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Surface 2 to support active digitiser?

FFX

Active Member
I have read this on many sites now, and in one of the Surface commercials, staged at a photo-shoot it looks like a guy is using a digitiser on a Surface 2. But cant find a source for this? The new screen is the same as the one in SP2, and tegra4 also support digitiser. What do you think?
 

joga

Member
I have read this on many sites now, and in one of the Surface commercials, staged at a photo-shoot it looks like a guy is using a digitiser on a Surface 2. But cant find a source for this? The new screen is the same as the one in SP2, and tegra4 also support digitiser. What do you think?

The surface 2 will not support an active digiticer, only the surface pro (1&2) will.

Sent from the SurfaceForums.net app for Windows 8
 

demandarin

Active Member
Tegra4 supports active capacitive capabilities. Just like in the Tegra note tablet. They asked pano and the surface team about this on redditt yesterday. Its not enabled currently on the surface2 but they said its something they could enable down the line. Its just a matter of enabling it software wise.

Nvidia active capacitive capabilities, although not as precise as waocom built in digitizer, allows for a more precise algorithm for capacitive pen input. Way better than.just using normal capacitive pen on regular device. I think it can detect pressure somehow also. Just YouTube Tegra note and you can see it in action.
 

pallentx

New Member
If they could make that happen, they might tempt me to upgrade. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with my current gen RT.
 
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F

FFX

Active Member
If they could make that happen, they might tempt me to upgrade. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with my current gen RT.

I am tempted to upgrade now! But if they activated the digitiser function, I would buy one in a blink of an eye.
 

oion

Well-Known Member
What really interests me is the technology in the Sony Xperia Z Ultra; use any pencil or metal-tipped pen. $$ styli are so yesteryear. ;)
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
The Tegra4 supports the Stylus through physics, and I asked Panos Panay about it on Sunday, his reply that it isn't enabled as they were going for simple, but he didn't rule out enabling it in the future. I will say that the Surface 2 is an amazing machine, it is blazingly fast. I really enjoyed playing with it.
 

N1CK

New Member
The Tegra4 supports the Stylus through physics, and I asked Panos Panay about it on Sunday, his reply that it isn't enabled as they were going for simple, but he didn't rule out enabling it in the future. I will say that the Surface 2 is an amazing machine, it is blazingly fast. I really enjoyed playing with it.

It doesn't make things "simpler". As a customer it's making things more complex! I planned on using the Surface 2 to remotely access my PC and decent stylus support would make it much simpler to use. The Pro model is great but it's too big and too expensive when you factor in the cover... I also prefer the look of the surface 2 but it won't satisfy my needs without that feature enabled.

What are the chances of someone finding a way to enable it anyway?
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
Unfortunately, stylus users are in the minority (even in Android, compare Note purchases to Tab purchases). Stylus users are passionate about them but we are a small market over all.
 

oion

Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, stylus users are in the minority (even in Android, compare Note purchases to Tab purchases). Stylus users are passionate about them but we are a small market over all.

In Western markets, styli are definitely most useful only for specialty purposes--illustration and design arts and certain engineering fields, for example. Limited audiences. In the Eastern markets, I expect styli/pen input is much more popular due to the two biggest non-alphabetic languages, Chinese (characters) and Japanese (kanji). No matter how fancy various keyboard inputs have evolved for those languages, nothing is faster than handwriting with smart conversion software.

That said, I read a little bit about how the Tegra non-digitizer tech works. It's definitely not an active digitizer as we know it. Looks interesting. I wonder what other issues are at stake when considering these technologies: Would enabling the Tegra4 cause greater power drain? An active digitizer is often licensed from Wacom--how much does that cost and does that affect power drain as well? How much did Sony spend to develop the tech on the Xperia Z Ultra?

On the plus side, the fact that Tegra4 has this capability built-in means MS didn't pay more for it above the actual processor already, so perhaps it will be a matter of time before the option is enabled.
 

N1CK

New Member
Yes, I agree with you on that jnjroach, and it's very unfortunate. By the way thank's for asking Panos the question, it's just what I wanted to know.

There's still hope for stylus on Surface 2. Maybe if we make enough noise they might decide to issue an update enabling the Tegra 4 feature.
 
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