Digital Pen advice please.

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finneyb

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Just got the Windows 10 1067 upgrade and now have Windows Ink.
I can annotate with the mouse but its a bit difficult to control.

I'm looking for a cheap digital pen anyone got experience? As I see it the pen is like a mouse only easier to control. I'm not bothered its a bluetooth or USB cable connection. Just been quoted £80 - that is simply not going to happen.

Brian
 
I've used Wacom tablets for 20 years. They are very good, and if you can find one secondhand that would be the way to go. Their technology is still in patent, I think, anyway my Samsung tablet uses it, and although it has a stubby stylus it's still fairly easy to draw with. The Apple system for their big iPads is rubbish in comparison. I think it's the only one where you don't need to charge the stylus (Wacom ones draw a tiny amount of power from the tablet surface itself).

I tried out a Huion one, which would have been fine. They're a different technology, and the pen needs either a batteryor a charger (two types). It was OK, but as Wacom is plug+play on linux, I eventually went back to it and returned the Huion tablet.

For what it's worth, USB is probably a lot less hassle than Bluetooth. Wacom make a big thing about my tablet being cordless, but honestly I haven't used it that way in two years. It just sits on the desk between me and the keyboard, and that works well (I've worked with that setup for 20+ years and find it comfortable). It does take up space, but on the office desk that's OK. Where the land area is smaller I put up with a mouse or a Kensington trackball (but you can't write with those!).

HTH.

You should be able to have both tablet (pen) and mouse connected at the same time.
 
Which type of pen (or perhaps which type of computer are you using)?

There's two main types - a tablet pen like the wacom Eric mentions its designed to work on a plastic tablet - it's the same principle as a mouse on a mouse mat, you draw on the tablet but look on the screen.

The new types are pens that work with touch screen laptops such as the Surface - with those you draw directly on to the screen
 
Matt

Its not touch screen. I envisage it being similar to a mouse action ie I 'write' on a mouse pad and it converts it to the screen.

Brian
 
Wacom is the way to go. I work in the games industry and all the artists here use that brand. Your £80 quote won't be far off though, even for the basic ones. You can get a small one for about £60, which may be good enough.

Alternatively, you can go with the much cheaper brands, that tend to sell for around £30, but then you're likely to have issue with drivers being avaliable/updated/fixed etc.
 
woodpig":3fpqxlkv said:
http://ohnorachio.com/blog/onr-biz/wacom-killer

It's still fairly early days for the Apple Pro/Pencil but I expect it will do quite nicely.

It's garbage, and very expensive garbage at that.

I've played with it - not as sensitive to hand movements, doesn't have all the tilt-pressure sensing that that Wacom does, has no proper integration with the operating system, and NEEDS CHARGING in a stupid, awkward and easily broken way. Oh, and the pens cost almost 100 quid on top of an eye watering 800 for the tablet.

It's all down to Apple's arrogance - wouldn't licence the Wacom technology. Samsung did, and the Galaxy Note tablet I have is brilliant.

I have two perfectly functional Wacom A5 tablets, designed 25 years apart. The oldest was in daily use in the office, for general PC work as well as drawing, etc. Both knock spots off the latest "Apple" technology.

Why the strong reaction? I bought my mum an "iPad Pro" because she's well over 80 and has failing eyesight. I'd hoped the pen might help the experience, and had bigged it up to my sister (she's an Apple person and we were looking for a good solution to mum's PC needs). When I finally got to see it, it was immediately apparent it was every bit as bad as the reviews suggested - even the sales droid in the Apple store was embarrassed by it. So she has the iPad pro with the clip on keyboard, but no pen, which is a shame, as it should have been good.

E.
 
It's outselling the surface pro at the moment so it can't be too bad.

http://www.designntrend.com/articles/75 ... ablets.htm

Using a stylus on a pad and seeing the effect on a large screen is something that takes a while to get used to and is not for the occasional user in my opinion. Using a stylus directly on an iPad or other tablet on the other hand is obviously very much easier.
 
woodpig":fuyfvqsk said:
It's outselling the surface pro at the moment so it can't be too bad.

