Motorola Xoom 2: with digitizer

[cegras]

Motorola Xoom 2 review -- Engadget

Probably Ntrig. Are ntrig pens capable of working on plain old capacitive screens?

Motorola has told us it won't be playing with the smaller screened Media Edition. Well, it will -- it'll work on any capacitive screen, you'll just miss out on the dedicated Floating Notes app.

[cmenice]

Motorola Xoom 2 review -- Engadget

Probably Ntrig. Are ntrig pens capable of working on plain old capacitive screens?

Ntrig does not send the capacitive signal. So they must have added the ntrig screen "grid" to the Xoom 2.

From the photos the pen looks consistent with what ntrig pens look like in general. And it needs a AAAA battery like my HTC pen. Price is decent at $34 considering Best Buy still tries to sell these pens for $80!

[cegras]

Are you sure the ntrig pen does not send out a signal? If it has a battery it should be active. They mentioned that it works on the media edition.

[cmenice]

I can confirm that n-trig does not work on iPhone or iPad capacitive screen. I think it has to be built into the OS. It is active though. On my HTC Flyer, there is a layer built under or on top of the display to work with the active digitizer. Normal capacitive screens don't have this layer.

So, if the tablet/phone has an n-trig layer, the n-trig will work. But won't work on regular capacitive displays.

[cegras]

In any case it seems that ntrig is getting lots of acceptance in the android space .. I wonder if a cheap note taking tablet will become a reality soon.

[Agent 9]

Not to hyjack the thread but: aside from weight/ thickness and battery life to an extent [maybe 2-6+hrs of actual use depending on the unit and battery condition] you can get a very cheap Wacom Tablet PC (older and used model, don't look at ones older than the first Pentium M ones as those are at just the right point) for $100-200 (maybe a little above that if a particular model has extras/ specific features), either install Win 7 or Win 8 if you are adventurous or simply clean up the XP install it comes with, then install One Note, and you are set for light-medium web browsing, note taking, photo viewing, music listening, video watching (depends on the video, codec, GPU driver, and mostly the resolution of the vid)

For most of this last semester I have been using my recently gotten M1400 in place of my 2730p because it gets plenty of battery life, has an excellent screen with a good aspect ratio and amazing pen tracking, toss in the fact it is slender and light weight plus it has a small and light power adapter ($150 for it & flex dock & Keyboard dock & 2 heavily worn batteries; then $10 for a Rocket Fish 40W power adapter [original one was on its way out], $50 for 2GB DDR ram [Newegg], then $30 for a 'new' battery that gets a solid 2 hrs when pushing it at full brightness -between 3-4 hrs when being conservative- then I did my SSD mod with it which cost me $3 for the adapter and I had the SSD [$110 @ microcenter] everything else is from ebay) Is it as fast and as capable as a powerful device like the 2730p or any recent Tablet PC, NO, its not, but it is about on par with and usually better than the Android/ webOS 'entertainment tablets' in most aspects, and far surpasses them in so many


IMO the battery life and ever so slight weight increase is a small trade off to have a full computer (real hardware), OS with real software (One Note, hell yea!), Wacom pen, plenty of ports, bezel buttons, and being cheap as all get-out while being extremely solid and reliable -especially for the price you are paying (basically you are buying a lightly used $2000 machine that was engineered and built to last, not some cheap piece of plastic that will crack, fall apart, and just end up in a landfill). Though, as it is older tech it may just die one day, but most should have several years of heavy use left in them


There are a myriad of options to look at, many of which are slates that have actually good battery life [the Fujitsu ST slates can get about 4-7hrs with a good battery] with good screens and enough performance, including: Motion M1400, LE1600, LE1700; Fujitsu ST- 5011, ST- 5020 5021 5022, ST- 5030 5031 5032, T3010, and a ton of others; Lenovo X41t, X60t, X61t; and a bunch of others including some rugged ones.... no, these aren't for everybody, but if you can live without capacitive touch and android then these are the best and brightest, especially for simple things like note taking, sketching/ light drawings, general purpose use; some even have Wacom pen & resistive touch, and others have stunning true outdoor screens, it depends on what your needs will be, but there should be one out there that is just about perfect for you!

[cmenice]

@agent9 - I agree with your assessment. I used to think it was necessary to have a wacom device for sketching, but I just don't think that's the case anymore. I've been using an HTC Flyer 7" with N-trig and android 3.2.1 and it's been ace for sketching work. Using Sketchbook Pro for android I get pressure sensitivity and I can sketch out ideas and export as a .psd for upscale and more when.

The tablet's light, small and get's great battery life (8-9 hours I think). If you need cheap wacom, then yes certainly a M1400 is a better option. It's all about what you need.

[darkmagistric]

....that pen....If it is N-trig...it seems they have kept their word. Back when the HP Slate 500 was released, I do recall N-trig making a claim that they were developing alternate pens & nibs. The N-trig digital pencil, from its loud glass on glass clanking sound, and just overall all metal construction....I find very uncomfortable to use. Up till now, every device using the Digital Pencil have basically kept the pen construction exactly the same, the only difference being a color job and in some cases a 2nd button.

..this pen on the other hand....more then anything kind of resembles the Axiotron Studio Pen popular with us Tablet PC artists. The nib still looks the same...but it does look like it might be more comfortable to use. I would be up for giving this pen a try.

And as much as I agree Agent 9's assessment as well overall, the only problem with those older Tablet PCs is just the weight and thinkness.

I used to bring my Lenovo x61 Tablet to Life Drawing Classes....now I bring the Samsung Series 7 Tablet.......lets just say that when your sitting down for 3 hours drawing without a desk......having pad1 thinness and overall light weight.......makes a Huge Difference. I'd be all up for thin Android Tablets having better Pen support.