N-trig DuoSense Pen2: Who Needs a Stylus?
by Jarred Walton on June 12, 2013 5:40 PM EST- Posted in
- Input Devices
- Peripherals
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Tablets
- Stylus
- N-trig
A Pen for Your Thoughts
Given the current direction of technology, especially in the wake of Windows 8 along with the proliferation of tablets and smartphones, touch interfaces are only going to become more important in the coming years. We’ve harped on some of the touchpad manufacturers for producing less than stellar hardware, and there’s certainly the potential for the same to happen with stylus devices. At least for now, the active digitizer stylus market is pretty limited—Wacom and N-trig are the only real contenders, with the other stylus devices basically just using capacitive input (as far as I’m aware). So how do Wacom and N-trig compare?
Honestly, I’m not fully equipped to judge between the two—for one, I haven’t really used a Wacom device in some time (other than poking around at a Surface Pro briefly), but second we’d really need an artist or someone that takes copious notes if we were to try to declare a winner. I’ve looked around to see what others are saying on the Wacom vs. N-trig question; many prefer Wacom, but quite a few have also stated that the new G4 hardware from N-trig goes a long way towards bringing them to parity (e.g. in the Sony VAIO Duo 11). Ultimately, without proper hardware (meaning, a G4 N-trig device to go with the DuoSense Pen2 and comparable Wacom hardware), I obviously can’t call one better or worse.
From my use of the Flyer, N-trig’s stylus worked fine for the most part, but palm rejection was an issue for me, and that’s something the G4 sensor and controller aim to address. We couldn’t review Intel’s latest CPUs by looking at Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge, so judging N-trig’s latest Pen2 on the basis of time spent with the Flyer is something of a misfire. (So why did N-trig send the Flyer? Because they were paying for the hardware samples, and purchasing a bunch of Sony VAIO Duo 11 laptops would cost five times as much!) Even with current hardware, however, I feel like the end result would be like keyboard and mouse preferences—they’re highly subjective as to what works best for you. If you happen to fall into the category of users that want/need a stylus, trying to get some personal time with a platform before making a purchase decision would be strongly advised.
Regardless of which stylus vendor you might feel is better, however, we do like seeing competition as it forces companies to innovate and improve rather than resting on their laurels. Imagine where Intel would be without the likes of AMD, ARM, Cyrix, MIPS, etc. over the years; or where Windows would be if we had no Mac OS/OS X, Android, Linux, etc. Wacom feels more like the reigning heavyweight champion, with plenty of device wins including the recent Microsoft Surface Pro. In contrast, N-trig has noteworthy wins with the Sony VAIO Duo 11/13, and hopefully they can get more Tier 1 designs with G4 hardware going forward. The simple fact that Microsoft and Sony are choosing to include a stylus, plus other devices like the Galaxy Note and HP Slate, suggests that contrary to Steve Jobs’ bold claim, the days of the stylus are not coming to a close with the advent of capacitive touch. If N-trig (and Wacom) have anything to say about it, we’re only just starting to see the proliferation of inexpensive, quality devices with stylus support.
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Jorj_X_McKie - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
> I find little difference in the actual digital inking experience from N-Trig to WacomAgreed. I get very satisfying control and line variation in both Artrage and SBP6. The 256 vs 1024 vs 2048 levels of pressure argument is a non-issue and distraction. There *might* be very slight difference at the lowest levels of pressure if the software is calibrated that finely, and you have very fine motor skills (which most good artists do).
Fin Edu, The rest of your post looked so much like one of my countless rants on the topic that I had to look carefully to see if I had written it myself! LOL!
Jorj_X_McKie - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
Now that Sony is releasing a very expensive new machine, the time is right to pester them with questions like 'why can't I use Photoshop with the Duo 11 and 13?'. Look what happened when Microsoft released the Surface Pro without Wintab support... .a chorus of 'WTF?' led to a rather quick collaboration with Wacom and 3 months later Pro uses have their drivers, and just as importantly, they work really well. Sony & N-Trig will ignore this lesson in customer support at their own peril.cbf - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
Yes, this is rather inexcusable. One has to wonder what's going on at N-trig. It's not that complicated an API.I've briefly looked at what it would take to do a Wintab wrapper on top of the Microsoft Inking API, and I believe I could do this in two months. If I were confident that N-trig or Sony would pay me for this, I probably would do it.
TerdFerguson - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
This review is of poor quality. If a company sends you an old platform that doesn't work well for review, then blast them. Stop pussyfooting around, giving them the benefit of the doubt.JarredWalton - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
If HTC had sent the Flyer for review this late in the game, that would be different. N-trig was touting their new pen and I did my best to say something about it, but it is clearly limited by the platform choice (and perhaps drivers as well). So, I spent some time discussing the potential benefits of a stylus in general, and those benefits apply to Wacom and N-trig equally.Interestingly, N-trig is now talking with me about the potential to send the new Sony VAIO Duo 13 over for review, which would be great. If that happens, you can bet I'll try out more than the base set of software, including Photoshop. I don't have any awesome art skills, but I can certainly evaluate how the stylus works (or doesn't)!
cbf - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
Guys -- I'm not a graphic artist, but I've compared Wacam and N-trig side by side. To me it's all about what a light touch produces, and my results were that N-trig produces nothing and Wacom produces a nice think line. This was mostly in Windows 8 Fresh Paint. I agree that 256 vs 1024 levels probably isn't very significant.I have only very briefly played with Samsung's implementation of Wacom on Android (and that was Galaxy Note phone, not tablet), but I could well believe that it's not as well calibrated as Windows.
It would be useful if someone did a comprehensive review of various inking technologies on a variety of platforms. I wonder if there's a more graphics arts specialized website that might have done this. Otherwise, are the listening Jarred? (If you want to outsource this, let me know!)
JarredWalton - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
A light touch on a pressure sensitive stylus shouldn't produce a thick line -- that's what a heavier touch should produce. Of course, that's dependent on application, so I suppose in some cases ignoring the pressure might be desirable? Anyway, we'll see how much interest there is in this subject. I mostly took a look at it because I think there's a solid use case for including a stylus, even if it's not something "everyone" needs. If you can add stylus support to a touchscreen for a few extra dollars, that would be totally worthwhile to me, if only for my children. So think of this post/article more from that perspective -- N-trig sent me hardware, but I'm using it as a platform to talk about the benefits of *any* stylus, not just N-trig.ssiu - Sunday, June 16, 2013 - link
"a nice think line" is probably typo for "a nice thin line" not "a nice thick line" :-)cbf - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
What Ssui said -- I meant nice "thin" line.I agree with what you said about the utility of the stylus, although I think it's a little more than a few extra $. It would be interesting to know how much it cost OEMs to get put a dual-mode (stylus + touch) Wacom or N-trig on their screens.
But once you put the toy on the tablet, people will want to know which one does a better job.
liquidcool4 - Sunday, June 16, 2013 - link
You can usually find Gateway M285's and Fujitsu Lifebook T4220's on ebay for around $150. I have an M285 and absolutely love it for SketchBook Pro and Photoshop.