The iPad pro is gorgeous - we got one for mum. It's the stylus that's really badly implemented. I mean REALLY badly.

A relaunched Apple IIe would probably outsell the Surface (OK perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit), but honestly they're nasty.

I was stuck at Heathrow T2 waiting for a long-haul, shortly after it launched. One MS UK disty had a big stand in departures, where you could play with them. The place was empty (about 6AM), so I played for a good long while. Flimsy feel, slow (may be faster now), and poor ergonomics (in my opinion). I'll stick to my tablet + stylus, which, oddly, will happily let me plug a USB mouse in and works just fine with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard (with real, moving keys!) for whenever.

Using a stylus on a pad and seeing the effect on a large screen is something that takes a while to get used to and is not for the occasional user in my opinion. Using a stylus directly on an iPad or other tablet on the other hand is obviously very much easier.
It's no worse than using a mouse, and there's a bit of lag on my Samsung tablet - it's not quite like drawing with a real pencil, for example, but you do get used to it. The iPad Pro isn't quite instantaneous either. I find using a graphics tablet for general computing is about 2x-3x faster than a mouse most of the time (for those things that need pointing or drawing), and for coding it's great as I can program chunks of code onto the eight soft keys it has. The older Wacom was even better as it had about 12 defined areas on the tablet, but both permit really long strings to be loaded (in Linux I just run shell scripts).

One of the reasons why Apple's one is so stupid is that it's not integrated - for example no handwriting or shape recognition, although presumably you can buy an add-on app. The Galaxy came bundled with both (the latter in a primitive but handy graphics/presentation package).

It really looks like the Apple fan brigade saw what Samsung tablets could do with the stylus and complained the iPads couldn't.

But then I'm just an old cynic, and probably just sour because Apple's currently building it's new doughnut HQ literally on the rubble of the complex I used to work in in Silicon Valley. It was much nicer when there were orange orchards opposite :-(.

E.
 
Got my Wacom, £50 from Argos yesterday - Software key says its invalid - reported to Customer support last evening, but they don't work Sat & Sun.

Brian
 
Out of interest will a Wacom pen be of use to me, I work a lot in Sketchup and Draftsight, on Windows 7, like the look of the Argos option at £49.99.
 
I use mine in SU.

It depends a bit how nerdy you want to be. If you're happy using the programmable ("soft") buttons etc. it can be really useful. I find the best combination is a good trackball - I also have one of these connected ("Kensington Expert Mouse", but I'm not sure if they're still around):
kensington-expert-mouse-600x600.jpg

It's built like a tank and you can use it with any finger or thumb unlike some of the silly-shaped ones. The four buttons mirror the two mouse buttons (two of each), so there's always one easily reached.

Trackballs are unsurpassed for accurate positioning of the cursor, simply because you can take your fingers off it without anything moving. Position; leggo completely; click! So it's horses for courses - the pen is fast, the trackball is slow but precise. The two used together are unbeatable (IMHO).

The tablet+pen will let you trace fairly accurately through fairly thick paper (1/4" probably, depending on the material), so you can, if you wish, go over a drawing.

"Proper" Wacom pens have two buttons, plus the tip (you tap it), plus an "eraser" on the other end. Most button/tip combinations can be mapped to mouse functions, or text strings or whatever, and if you have the expensive ones you get extra programmable buttons on the tablet, and a scroll wheel with a button in the centre (it is touch sensitive. The tablets can detect the difference between the pen and fingers, too, so you can assign gestures, although personally I find that annoying and have it permanently turned off (I'm an old fogey).

In general use I find a pen/stylus about twice as fast as a mouse for most things and far less irritating to tendons, etc. That's a big reason for using one. You can set sensitivity (to taps and double taps, pen pressure for drawing, etc.), and tilt sensitivity - it recognises the angle the stylus is held at (if you want it to). That's great for freehand drawing but overkill for SketchUp, etc.

