Pressure senstive styluses should be standard tech on mobile devices *spawn

Shifty Geezer

uber-Troll!
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I wish they'd use stylus tech. I'm very interested in the nVidia pad as it has proper pen support, but generally it's a niche feature that limits competition. One you've written with a 'real' pen (even better when pressure sensitive), using a finger to take notes etc. is just laughably crude.

The lightness of those devices means a controller-added chassis would be very usable. Would definitely like to see a Sony PlayStation Cradle for mobile devices with Vita - like controls.
 
Why would you - or anyone - want a stylus for games??

For text input in a game (i.e. Scribblenauts) I'd write faster with a virtual keyboard and much faster with any kind of actual keyboard.
 
Not for games, but for tablet use. In buying a tablet, I'd want the stylus first. Game support then comes as a secondary, which means tablets focused on gaming aren't much interest to me. If stylii support such as nVidia's compute-based tech was ubiquitous, it'd open up the choice of tablet.

That said, precision touch is still useful. Some DS stuff wouldn't work too well with the typical fat finger/rubber-tip stylus. eg Drawn to Life. That's one of the reasons Wii U went with capacitive touch. Stylus support gives an added control option, whether devs use it or not, and makes some functions so much easier, hence I wish they were standard.
 
but working with stylus is not as easy and quick as touchpad/screen + (physical/virtual) keyboard. it takes too long to write (and not precise enough for writing small text). it also add cumbersome if not properly integrated and easily pulled from case.

basically my stylus only useful when im drawing something (picture, sketch design, quick chart).
 
basically my stylus only useful when im drawing something (picture, sketch design, quick chart).
Right. Do that a lot and you want a stylus! It also enables smaller interface controls so better UIs. Mobile apps tend to be limited to a few chunky options at a time. If you want to draw a circle a few mms in diameter, or an accurate arrow, you want a stylus. It's not for everyone, but for me it's a must! ;)
 
Shifty, break out the discussion about stylus use in tablet,/phone? It's interesting topic and stylus do become awesome for some special things.

Will be nice to discuss some stylus app and devices.
 
About writing... What stylus give the same accuracy as normal pen and allow comfortable writing in smash text?

I only tried plastic pen, capacitive pen, and ntrig pen. All of them are not comfortable for writing in small text like I normally do when writing with pen and paper.

It's feels like the pen are not accurate enough.

*currently I'm using vaio tap 11 with ntrig active stylus.
 
I use a Galaxy Note 10.1 using Wacom tech, the same as my graphics tablet. The pens are small but very usable, and the optional stylus with an eraser on the end is a huge convenience. I've just tried some small writing and my usual scrawl is clearly written with tall letters 3mm high, should I want to write that small. It's the most direct input possible, unlike larger scrolling zoom windows for writing larger characters shrunk to fit, or recognition windows.

I'd like to see nVidia's in action. That sounds very promising as it's no cost, but it's Tegra only. If it works and nVidia can license it, then everyone should use it!
 
Do you perceive any delay or gap/misplace/mismatch between the pen tip and the virtual world ink?
 
A little spacial offset vertically, but it tracks extremely accurately. Where you touch on screen is where the pen draws, 0.5 mm or whatever below the surface. It helps that the nib is tracked up to over a centimetre above the screen (even through obstructions like paper (and fingers!), so you can trace a drawing) so you can see the dot on screen and line that up as you lower the nib to touch. This is the old Note too, not the 2014 edition which is reportedly even better (and I would own if it didn't have a crap screen tech that can't reproduce yellows and oranges properly :rolleyes:).
 
but working with stylus is not as easy and quick as touchpad/screen + (physical/virtual) keyboard. it takes too long to write (and not precise enough for writing small text). it also add cumbersome if not properly integrated and easily pulled from case.

basically my stylus only useful when im drawing something (picture, sketch design, quick chart).

I find just writing stuff far faster and easier than trying to use onscreen keyboards. And I've been doing it for over 10 years now on tablets (started doing it back in 2002 when tablets weighed quite a bit).

And at least on the Microsoft side, the accuracy is extremely good, even with very bad handwriting. I can't speak for Android based solutions, however, as I'd never use an Android tablet since I have so much invested in the PC app ecosystem.

Active digitizer pens are also quite nice when having to input non-western characters (like Chinese, Japanese, etc.).

This year may be the first year I get a tablet without an active digitizer pen. Figure I may experiment with one of the 99 USD Windows tablets coming this year. Won't be terribly useful for my work related stuff, but there might be some use for them.

Regards,
SB
 
Samsung handwriting recognition is excellent IMO, at least regards fully written words. Trying to edit via handwriting, so adding a comma or apostrophe or semicolon, it has trouble. But I don't use it much so may not have learnt the tricks. I prefer to handwrite directly onto the page.
 
I personally way prefer onscreen keyboards as I am generally faster with those than that I can write legibly, let alone good enough for character recognition, and that gets worse when you regularly write in different languages (have to pay attention with that on iphone too or it will autocorrect the wrong words).

But I love drawing and such with a pen and for that I do really wish that I'd have as good a pen as I have on PC (fairly recent Wacom Pen & 4x multiTouch).
 
For long text I'd definitely type (or use a PC!). Where handwriting shines IMO is working with notes and ideas, just like paper. You can add text where you want without having to add a text-box and type. Then you can add a hand-drawn diagram, draw some arrows, add some labels to those arrows, etc. It's the immediacy, and not the quality of presentation, that makes a stylus so effective.

Have you tried the Note 10.1 for drawing? If not, try looking one up in store. It should have Sketchbook Pro installed by default, and you can try a reasonable range of virtual art materials with pressure sensitivity.

It's a shame the nVidia tablet is never going to appear in any retail stores for a test. I really want to see how their tech performs.
 
For long text I'd definitely type (or use a PC!). Where handwriting shines IMO is working with notes and ideas, just like paper. You can add text where you want without having to add a text-box and type. Then you can add a hand-drawn diagram, draw some arrows, add some labels to those arrows, etc. It's the immediacy, and not the quality of presentation, that makes a stylus so effective.

This is especially true for complex mathematics. Being able to just write out complex equations and then have it automatically transcribed to a document that can then be easily copy and pasted into any other document (as a text equation and not a graphic) is a godsend.

Regards,
SB
 
This is especially true for complex mathematics. Being able to just write out complex equations and then have it automatically transcribed to a document that can then be easily copy and pasted into any other document (as a text equation and not a graphic) is a godsend.
That would be great and if properly implemented I can see it replacing pen(cil) and paper for my math work.

For me, any such software will need a way to define custom functions (like LaTeX/LyX or even my old HP calculator) or at least have a large library of existing functions, since functions are normally typeset upright instead of in italics.

But even with no handwriting transcription, capabilities of copy-and-paste and immediate erase are very appealing to me.
 
This is especially true for complex mathematics. Being able to just write out complex equations and then have it automatically transcribed to a document that can then be easily copy and pasted into any other document (as a text equation and not a graphic) is a godsend.

Regards,
SB

I've been dreaming of this for a long time.

That said, I like the feeling of the light friction of a pencil on paper more than that of a stylus on a glass screen. That's probably weird but it's one thing that would make me want to hold on to the pencil and paper option.
 
There is an app for that.


Still, it is dispiriting that the state of the art today is not light years beyond where it was 50 years ago.

 
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