The Windows-related announcements are flying fast and thick from the IFA electronics show in Berlin this year. We've already taken a look at HP's offerings and some of the Windows RT devices, but there's still a lot of ground to cover. Looking at all of these products at once shows us not just what the store shelves are going to look like this holiday season, but also how PC OEMs are responding to Microsoft's fundamental rethinking of how Windows should work. Windows 8 uses touch to redefine the operating system for better or for worse, and in the same way, touch features are also redefining what we can expect from our PCs in the next few years.

Sony

The first computer we'll look at is a convertible PC from Sony, the Vaio 11 Duo. The Duo has an 11.6" 1080p screen that slides into and out of tablet mode, as well as a stylus and digitizer to enable handwriting support. It includes Ultrabook-class Core i3, i5, and i7 processors, Intel integrated graphics, NFC technology, and either 128GB or 256GB solid-state drives. Despite being a convertible, the computer sacrifices some of its utility as a laptop to be a better tablet—the keyboard looks cramped, and it forgoes a standard trackpad in favor of a pointing stick-style mouse (though there are some who would argue that this is actually a positive change). The convertible will be available at the end of October for an as-yet-undisclosed price, which will be a common refrain throughout this roundup.

Sony's second entry is an all-in-one with a twist: its Tap 20 is a 20", 1600x900 touch-enabled all-in-one when the kickstand is out, but it will also lay flat on a table, and includes a battery that will allow it to be used as a gigantic tablet when desired. This is an interesting use case not really possible with the other all-in-ones we'll look at, most of which are just standard PCs with touchscreens attached—I could see the Tap 20 being great for touch-enabled board games, for example. Otherwise, the hardware in the Tap 20 is unsurprising: Ivy bridge i5s and i7s, integrated graphics, and NFC accompany the normal allotment of wireless connectivity options, ports and card readers, and the webcam.

Samsung

Samsung is firing a veritable shotgun blast of products at the market: first, you've got the standard PCs with touchscreens. The Series 5 Ultra is a 13.3" 1366x768 value-oriented Ultrabook with a touchscreen, Core i3 and i5 processors, and mechanical hard drives with small SSD caches. Aside from the touchscreen, these laptops should be broadly similar to the existing Series 5 Ultrabooks. The touch versions will start at $799 for a Core i3 processor, or $849 for a Core i5.

Next up are the Series 5 and Series 7 all-in-ones, which we've already touched upon briefly in a discussion about Samsung's ill-advised "Start Menu" simulacrum. The Series 5 is a 21.5" all-in-one with a 1080p display, Core i3 processor, and integrated graphics that will start at $749, while the Series 7 comes in two flavors. The first is a 23.6" model with a 1080p screen, a Core i5 processor, and integrated graphics for $1099. The second is a 27" model with a 1080p screen, a Core i7 processor, an AMD Radeon HD 7850M GPU, and a starting price of $1699. All of the all-in-ones are equipped with spinning hard drives.

Lastly, we've got some Windows 8 tablets to join the Windows RT tablet we talked about yesterday. These tablets have different names depending on where you live: the Series 5 Slate, known as the ATIV Smart PC in other parts of the world, is an 11.6" tablet with a 1366x768 display, Intel Atom processor, and 64GB SSD that starts at $649 without a keyboard dock or $749 with one. The Series 7 Slate, also known as the ATIV Smart PC Pro, is an 11.6" 1080p tablet with a Core i5 processor, 128GB SSD, and a starting price of $1199 with an included keyboard dock—the Core i5 adds quite a bit to the price, but the Series 7 Slate is just 0.12" thicker and 0.24 pounds heavier than the Series 5. Common to both tablets is Samsung's S Pen and digitizer, last seen in the Galaxy Note 10.1 and Galaxy Note II.

The Series 5 Slate is interesting because it gives us our first pricing information for Windows 8 tablets with Atom processors—while we don't yet know how Windows RT tablets will be priced, if the Series 5's $649 starting price is common, the ARM tablets will have at least a little breathing room to start with.

Asus

Compared to Samsung, Asus has a relatively small showing of devices. The first is the Vivo Tab, an Intel-equipped version of the Vivo Tab RT—it used to be known as the Tablet 810. It uses an 11.6" display with a 1366x768 resolution, an Intel Atom processor, and 64GB of eMMC storage. The Intel version includes a stylus and a Wacom digitizer, and a keyboard dock will provide extra USB ports, a keyboard and trackpad, and extra battery life as well.

