New n trig stylus initial activation force (IAF) how good is it now?

Reporting back:

I tried the Surface Book 2, Surface Pro, Surface Studio... they are HORRIBLE at IAF sadly. Really really bad.


Especially the way I hold my pencil (like a brush). The test I did was to drag the pen a few times and it wouldn't get detected. They had an app called Sketchable, Paint 3D and Paint. Paint 3D was the worst. No way to adjust the settings as far as I could tell.


I really wanted to like it, it's what I been wanting in one computer.


Ideally I would want to hover my pen and almost not touch the screen (this works fine on the surface pro gen 1 + ipad pro so I know it's possible). The feeling I am taking about is a really soft pencil. Activate on contact and no pressure required besides that (again for ergonomics + long sessions).


Also: The Note 8 they had was not so great with initial pressure required but that's okay since it's a phone and unique, the best in class so far (as far as I know). It's amazing it even works.


Thanks again. Will try the Samsung Notebook Pro 9 in person and see if AES is any good on the yoga 720. Now I am more skeptical = /

 

Don't waste your time with AES.

The Notebook 9 Pro is amazing for light touch artists. -The Full Sized Samsung S-Pen, (you have to buy that separately) is feather touch light. In combination with ClipStudio Paint, the style of drawing you describe makes pretty much a perfect fit. Reviews around here also highly praise the Staedtler Noris pencil for its responsiveness. And not having to put a new battery in your stylus every few weeks is.., well, exactly as it should be. The fewer batteries people need in their lives, the better.

I hear very good things about the Samsung Galaxy Book as well; it and the N9P seem to be basically identical in terms of digitizer, OS and drivers; the form factor is the only major difference.

 

Those programs though, those are the worst testers for something like that. For disclosure, I wont touch AES, I hate that it feels laggy to me especially with fast strokes. But to be fair to AES and to play devils advocate here, an app like Photoshop or sketchbook pro are much better apps to get an accurate idea of IAF and pen feel, small indy windows metro apps (or whatever they are called now) are all pretty terrible with handling pressure. I throw a portable install of sketchbook pro on a thumbdrive and take it with me to install on machines I am going to try (you sometimes need store permission)
Still, only using the weight of the pen doesn't work with EMR either (I just tried) spotty at best, though admittedly I feel like I only have to think about pressing and it begins to make a stroke, whereas the microsoft surface pen I just tried on the Vaio Duo 13 took a slightly harder thought of pressure, so there is a noticeable difference.
Anyway, for me the deciding factors are the vectoring on fast strokes (may have been worked out), the tails or hooks on strokes, the perceivable hover cursor lag, and more aggressive feeling pressure curve.
Wacom is butter, and Ntrig still feels like margarine trying to be butter..

 

I had a similar setup to you stonekeeper and in the end the reason I got rid of my fugi t902 was the colour gamut was very poor .everything else was great that isn't as much of a problem now with most screens having high adobe colour gamut but I find the surface book 1 and 2 IAF much much better but only if you use the surface 2017 new pen the old one is awful for IAF nothing is perfect and as ive said a couple of times the prices are crazy /the samsng book 12 has a slider to change pressure but the Samsung notebook 9 pro hasn't got this update yet and I think its because they don't want you having the same experience as the Wacom mobile studio .having all of these machines ive got a good idea of the problems people face I think the ipad pro 12.9 and pencil is the best drawing experience then notebook pro 9 and Samsung book 2 as others have said AES not for me also the Wacom ink oen on surface book is more accurate than the ne surface 2017 pen but and its a big but te IAF is much worse ,you just cant win with any of them for comfort the notebook pro 9 I prefer ...surface book 2 with new pen is far better at IAF in fact close to EMR were the Wacom wins is no jitter and much better accuracy if Wacom lowered there prices I would have total respect for the company but as it is artist with not much cash can only dream of these things

 

Well for reference I tried Paint on my Surface Pro gen 1 and it works fine with IAF. It's incredible actually. The Apple Pencil is also great at this, probably the best.

I still stand by the fact that the N-Trig tech is really bad for IAF from my quick test but I do wish I was wrong.


I am going to have to wait it out and see if either we get new drivers for the notebook 9 pro.. or maybe I'll get a samsung galaxy (I wish they would update it to 8th gen CPUs) or Acer 7 (if it ever releases).

Maybe Wacom will update their Mobile Studio line after all. Though that comes with it's own set of problems and huge headaches.


My ideal choice would be Surface Book 2 but with EMR :'(. It fit's all my needs besides the digitizer (the price could be better).

 

So I am no wondering if this Adonit Ink Windows 10 pen is as good as this review states in terms of IAF?



