New Macs, Lenovo laptop make traditional keyboards touchy

Higher-end models of Apple's MacBook Pro now come with a narrow touch screen above the regular keyboard for quick access to common settings and tasks, while Lenovo's Yoga Book laptop loses the physical keyboard entirely.

The traditional keyboard has never struck me as needing much improvement, although people who've grown up on touch screens might well feel differently.

[...] how do the new touch features improve typing and computing?

[...] when fixing typos in documents, selecting email to delete and even editing photos, my trackpad is generally more precise than my fat fingers on the screen.

When you're using the Safari browser, for instance, you typically get thumbnails of individual tabs for easy switching between websites.

The new volume and brightness sliders are much easier to use than tapping the appropriate function key multiple times to get the level I want.

[...] the Touch Bar does make it easy to include emojis in messages.

Because I use it frequently, I made the screenshot function a default icon.

[...] the 10-inch Yoga Book (about $500 for Android, $600 for Windows) retains the clamshell design of a laptop but has a second touch screen where the keyboard normally goes.

The touch keyboard also doubles as a handwriting pad for notes and doodling with the included stylus.

If it makes it onto a future laptop, it could mark a true revolution that goes well beyond the minor changes the Touch Bar and the second touch screen offer.