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Comment by Fuzzwah | Hacker News Reader

Are you using it for anything in particular which benefits from the touch input? If so, is the stylus an important positive?

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I own a surface pro and bought it particularly for the stylus and touch input.

I tend to take a lot of notes at work, and also as I am working on side projects and one day I took a step back and looked at my desk and said "Is it really 2013 and I am pretty much scraping away at dead trees with a piece of metal dipped in ink like a caveman!?". I had notes spread out over dozens of binders, notebooks, engineering pads, etc, etc. How is this still a thing?! I also lost a bunch of notes from my schooling simply because the box they were in got lost. It felt to me like the equivalent of conducting all of my correspondence via paper letters, and keeping them in boxes in the basement. Of course, instead I do it through email, all nicely searchable at the drop of a hat.

So the first thing I will say is that OneNote and the pen are a great writing experience. I do kind of miss the feedback of a pen against paper, but the "inking" in OneNote is top-notch, somehow looking even better than my regular writing. The response is really quick as well, which makes a big difference in feeling like you are actually writing instead of watching a line chase your pen around the screen. I've tried the Galaxy Note 10.1's stylus and S-Note and it is nowhere near as good. Syncing my notes to the Microsoft cloud is of course an added bonus for easy backup.

That said, the widescreen aspect ratio was pretty dumb, especially for something billed as a device for being productive. I really can't understand it from any direction, I mean writing a document will be worse, editing photos is probably worse, I guess maybe people editing video will be happy? A better, wider aspect ratio closer to paper would be a serious improvement.

At the end of the day however, I am able to take notes and do sketches, designs, etc, in a way that has a great writing "feel", offers search via really good text recognition, and offers seamless backup. I got mine discounted at a conference, so I can't say if I'd pay $900 for the ability to do this, but if I was back in University it would be an absolute no brainer. You probably won't find a better "writing" experience on the market, and if you do a lot of that then I recommend it.

"How is this still a thing?!"

Because the alternative costs $900 and doesn't fit in your pocket. Oh, I get what you're saying, I loved OneNote back when I had the old TabletPC. It's the best thing going, IMO. But I'm not spending that kind of money to run an OS I have no other use for, just to take notes. Make a $300 machine with a good digitizer that runs nothing but OneNote and I'd buy two.

The Asus EeePad was the best thing I ever used as a notebook replacement. I had to buy it from China and change the display text to English when I got it, but the screen felt like paper, the digitizer was Wacom, and the battery life was excellent. It would sync with Evernote (I wish it synced with OneNote). I could read and annotate ebooks and PDFs. There were two styluses, and a place to store them both. You could write normally, since the screen did not respond to touch (only the pen). The black and white screen was okay for notes, but if you hooked it to your PC, it became a full Wacom tablet for Photoshop etc.

Unfortunately, they never released it in the US, dropped Evernote support a while back, and have completely discontinued it. Did I mention that importing from China through a reseller and with shipping included it only cost $250?

I think you mean the Asus Eee Note? http://www.asus.com/Eee_Family/Eee_Note_EA800/

And dammit, that looks perfect for notetaking/sketching/etc. :(

It looks like they are still available on eBay.

Yup, EeeNote. Sorry! It really was great, but it lost all use for me when Evernote sync was deprecated. The barrier to getting my files off became too high (move them to a microsd card, then move them to my computer with an adapter I always lose).

The new Nvidia Tegra 4 tablet supports "directstylus" and i'm wondering if Microsoft could enable this with the new Surface 2.

> Make a $300 machine with a good digitizer that runs nothing but OneNote and I'd buy two

Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 [1]

I have to physically restrain myself from buying one of these just about every time I walk into the local electronics stores. Samsung has actually done a really nice job, it has a Maths mode that recognises handwriting as formulas which insanely actually works ...

[1] http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxynote/note8.0/

Is it really 2013 and I am pretty much scraping away at dead trees with a piece of metal dipped in ink like a caveman!?

I'm the opposite. I love tech but I have an a4 sized sketchpad and a good pencil I take everywhere with me. I use it for everything from meeting notes to drawings/ideas. I'll use it to demonstrate ideas/concepts to a client or just to hlep me work out something (I'm very visual)

I can't see myself ever parting with it. I love the feel - there's something about using real pencil and paper digital can never replace, and I have a draw full of old notbooks I can look back through which is kind of nice.

As far as search/organisation etc well... a notepad's not so good for that but my drawings tend to be write-only. I use them as a tool to help me think and to clarify ideas.

For me, I don't deal very well with digital to-do lists and such. Pen and paper is king for me.

I like the stylus for scribbling notes / impromptu architecture diagrams in one note, especially in meetings.

I definitely view it as an ultrabook replacement. My only major gripe is that it's not a comfortable machine for on the lap work compared to a proper laptop.

Could this be fixed with some of those iPad cases with built-in keyboards (except, of course, made for Surface)?

Potentially, because the join between the type cover and tablet is obviously flexible it moves a lot when laying on a non uniform surface (my thighs).

Also because of it's width I feel like I need to sit with my knees together to try and balance it, trying on one leg feels stupidly awkward.

Usually, I don't need the stylus; I'm using the keyboard and touchpad. However, when I do need it, I can't find it because it attaches where the power cord attaches, so I'm always removing it and setting it down, then forgetting to pick the stylus up. If they had a place to dock it on the top edge, that would be great.

When my daughter uses my Surface, she uses it as a WACOM replacement, so she needs (and finds) the stylus.

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