Asus' other Windows 8 offering is a tweak of one of its existing Zenbook Ultrabooks, the UX21A Touch. This 11.6" Ultrabook includes a 1080p IPS display similar to the 13" non-touch version we recently reviewed, along with Core i5 and i7 processors and 128GB and 256GB SSDs, but adds a touchscreen where the previous UX21A had none. We don't yet know any pricing details, however.

Dell

Dell's brand-new entry in the Windows 8 fray is its XPS Duo 12, another convertible PC that packs Ivy Bridge Core i5 and i7 processors. Where Sony's Vaio Duo 11 slides between tablet and laptop mode, the XPS Duo 12 has a 12" 1080p LCD that you flip over before closing the lid to put it into tablet mode—there are magnets that keep the screen in place when it isn't being flipped. The result is something that looks a bit more like a standard laptop than either the Sony unit we've already seen or the Toshiba convertible we'll see in a moment, both of which have odd hinges as a result of their dual nature. No pricing information has been revealed for the XPS Duo 12, but it should release at the end of October along with Windows 8.

Dell is also taking the opportunity to remind us of its XPS One 27 touch-enabled all-in-one, which has been available with Windows 7 for a few months. Dell isn't the only OEM with an all-in-one that it's re-launching with Windows 8—Lenovo's touch-enabled IdeaCentre A720 and Toshiba's LX835 are among the currently shipping systems that will be given a boost by an operating system designed to take better advantage of their screens. The XPS One 27 is currently available with Ivy Bridge processors, either Intel's integrated HD Graphics 4000 or an NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M, and a 27" 2560x1440 display. Prices start at $1399.

Toshiba

Toshiba's only brand-new announcement is its new Satellite U925t convertible Ultrabook, which we actually got our hands on during a meeting with Toshiba earlier this week. Like Sony's Vaio 11 Duo, the U925t's 12.5" 1366x768 screen slides between tablet and laptop mode rather than flipping like Dell's convertible, but it manages to fit one of Toshiba's full-size laptop keyboards and a trackpad underneath the screen, rather than Sony's truncated version. It includes a Core i5 processor and a 128GB solid-state drive, and will be available on October 26 (though pricing information, as usual, is MIA).

Toshiba also has two existing computers that are getting the Windows 8 touch treatment: the first is its LX835 all-in-one, a 23" 1080p touch-enabled computer that has already been shipping with Windows 7 for a few months with a price starting at around $900—as with Dell, Toshiba is taking the opportunity to "relaunch" the system with Windows 8 installed. The second is the Satellite P845t, a touchscreen version of its current 14" 1366x768 P845 laptop. Pricing information for the touch-enabled version hasn't yet been revealed, but the non-touch version includes a Core i5 processor, integrated graphics, and spinning hard drive for about $800.

Toshiba was also quick to point out that even on its non-touch PCs, it would be shipping drivers to allow their multitouch trackpads to use Windows 8's built-in gestures. The laptops I got to experiment with were using Synaptic trackpads with very recent drivers that did indeed respond to basic gestures like swiping from the right edge of the trackpad to invoke the Charms menu or swiping from the left edge to switch between running applications. Given the sheer number of companies that use Synaptics trackpads, support for these gestures should at least be possible on a wide range of PCs without touchscreens.

Conclusions

What we've seen so far at IFA has reiterated what we already saw at Computex earlier this year: mid-range and high-end PCs are picking up touchscreens en masse, and they're falling into three basic categories. First are the straight tablets, which are primarily intended for use by themselves but often come with keyboard docks or cases. Second are the convertible PCs, which are basically Ultrabooks that fold down into thick tablets as necessary. Third are the standard PCs that have some sort of token touch support built-in—this takes the form of laptops or all-in-ones with capacitive touchscreens, though it could also arguably extend to any PC with a multitouch trackpad that supports Windows 8's new trackpad gestures.

The most intriguing designs are the ones that really play into Windows 8's hybrid nature: the convertible PCs and the tablets with keyboard docks seem to be the best equipped to deliver Microsoft's vision of the future, wherein you ditch both your tablet and your laptop in favor of one device that can do it all. Windows 8 is an odd, all-in-one operating system that isn't quite like anything from its competitors, and the best PCs to run it on will be devices that acknowledge that fact.

Listing image by Dell