I've been a frustrated old man for the last few months, trying to find a new mobile workstation for my freelance needs. I've been through like 3 machines in as many weeks in search of pen-abled tablet that actually works better than my now almost 6 years old Fujitsu T902. I bought that thing back in end of 2012. Little did I know that it would be still the king of the hill regarding pressure sensitive pen action in 2018!This is a complicated issue regarding how pressure sensitive pen works within a mobile computer or tablet. So many factors contribute to the ever illusive 'perfect pen feel': The digitizer and pen capabilities, the system horsepower, OS featureset complexity that might hamper the pen action, art software's brush engine sophistication, any errant system leeches that might rob cycles away from pen computations, etc. Etc.And it's also a very difficult thing to measure. You need to gauge it mostly by feel.
The pen's 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity gives you more control and precision; The battery-free pen allows for light and comfortable use thanks to EMR. Wacom is the leader in terms of graphic tablets and drawing monitors, so much so that we call any alternatives “Wacom alternatives”, but as you might already know, the prices they charge for their products are pretty high.
It's somewhat subjective rather than objective, arguably. You simply need seasons hand to be able to compare and contrast effectively.You also need access to many different and expensive rigs.
Not easy to do if not impossible on most people's budget. This is my main excuse as to why it took me this long to realize my new revelation. I needed to experience one single common art software on all the different hardware configurations. This only recently became possible via availability of Clip Studio Paint on iOS.
Before CSP, I attempted to compare CSP on Windows tablets to Procreate on iPad Pros and it gave me plenty of false positives and misdirections.In the past couple of month or so, I have had extensive use of SCP on; 12.9' iPad Pro (1st gen), 10.6' iPad Pro, Lenovo Miix 700 with Wacom AES, Lenovo Thinkpad 14 with Wacom AES, VAIO Z Canvas with Ntrig, HP Envy 17T with NTrig, Samsung Notebook 9 Pro 15.6 with Wacom EMR, Asus Vivotab Note 8 with Wacom EMR, and Fujitsu T902 with Wacom EMR. Based on my sketching experience with CSP on all of these machines (i.e. How well I was able to draw on various digitizers and pens), I will rank the big 4 digitizer techs in this order:1. Wacom EMR - 9/102.
Apple Pencil - 7.5/103. Wacom AES - 6.5/104. MS MPP/Ntrig - 3.5/10Boy, I have to confess, I had no idea how badly MPP/Trig would compare to the others. I had assumed it was much closer.
But it really isn't. I CAN'T FUCKIN DO A GOOD DRAWINGS ON MPP/NTRIG.
They look positively shit compared to what I can do on EMR. Let's just say I can do NOTICEABLY BETTER drawing on a Z3760 Atom 2GB of RAM Vivotab Note 8 than on the VAIO Z Canvas/HP Envy, which have 16GB of RAM and quad core i7s in them.
THAT'S FUCKING RIDICULOUS!!!And before you ask, I was using the Wacom Bamboo Ink dual protocol pen on the Ntrig machines, so pressure curve and Initial Activation Force should not be an issue on paper. But guess what?
On Ntrig machines, the same Bamboo Ink performs worse than on Wacom AES machines. So clearly, there are additional computation being done on the ASIC of the digitizer boards of Wacom ones than on Ntrig ones, even on their pro cap based digitizers.Another surprising fact was how well iPad Pro performed with CSP.
Apple Pencil is IMO the best projected capacitive based digitizer and pen available. This is due to following factors:1. Ntrig sucks ass.2. Wacom AES is still missing tilt, for those who might want it.3. IPad Pro's SoC is BEEFY AS F!
It kept up no problem with 15W Intel Core processors in CSP brushes.But at the end of the day, good old and ancient Wacom EMR still reigns supreme. After having bought the HP Envy 17T on sale for $900, I'm pretty bummed that I can do much better drawings on my 6 years old Fujitsu T902 than it. I bough the 17T for the sheer screen size and the dual SoDIMM slot and storage slots upgrade factor. But when push came to shove, I decided to take the T902 out of the closet and do main work on it. How's that for $900 kick in the nuts.BTW, the 6 yo T902 with 3rd gen i5 also does better than the brand new Samsung Notebook 9 Pro with 8th gen i7 for pen feel with same Wacom EMR. How's that possible?
