled our list of the most egregious issues we want manufacturers to accost in the foreseeable future.

Include the stylus

One of my biggest pet peeves is the lack of whatsoever kind of stylus on most ii-in-1s. A bear upon screen and Windows Whiteboard seem like a waste matter when you take no stylus to take advantage of them. Even the simplest stylus can exist used to chop-chop sign documents or savour some doodling afterward a long solar day of work.

2-in-1 laptops are flawed -- here's how we would fix them — (Image credit: Laptop Mag)

Several affordable Chromebooks will include a cheap plastic stylus, so at that place is no excuse for $500 to $1000 ii-in-1s to not come with ane. Allow people the option of springing for a loftier-end stylus just don't starve them of the opportunity to acquire why 1 is handy. Perchance you'll sell more premium styluses once people realize the value they bring to the ii-in-1 experience. — Mark Anthony Ramirez

Include a keyboard with detachables

Sorry Microsoft, just the Surface Pro isn't a 2-in-one without a keyboard. Information technology's just a tablet. That isn't a place Microsoft, or any other PC vendor wants to be competing in considering Windows 10 tablet fashion is something of a mess right at present.

Surface Pro 7 Plus — (Image credit: Laptop Magazine)

There are a few solutions to this consequence. The more difficult 1 is for Microsoft to optimize the Os for tablets (although we saw how that went with Windows 8) or to create a new 1 entirely. The latter proposition near came truthful until the hammer fell on Windows 10X. Microsoft promises to bring some of what it learned developing the doomed Os to hereafter versions of Windows ten, but to what extent volition it fix tablet fashion? Only time will tell. It's a good affair in that location is an easier solution…

Include the keyboard with these so-called 2-in-ane devices and y'all have a proper laptop replacement that can be converted into a tablet when you're lounging or using a stylus to depict or write. Sure it'southward a hardware patch non a solution to software shortcomings, just this way, you give customers what the OS does best: provide an splendid desktop experience and a serviceable tablet mode when needed.— Phillip Tracy

Add together a stylus slot

To paraphrase a popular photography quote, "the all-time stylus is the one you have with you lot." Somehow, this is a lesson many manufacturers oasis't learned with 2-in-1 laptops, which regularly leads me to believe that none of them actually use one. The frequency with which I've either lost a stylus or left it on my desk when I went to work at a java store led me to ignore that they existed even when I had a 2-in-1 laptop with pen back up.

The Lenovo Yoga C940 I use when I'm not reviewing a new laptop finally broke that concatenation by including a stylus in a handy slot on the dorsum of the laptop; I have never once lost information technology or left it anywhere. Is it equally comfortable to write with as a total-size option like Lenovo's own Precision Pen? Absolutely not, but I ever accept it with me and that makes it infinitely more valuable. If you lot are an artist or someone who takes 100% of your notes in digital handwriting so, by all means, upgrade to a nicer pen, only those are the outliers.

The vast majority of 2-in-1 owners are looking to take the occasional annotation, sign the occasional document, putter or possibly do some bones photo manipulation. For those tasks, a born stylus is perfectly acceptable and needs to be a part of every 2-in-i laptop. — Sean Riley

Brand a improve kickstand

I don't have a solution to this 1, but I know the kickstand on detachables like the Surface Pro seven+, Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable and Dell Latitude 7320 Detachable, are frustrating to utilise on anything but a apartment surface.

Effort using the Surface Pro with the kickstand and keyboard accompaniment on your lap while sitting or your abdomen while laying down, and the slate will start bobbing around like a sinker with a fish on the other end. Likewise, that thin edge on the lesser of the kickstand isn't the nearly pleasant thing to have sinking into your skin.— Phillip Tracy

Bring back the retractable keyboard

In that location'southward something unnatural nigh feeling those clicky, clacky keyboard keys when a 2-in-1 is in tablet fashion. Yes, I know the keys are disabled, it'south a tactile thing, alright? I wish OEMs could figure out a durable, price-constructive way to institute retractable keys. Lenovo had the right idea with the first ThinkPad Yoga, a 12-inch beauty whose keys receded into the deck every bit the notebook transitioned from clamshell to tablet way via the visitor's proprietary Lift and Lock system. — Kim Gedeon

Use stronger hinges

Not every two-in-ane is guilty of this by any ways, but this needs to be almost the top of your priority listing because the brandish on a 2-in-1 laptop volition besides offten be billowy back and forth as I try to type. Let's not permit forcefulness be sacrificed for flexibility or weight. This completely undermines the utility of the two-in-1 in any of its grade factors.

My poster child for this trouble is the original Samsung Galaxy Chromebook ; it was a beautiful slice of hardware and a rare 2-in-1 that felt corking in laptop and tablet form, simply its weak swivel made it unusable in either. Samsung learned its lesson and stock-still this with the Galaxy Chromebook 2 (simply fell dorsum again with the Galaxy Book Pro 360). Now every manufacturer needs to take note and stop shipping 2-in-one laptops with hinges that are too fragile for the job. — Sean Riley