Smart-phone and Tablet users will be very familiar with driving their devices by moving their fingers across the screen. Windows 8′s significant change from Windows 7 is that it will pivot largely on this type of interface. What that means for laptop hardware is that machines that are sold with Windows 8 later this year will come with touch-screens.

A touch screen upgrade may or not be cost effective for laptops with non-touch screens, but clearly this major change in hardware and operating system capability will yield laptops bought earlier this year behind the technology 8-ball and for that reason, possibly not an ideal longer term investment.