I think it's due to the fact that the i5 is 35W CPU and the i7 is a 15W CPU.Basically, the i5 spends more time at higher clock than the i7. And the CSP brushes are probably not very multicore friendly. Also, for art app brushes, clock speed is king. As an aside, I think the A10 in the iPad Pro was keeping up with 8550U i7 pretty decently. Couldn't hardly tell the difference in performance.So let me end all this with a practical tip: If you want to get a pressure pen tablet or convertible,. It's way less than new Ntrig devices (and certainly the Surface Pros) and kicks their asses up and down in pen performance.
Sure, she is fat and chunky with only 1600x900 res LCD. But your drawings will look much better. And avoid Ntrig. Stick with Wacom EMR and AES on new Windows art machines.
AES is Wacom's version of Ntrig DuoSense 2, using Active Electro Static digitizer in Wacom speak for Duo Sense 2's Projected Capacitive pen digitizer.Simply put,Ntrig, AES, and Apple Pencil all uses the touch digitizer layer on top of the screen also for pen function.Wacom EMR (Electro Magnetic Resonance) has a separate pen digitizer layer buried under the LCD for pen functionality. This is why the EMR pen never suffers from that initial micro delay when the pen first touches down on the screen like the others.
It never confuses between what's the pen is doing and what the fingers are doing. Thats fine with me, I've never used the tilt function. The nice thing about storyboarding is that they have to look good but not THAT good.I'm mostly just a bit afraid of ebay honestly (in regards of the t902).
I cant tell if someone is a real seller or weird rip off machine.Shipping to Canada is also nuts.EDITI looked at some videos, how do you actually work on these hybrids? The screen seems to wobble a lot when you flip them AND you cant use the keyboard then. Do you have an extra keyboard? Thats fine with me, I've never used the tilt function. The nice thing about storyboarding is that they have to look good but not THAT good.I'm mostly just a bit afraid of ebay honestly (in regards of the t902).
I cant tell if someone is a real seller or weird rip off machine.Shipping to Canada is also nuts.EDITI looked at some videos, how do you actually work on these hybrids? The screen seems to wobble a lot when you flip them AND you cant use the keyboard then. Do you have an extra keyboard? AES is Wacom's version of Ntrig DuoSense 2, using Active Electro Static digitizer in Wacom speak for Duo Sense 2's Projected Capacitive pen digitizer.Simply put,Ntrig, AES, and Apple Pencil all uses the touch digitizer layer on top of the screen also for pen function.Wacom EMR (Electro Magnetic Resonance) has a separate pen digitizer layer buried under the LCD for pen functionality. This is why the EMR pen never suffers from that initial micro delay when the pen first touches down on the screen like the others.
It never confuses between what's the pen is doing and what the fingers are doing. I've been a frustrated old man for the last few months, trying to find a new mobile workstation for my freelance needs. I've been through like 3 machines in as many weeks in search of pen-abled tablet that actually works better than my now almost 6 years old Fujitsu T902.
![Wacom Emr Tablets Wacom Emr Tablets](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125530013/461189440.jpg)
I bought that thing back in end of 2012. Little did I know that it would be still the king of the hill regarding pressure sensitive pen action in 2018!This is a complicated issue regarding how pressure sensitive pen works within a mobile computer or tablet. So many factors contribute to the ever illusive 'perfect pen feel': The digitizer and pen capabilities, the system horsepower, OS featureset complexity that might hamper the pen action, art software's brush engine sophistication, any errant system leeches that might rob cycles away from pen computations, etc. Etc.And it's also a very difficult thing to measure. You need to gauge it mostly by feel. It's somewhat subjective rather than objective, arguably. You simply need seasons hand to be able to compare and contrast effectively.You also need access to many different and expensive rigs.