The size of the tablet I think matters quite a bit - too small and you can't be precise, too large and you're conducting an orchestra the whole time (and it gets in the way too). I'm happiest with an A5 active area, and my one annoyance with the current generation of Wacom tablets is the wasted "land" area round the edges - my really old one is just a pad with no extraneous styling. The old one also has a lift-up transparent pad so you can slip drawings or notes underneath (good home for Post-Its) - Wacom have dropped that feature too, which is a shame. I didn't think I would, but I do like the buttons along the side and the touch wheel. If you're a lefty, you probably want the buttons on the right and vice-versa, so the ability to flip the thing over (in the control panel/driver setup) is really handy. Mine can be cordless, but I've taken the battery out and use it on USB all the time, as I don't like fussing about with charging it. The socket is at the side, so being able to flip it physically is important.

All these pointing devices are very personal things - you need to find something that's comfy and you can use for long periods, and which gives you the control you need. I've got arthritis: if I do eight hours with a mouse my hand screams at me for hours afterwards (likewise with a #7 plane!). With a pen it doesn't and I'll have got more done, too.

Your mileage, etc.

E.
 
Eric The Viking":1p1fp1qv said:
The size of the tablet I think matters quite a bit - too small and you can't be precise, too large and you're conducting an orchestra the whole time (and it gets in the way too). I'm happiest with an A5 active area, and my one annoyance with the current generation of Wacom tablets is the wasted "land" area round the edges

Counterpoint: if you use the tablet for art, then both a larger size and also the wide border are potentially quite useful.

Artists are trained to draw from the shoulder and elbow, not the wrist, so larger sizes simply allow for larger expressive strokes. Not really useful if you're using the tablet for CAD, but definitely useful if you're sketching with it. The wide border is great for me because I prop the tablet up at an angle like a drawing board, and the border gives me something to hold onto with my other hand without getting in the way.

As Eric suggests: it's really very much down to your personal preference and the use you put the thing to. I use an 'extended A4' (the same 4:3 ratio that all computer monitors of the time had, but a ~300mm wide active area) Intuos 3 from ages ago, because when I use a tablet it's probably for artwork. I used to use a tiny ~120x90mm Bamboo tablet at work (I'm a software engineer) and that was absolutely fine for that kind of work, and much more comfortable than a mouse. Although I did find the stylus in the bin one day after a coworker mistook it for a pen, found it didn't write and threw it away...
 
I got advice that the Logitech Trackball was an alternative to the Wacom - if the Kensington is no longer available.

Brian
 
Tablets and trackballs are not really alternatives - they complement each other:

Tablet: quick mouse positioning, drawing, programmable areas or buttons for other applications
Trackball: precise positioning, small desk "footprint"

Personally, the best trackballs I've ever used are those made by Penney+Giles for the military and similar applications. The Kensington ones only come close. I have looked at the Logitech ones in the past - they used to be toys, although they may have improved in recent years.

What I look for in a trackball is:

1. The diameter - within reason as large as possible. The ones that use full sized snooker balls are very good.

2. The mass of the ball - heavier the better, as you need to be able to spin it and have it keep going.

3. Bearings and sensor mechanics - related to (2). The Kensington ones have 1/2" sealed ball bearings (the two I own do, but they're 20+ years old now!). The rollers on which the balls move are also chunky. The smaller the rollers the less well they work (they skid or jam).

4. Ability to dismantle it for cleaning: I regularly wash the trackball in the sink with soapy water (not the electronics!). It stops it skidding and keeps it accurate - the enemies of those things are lumps of crud stuck to the ball, and grease from fingers.

5. Respect for gravity: the sort with the ball uppermost work best, with no exceptions.

6. Large buttons in ergonomically sensible places, not making the thing look like a porcupine.

Hope that helps.

E.
 

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