Microsoft announced a budget NTrig/MPP pen

Yum, ground beef, is it similar to corned beef? Love them.

Prior to Surface 3 and ntrig, I was on a TC1100 for almost 11 years, so I am thoroughly well-versed with Wacom EMR. Really I don't feel any difference going to Surface Pen, maybe because I am a straight up digital inker , therefore my expectation is low, unlike an artist who I agree EMR is the way to go? Or the Pencil?

However I disagree with OP assertion that ntrig in the classroom is inferior. In my view, it does not matter. All the pen technologies are good enough for their purpose: to lay (digital) ink. As long as you inked, all's well in my book.

Is the Pencil really AES-based? Always thought that it is Apple's propietry tech. Colour me wrong if that is indeed the case.

 

That is where I disagree with you, Ntrig is good enough for pdf mark up & in my opinion even for "art" but it's not good enough for a fluid handwriting experience. Legibility by an important thing, especially if you are dependent on Handwriting recognition technology in OneNote. My handwriting is definitely more legible & searchable when I write on my Cintiq, as compared to the handwriting that my NTrig pen can produce. It's an objective thing & is independent of my subjective experience. Ease & comfort might be subjective, but Wacom EMR & Apple pencil thanks to their low IAF feeI way more comfortable to me. My hand is simply less tired & can work longer on Wacom EMR & Apple Pencil.

I am the last person who would want a widespread adaptation of Wacom EMR or XP-Pen EMR on EMR tech of any kind, which studies have demonstrated to be carcinogenic, disruptive of other biologicaI phenomena like Bird migration & Cellular aging. We have enough natural & manmade EM radiation in our lives to begin with, more than what our bodies are evolved to handle. This doctor's speech against 5G implementation is an Eye-opener, we all need.


AES or AES like technologies are easier on batteries, allow for cheaper yet laminated displays. I believe AES is the way forward for pen computing, especially on devices that run on a battery.
Apple have successfully demonstrated how good AES like pen tech can be if properly engineered. what I would want is NTrig & Wacom AES to catch up with Apple & then, eventually with Wacom EMR too.

iPad pro mini with laminated display and a folio cover that can house the new Apple Pencil without having to resort to a miniaturized silo-ed version, will be my dream device, if Microsoft brings pen remoting to iOS too.

True, I can't imagine going back from Cintiq pro EMR to anything else, may be Apple pencil, but that too only for portability.

You have made my point.​

 

I'm going to have to disagree with n-trig being "good enough" for handwriting too. I find that with EMR, my writing looks just like it would on paper. On Surface (3, pro 4, book), round things weren't quite as round - all the a, o, b, d, p, q looked more like little ovals, which with size of my writing has a dramatic effect on readability for me. Additionally, tiny 2, 3, or downbow signs in music didn't come out clearly enough, and getting slurs to sit accurately over the notes I wanted them to was hard on the surfaces I had. It's why I moved to the Chromebook plus for music before getting my hands on the big iPad.

However, I'm finding the AES e-ink side of my yogabook c930 to be quite nice. I haven't really used the LCD side yet as I've only been doing little things, nothing big I feel the need to keep in OneNote yet.

 

This was the problem I had....
my writing didn't look like mine
i had fatigue using the pen...ink did NOT flow from the pen as it does on EMR
Inking was not consistent
I find very little difference with the different Ntrig nibs, they all skate across the screen too much...in a way that I never had issues with earlier EMR devices.
I'm not an artist and I cannot wrap my head around people who say that they find no difference between using Ntrig devices and EMR they feel distinctly different.

 

Everyone is missing my point completely - you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT on the inferiority of N-Trig, with AES second best, but the AVERAGE user is going to deem it "good enough" as most non-pen user reviewers (Thurrott, Rubino, Bohn, etc) have declared.

In a lot of ways it doesn't matter what we think - we are the knowledgeable but very small minority of users.

 

Respectfully let's just agree to disagree. As I stated, no difference to me between the various pen techs. I'm average (hehe)

Great discussion though. I have nothing more to add on this topic bit loving the cordial back and forth

 

Even with regards to hover latency? The older N-Trig devices were very noticeably slower at tracking the hover cursor, particularly near the edges of the screen.

 

I would have agreed with the OP with regards to the 1st and 2nd gen MPP, which I complained about here too. Inking on the original SB is terrible for lack of a better adjective, but on the SG, I think MPP has really come a very long way. I know OP has been somewhat obsessed with this IAF thing from his past posts, but honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. EMR (SPen) is in a class of its own, but for the others, there's nothing to choose between them. FWIW, I hated inking with the Apple pencil, though TBH, I just tried on a display model at a hardware store. The tip was too big and too rounded for my liking.

Sent from mTalk

 

Lots of practise I reckon. After that, muscle memory takes over. Nowadays, I don't even think while inking, just concentrating on the content. That goes with all the penabled devices I used over the years.

I mean, you don't think about hover latency and such when writing with pen and paper. That's how I feel with digital inking too: just pen and paper.

 

EMR snob here - @djas is right. Unless you are an artist (and we have a number of excellent ones on this board - speak up) it is just "pen on paper." Is a Mont Blanc better than a Bic? (Better question, was he stupid enough to even ask that question?) In the end, they both capture the directions to the party.

Is that the ultimate "sour grapes" from the EMR snob - YOU BET IT IS! The "why" is because I have given up on the hope that: (a) ANY mainstream OEM would go back to EMR; and (b) Samsung would silo the yellow S-Pen in a tablet device. Samsung has tons more real estate inside the Galaxy Book than a Galaxy Note; they can up-charge the customer for the standard full size pen, and STILL no siloed solution. So I may just as well go with the "good enough" AES solution from HP.

Will I go back to some kind of EMR device in the next year r two - highly likely (especially if we get an Intel version of the GB2; or at least a powerful enough processor to consider WOA). In the end we are all correct, it just doesn't matter. All that matters is the OEM's desired profit margin and what the GENERAL public will pay.