Not easy to do if not impossible on most people's budget. This is my main excuse as to why it took me this long to realize my new revelation. I needed to experience one single common art software on all the different hardware configurations. This only recently became possible via availability of Clip Studio Paint on iOS. Before CSP, I attempted to compare CSP on Windows tablets to Procreate on iPad Pros and it gave me plenty of false positives and misdirections.In the past couple of month or so, I have had extensive use of SCP on; 12.9' iPad Pro (1st gen), 10.6' iPad Pro, Lenovo Miix 700 with Wacom AES, Lenovo Thinkpad 14 with Wacom AES, VAIO Z Canvas with Ntrig, HP Envy 17T with NTrig, Samsung Notebook 9 Pro 15.6 with Wacom EMR, Asus Vivotab Note 8 with Wacom EMR, and Fujitsu T902 with Wacom EMR. Based on my sketching experience with CSP on all of these machines (i.e.
How well I was able to draw on various digitizers and pens), I will rank the big 4 digitizer techs in this order:1. Wacom EMR - 9/102. Apple Pencil - 7.5/103. Wacom AES - 6.5/104. MS MPP/Ntrig - 3.5/10Boy, I have to confess, I had no idea how badly MPP/Trig would compare to the others.
I had assumed it was much closer. But it really isn't.
I CAN'T FUCKIN DO A GOOD DRAWINGS ON MPP/NTRIG. They look positively shit compared to what I can do on EMR. Let's just say I can do NOTICEABLY BETTER drawing on a Z3760 Atom 2GB of RAM Vivotab Note 8 than on the VAIO Z Canvas/HP Envy, which have 16GB of RAM and quad core i7s in them. THAT'S FUCKING RIDICULOUS!!!And before you ask, I was using the Wacom Bamboo Ink dual protocol pen on the Ntrig machines, so pressure curve and Initial Activation Force should not be an issue on paper.
But guess what? On Ntrig machines, the same Bamboo Ink performs worse than on Wacom AES machines. So clearly, there are additional computation being done on the ASIC of the digitizer boards of Wacom ones than on Ntrig ones, even on their pro cap based digitizers.Another surprising fact was how well iPad Pro performed with CSP.
Apple Pencil is IMO the best projected capacitive based digitizer and pen available. This is due to following factors:1.
Ntrig sucks ass.2. Wacom AES is still missing tilt, for those who might want it.3. IPad Pro's SoC is BEEFY AS F! It kept up no problem with 15W Intel Core processors in CSP brushes.But at the end of the day, good old and ancient Wacom EMR still reigns supreme. After having bought the HP Envy 17T on sale for $900, I'm pretty bummed that I can do much better drawings on my 6 years old Fujitsu T902 than it. I bough the 17T for the sheer screen size and the dual SoDIMM slot and storage slots upgrade factor.
But when push came to shove, I decided to take the T902 out of the closet and do main work on it. How's that for $900 kick in the nuts.BTW, the 6 yo T902 with 3rd gen i5 also does better than the brand new Samsung Notebook 9 Pro with 8th gen i7 for pen feel with same Wacom EMR.
How's that possible? I think it's due to the fact that the i5 is 35W CPU and the i7 is a 15W CPU.Basically, the i5 spends more time at higher clock than the i7. And the CSP brushes are probably not very multicore friendly. Also, for art app brushes, clock speed is king.
As an aside, I think the A10 in the iPad Pro was keeping up with 8550U i7 pretty decently. Couldn't hardly tell the difference in performance.So let me end all this with a practical tip: If you want to get a pressure pen tablet or convertible,. It's way less than new Ntrig devices (and certainly the Surface Pros) and kicks their asses up and down in pen performance. Sure, she is fat and chunky with only 1600x900 res LCD. But your drawings will look much better. And avoid Ntrig. Stick with Wacom EMR and AES on new Windows art machines.