[Arm-netbook] Housing idea: screenless laptop

[Benson Mitchell]

On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 4:31 PM, Matt Campbell <mattcampbell at pobox.com> wrote:
> It occurred to me that for blind people, who use a screen reader such as
> Speakup or Orca, a laptop housing without the screen or the touchpad would
> be quite convenient.
I don't know anyone in that situation personally, but it's not clear
to me that the touchpad should go. Sure, using it for pointing input
is unhelpful with no screen, but I would expect it could still be
useful for gesture input, right?

Seems there's not much benefit from removing the touchpad, as it
doesn't buy you any space savings, and it should have pretty small
impact on battery life compared to the screen. (Especially if you can
run it as input without powering the touchpad display -- I assume this
is possible, but haven't really looked.) So I wonder if even a little
usefulness for gesture input means it should stay.

Benson