Convertibles are great

Posted Sep 9, 2025 5:33 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
Parent article: Testing the 2-in-1 Framework 12 Laptop

I have been using a convertible for over 10 years now (Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga, first a 12" model and then a 14" model), and I'm not going back. It is very useful.

I use sway (previously i3) and have a hotkey to rotate the screen, rather than use the accelerometer. When reading a PDF or a long web article, I use it in tablet mode. I also use xournal++ to annotate PDFs. I don't really take notes on it.

I am not really running a "tablet OS", but that's fine for me. With sway's multiple workspaces I can easily switch even in tablet mode. If I want to type something, I return it to laptop mode. I played with an onscreen keyboard for a while but it was too tedious -- why bother when you have a real keyboard?

About palm rejection: the touchscreen actually has two mechanisms, capacitive touch (finger) and a Wacom-type digitizer (pen). Looks like the Framework machine has that too. You can turn off capacitive touch and use only the stylus; that takes care of palm rejection, but it means that (eg in Xournal++) you have to use the scrollbar (with pen) to scroll, you can't use your finger.