Multi-touch cheap as chips...

[Martin Naef]

You might remember that I've had a play with multi-touch on Windows 7 at 
work for a while. Today, the German discounter chain Aldi hat a 
multi-touch screen on offer for a lowly CHF 200.-, roughly €140. I 
couldn't resist the temptation, given that I wanted a secondary monitor 
anyway for a graphics project I'm working on.

So, what did €140 by me: A 22", full HD (1920x180) panel with the usual 
inputs (DVI, HDMI, analog), speakers, multi-touch (the optical sort with 
two contact points). No other niceties, and the cheap TN panel of course.

First impressions are pretty good. Viewing angle is better than I 
expected, colors seem perfectly allright (not sure I would trust it for 
proper color-corrections on my photographs though), touch works as 
expected out of the box without any driver installation required.

Ok, it's a bit more than a bag of chips, but at this price point, I 
definitely see multi-touch becoming a standard even if its use is a bit 
limited on a desktop...

Martin