This reviewer is claiming it's pretty good IAF? Anyone have any experience? I wonder if it's just relative to older N-Trig tech and not as good as the newer n-trig pen (and so still pretty far from EMR)?

 

Nothing can beat the New WacomEMR tech in the newer Note line up (Note 7 onwards). I am pretty sure either your Spen or your Note8 digitizer is defective. Apple Pencil comes close second.

IAF= initial activation force on the New EMR tech is less than 1gram (effeort less light strokes), and digitizer frequency is 300Hz (93% of the intricacies of your handwriting can be captured if you are writing in casual speed).

NewNtrig has 9 grams of IAF (down from 20grams but still too high). Also, digitizer frequency is probably about or less than 240Hz. (Earlier it was 110-150 Hz if i remember correctly). That for me, makes any Ntrig tech new or old unusable for extended periods of handwriting.

Art is a different territory though, it's a mindful endeavour, people have created beautiful pieces of art on Surface line up- @surfaceproartist and Syd Weiler are examples.

Handwriting is supposed to be effortless and carefree, so that you can concentrate on the lecture or be mindful about the ideas you are trying to jot down, instead of worrying how legible and pretty your handwriting is.

In short, if u will buy a Surface product you might find urself reaching for your ballpoint pen and paper notebook quite often.

But i will recommend stick to Windows10 for Onenote and for a plethora desktop versions of Art software. Samsung Galaxybooks is what i would suggest. Nothing beats Windows10-Onenote when it comes to software and wacom-Samsung are the best pen tablet hardware makers - you can not go wrong with Galaxybooks.

 

My SP4 screen shattered after falling from a height of just 1.5 foot. The display is working but pen is not. The Apple and OnePlus devices i have used are built quite sturdy. My Nokia Lumia710 except for the plastic volume rocker is quite sturdy too.

 

I tried the new Surface Pen on a Pro 2017 and a Book 2 at Micro Center recently, and I gotta say, Microsoft really stepped up their game on IAF just loosely testing OneNote...

...but alas, I didn't have the means to test run a real art app like CSP or SBP on them. You know how it is with demo units, and I was hoping to see if they weren't kidding about adding tilt sensitivity, too.

Maybe I'd consider a newer Surface now, but the prices are expensive, like "I think I'll stick with my Cintiq Companion Hybrid and pair it with a laptop that has some real GPU grunt" expensive.

As for Samsung, what drives me nuts with them is that their EMR pens are frequency compatible with old UD/Penabled EMR pens like my Axiotron Studio Pen/UP-911E except for the important fact that the cursor offset is different between them. I can't use the aforementioned pens at anything other than perfectly perpendicular because the cursor's behind the nib when angled, and Samsung still doesn't make a pen with a second side button or a pressure-sensitive eraser end despite every Galaxy Note having the software support for it (verified via that same UP-911E, of course).

It makes me wonder if it's possible to tweak an older EMR pen to conform to Samsung's peculiar S Pen offset just by tweaking the inner potentiometers, or if it just won't happen without more extensive physical modification.

I will say, though - the Note 7/8 pen nib is seriously solid stuff, no play, tighter than any other pen I've ever used, and yet with a great, controllable range of pressure sensitivity. Not even Wacom's own Pro Pen (Intuos4/5/Pro, Cintiq 13HD/Companion, 27QHD) has it beat.

 

There's no doubt Samsung is the best consumer hardware manufacturer in modern times. Their hardware products are both eye-candy and functional. But they will be nebneas successful as ipadpro line up or surface range. Their, Achilles' heel is their software. It's not the quality of the software that is lacking but the consistency. Take SNote for example, it was the second best notetaking system after Onenote. But they changed it with Samsung notes, which is not fully compatible with the file format of previous SNote files. When you are switching from Microsoft word 2013 to Microsoft word 2016, your files are made automatically compatible and editable. But with Samsung there's always a risk. Your editable notes might become an image file with the next version of SamsungNotes.

I admire the courage and conviction of Jeff Besos, who instead of becoming a pawn in the monopolies of previously established ecosystems of Apple, Google and Microsoft, decided to launch it's own hardware-software ecosystem around ebooks with Kindle line up.. If a product is the best for the purpose it was built for, it will carve out a niche of its own. Amazon partnered with e-ink, and made a new product category and ecosystem that has no rivals for all practical purposes.

Wacom is to Samsung what E-INK is to Amazon, yet Samsung has failed to take any real advantage out of it. Like dedicated ebook readers that kindles are. Samsung should have made dedicated touch-oled writing pads with it's own cloud and software ecosystem for Notetaking. Notetaking as an activity is just as common as reading. Kindles do not have access to Google play store, nor you can run legacy windows programmes on it, they sell because they are really good for reading. Samsung needs to come up with something that is great for handwriting.