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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nagi603 - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
As someone who is a "copious note taker" (from Uni notes to work and side-projects) for at least 5-6 years and a former IT magazine reviewer... Wacom was still way better for me.First and foremost, their pen is passive, which is a very big plus for me. No need to ever bother with supercapacitors, batteries or the quite large weight added by them. Second, precision. At least in the past, N-trig wasn't nearly as precise. I've tried it last with the Lenovo business android tablet, and it wasn't very good. On the other hand, the Galaxy Note's Wacom-based solution didin't have that many issues. (Apart from the size and the zero configurability, which, after using it on a win7 tablet was a big no-go.)
CrazyElf - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
Yeah same - the Wacom pens worked better for me as well.I knew someone who works as a professional illustrator and he seems to swear by them. The Galaxy Note are generally more limited than the Bamboo or Intuos series by Wacom - maybe a reflection of their size. Note 2 saw some pretty big S-Pen upgrades, although not quite on par of course with the full sized tablets by Wacom.
eallan - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
I owned a dell with an N-Trig digitizer, I'll do my best to avoid buying anything they make again. Terribly unresponsive and not impressive performance.NLPsajeeth - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
There is one other contender, UC Logic. Some artists prefer them over Wacom and they are much cheaper to too. Hopefully once the G4 comes out, Frenden will get and review one like he does for other Wacom and UC Logic tablets:http://frenden.com/tagged/review
Death666Angel - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
I bought one of those (Monoprice) and am quite pleased with the cost and performance. For mobile solutions I still prefer Wacom due to the no batteries and the ease of mind that brings.cbf - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
As a Sony Vaio Duo 11 owner, I second nagi603's comments on the superiority of Wacom. I have compared N-trig on the Sony again Wacom digitizers on various machines (Surface Pro, Samsung Viva 700t, some older Lenovo X200t tablets), and Wacom is clearly superior to N-trig, in three major ways:1. Wacom is passive vs. Sony's active. Pen is lighter, easier to handle, doesn't have a battery to run out -- and easier to store! (The Vaio Duo 11 has no place to store it's largish pen!) And then of course there's the price difference between the $45 N-trig pen vs. Wacom's piece of plastic.
2. Pressure sensitivity -- far better on Wacom. It's not just Wacom's 1024 levels vs. N-trig's 246. A light stroke on my N-Trig doesn't register at all, whereas the lightest of strokes (not even touching) registers on Wacom. If the Duo 2 pen improves this on for N-trig, I'll probably buy it, but I find it hard to believe they can achieve real parity with Wacom here.
3. DRIVERS! N-trig still doesn't support the WinTAB drivers necessary to support pressure sensitivity in Adobe (and some other) applications. Adobe's not going to fix this -- N-trig has to. (And by my reading the patents that might have prevented this in the past should have expired in the last year or two.)
If you guys want to send me a Duo 2 stylus, I'd be happy to write a review of it, that I think would be more meaningful than this one.
Jorj_X_McKie - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
cbf, thanks for your accurate criticism / comparison to Wacom. I welcome the changes that N-Trig is rolling out, but without Wintab, it is useless to the artistic community. Would Anandtech get N-Trig to go on the record about Photoshop / Wintab compatibility? N-Trig's tech support has promised me that they are planning on releasing new drivers in '2013' but frankly, I'm skeptical, and with good reason. It's a shame that my otherwise very fine Sony Duo 11 is crippled with a semi-functional stylus. I am currently debating on whether or not to sell it for a Surface Pro or similar upcoming Haswell + Wacom hybrid. Some communication from N-Trig would be very welcome. Also of note, N-Trig no longer has Sony pen drivers on it's website, and neither does Sony. Buy N-Trig at your own risk.JarredWalton - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
Regarding Wintab drivers, while I realize the Sony drivers are missing (pulled?), do the older drivers from N-trig work or are there problems? Obviously, that doesn't really apply to Android tablets, but what's the status of Wintab drivers on N-trig Windows laptops? I've emailed N-trig, so we'll see what they have to say.Jorj_X_McKie - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
The current drivers work fine on programs that support the Microsoft Ink API. That means, all of the MS Office & Paint, Artrage, Sketchbook Pro. That's about it. There's a world of awesome s/w that is out of reach if you have a N-Trig digitizer on your rig.Roffles12 - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
Well I'm glad I bumped into this article. I was really close to purchasing the new Sony Duo 13 in an attempt to go completely paperless at work. I work in Engineering and construction so I rigorously markup documents all day using Greenshot for 3D model commenting and Bluebeam Revu for RFI and design doc commenting. It's cumbersome to have to do it with a mouse and keyboard and so I'm foaming at the mouth thinking about my future 12-13" Haswell tablet that I can write on all day. Most of the folks at my office still prefer to print their docs out rather than attempt digital markups. I need passive input from Wacom to make the final transition an easy one. Unfortunately N-trig won't do. Does anyone know what Wacom equipped Haswell tablets are coming out this summer? I'm tired of waiting...