Talk to me about stylus technology. Which is best?

[fuzzybabybunny]

So I'm sitting here thinking about how a lot of stylus systems have lag issues and accuracy issues, and I can't help but notice the parallels between when wireless mice first came out and their issues with lag.

A typical passive stylus that relies entirely on the touch sensitivity of the screen is limited by the screen itself.

An active stylus relies in large part in the technology of the stylus itself as well as the screen. Unfortunately, active styluses are often mated to a closed system - the Apple Pencil only works on the iPad Pro, and the Microsoft Pen seems to only work on the Surface tablets. There doesn't seem to be a big open standard like what wireless mice used to have.

But say that I buy into a system with an active stylus, such as an older 2015 Surface 3 (non-pro). Would upgrading to a more advanced stylus in the future mean I could get better performance?

 

[v-600]

I thought a microsoft surface would work with any N-trig stylus and vice versa with the surface pen and any ntrig laptop/tablet.

 

[gorcorps]

https://www.windowscentral.com/new-surface-pen-improvements

This talks about the new pen and what it will do with the old systems. Basically it sounds like the new sensitivity of the pen (how little pressure is needed to start "writing") is apparent from the get-go. Some of the other features like reduced latency and tilt features sound like they're going to need a software update. MS has claimed everything back to the surface pro 3 will be updated to support the new pen functions, but not sure when that could be.

The other thing is that there does seem to be a budding technology to make things a little more universal. This review of the Bamboo ink pen (which is Surface compatible) says: "The Bamboo Ink is exciting because it's one of the first "smartpens" on the market that supports Wacom's Universal Pen Framework (UPF). That framework means it can seamlessly shift between Microsoft Surface devices and Wacom Active ES (electrostatic) ones, giving artists and pros more choices." So there's at least a little bit of universality attempting to break free. I'm sure it won't cover Apple though.

https://www.windowscentral.com/bamboo-ink-review