Resistive, "normal" touchscreen only; this senses pressure (actually closer to force).

I have an HP tx2000; it has a dual-tech screen with a resistive touchscreen (fingers and plain stylii) and a Wacom digitizer with a passive (but special) stylus. The stylus takes no batteries, but distinguishes tip vs. eraser, has pressure sensitivity, a side button, and moves the cursor around when hovering up to ~0.5" over the screen. (Also, when it's within this range, the computer ignores input from the touchscreen, allowing you to rest your hand on the screen while writing. There's no reason I know why a capacitive multi-touch sensor can't be similarly combined with a digitizer, though I'd bet the digitizer uses substantial power.

I'd really like to see such a dual screen in the N9xx, with the digitizer shut down by a switch in the silo.


As for what multi-touch is good for anyway... finger-tracking!

When you're using one finger (or stylus) on the display, touching it with another finger doesn't have to drag the pointer over to the centroid, but can keep it with the present finger. This could also make two-thumb on-screen keyboarding go a lot faster, as you wouldn't have to guarantee you lift before your other thumb hits. To say nothing of Pyano.

Even if you only use one cursor, and no gestures, a good finger-tracking (and switching, when appropriate) algorithm can make a multi-touch display a lot less glitchy. I'd be thrilled to see this much, although gestures and such are cool, too...