Computer news magazine PC World recently published an article called “Laptops 2018: How future clamshells will respond to the touch revolution.” With technology changing drastically every year, laptops are sure to look very different six years from now. Already, advances in touch-screen technology and other features have forced laptop manufacturers to consistently innovate to stay ahead of tablets and even smartphones.
6 years ago, laptops didn’t look a whole lot different than they do today. But what will laptops look like in 2018? Let’s find out:
Hybrid designs
Instead of featuring basic, ‘clamshell’ designs, PC World believes that most future laptops will have hybrid designs. Hybrid laptop designs will include touchscreens, detachable displays, and other features that make a laptop more than just a laptop. But if a laptop has a detachable display, doesn’t that just make it a tablet with a detachable keyboard? That’s a problem future tech users are going to have to solve themselves.
Larger, more useful track pads
The full-screen touch integration on today’s tablets has made the average laptop track pad seem tiny in comparison. Already, laptop manufacturers are integrating new features into their track pads, like pressure-sensitive tracking and palm tracking. Take a look at this concept laptop here (showcased at CES in January) to get an idea of where laptop manufacturers might go:

Virtual keyboards
Forget about having to press down on real keys. Future laptops might feature virtual keyboards instead. That doesn’t mean the keyboard will appear on the screen of the laptop, like it does on a tablet. Instead, it means that a virtual surface will be created on the bottom half of a laptop. Users can press the keys on this virtual surface to type, just like they would with a traditional laptop.
The best of tablets and laptops in a single device
Around 2018, PC World suspects that all of today’s technological devices will start to blur together. It will be increasingly difficult to distinguish between tablets and laptops, and both will offer the same advantages in terms of computing power, speed, and performance. Expect lots of detachable keyboards, enhanced processing power, beautiful visuals, long battery power, and other cool features.
It’s amazing how far laptop technology has come over the last two decades. Who knows if we’ll even have laptops two decades from now? To read other thoughts about laptops in 2018, check out the full PC World article.