[Prey521]

I love my BoxWave Stylus! With a screen protector you do lose some of the sensitivity, but not much. Well worth the $15.

[saalnaz]

I love my BoxWave Stylus! With a screen protector you do lose some of the sensitivity, but not much. Well worth the $15.

will only be able to judge once i try it... im really hoping something would work..

[ssbtech]

So if the touch controller supports a stylus width of 1mm, why does it take several mm of finger to register a touch?

I have a implemented or else RIM would be promoting some pen type interface. feeling that support hasn't been

Right now with any of the styluses (stylii?) on the market, you need such a large contact area it makes writing anything legible impossible.

[kill_9]

You can't go wrong with Bamboo, that's high end, BUT you are gonna pay, BUT well worth the money!

I am waiting for my stylus to arrive but I might still checkout the Bamboo stylus. Too bad the Bamboo Paper application is not available for the BlackBerry PlayBook because it looks to be a great free-style note-taking application.

[Ittles]

I bought the Targus stylus from Staples and used it on the Skit app. The writing looks like a 4 year olds work. I would not use it in a professional setting, looks very sloppy and some words are eligible. Still looking for a better stylus or maybe this is just a pipe dream....

[peter9477]

So if the touch controller supports a stylus width of 1mm, why does it take several mm of finger to register a touch?

I don't know... how have you proved that? Do many people have fingers which can apply only a 1mm area to the surface? I sure don't.

Right now with any of the styluses (stylii?) on the market, you need such a large contact area it makes writing anything legible impossible.

That's probably true, but who said 1mm styluses are even on the market? If I Google for them, I find nothing but announcements of Cyprus' support for this feature... possibly it's just that too few devices have adopted it so far for anyone to have brought out such a product.

This video is interesting though... demonstrates what's possible with 1mm support: Cypress Semiconductor

[ssbtech]

I don't know... how have you proved that? Do many people have fingers which can apply only a 1mm area to the surface? I sure don't.

You can use part of your finger, just barely make contact with the screen and try to draw a line in a SketchPad or something. You can't. You need to press harder so that more of your skin contacts the glass for it to register.

So it's with that info that I am guesing that the screen requires a larger contact patch to register.

[peter9477]

You can use part of your finger, just barely make contact with the screen and try to draw a line in a SketchPad or something. You can't. You need to press harder so that more of your skin contacts the glass for it to register.

So it's with that info that I am guesing that the screen requires a larger contact patch to register.

A stylus needn't be soft and squishy like your finger so I see no reason to assume just because a very light contact with your finger isn't sufficient to register that you'd need a large contact area when using a stylus.

Note that key word there: light contact. When using your finger and trying to use only a small area, you're forced to touch extremely lightly. When using a stylus you wouldn't have to touch so lightly, yet the tip wouldn't spread out like your finger does. They guy in the video is using a standard pencil, so I think that pretty much proves the point.

It's of course possible there's something about the PlayBook that means this 1mm feature won't work there, but clearly nobody knows that for sure yet.

[FoxxBerry]

I am waiting for my stylus to arrive but I might still checkout the Bamboo stylus. Too bad the Bamboo Paper application is not available for the BlackBerry PlayBook because it looks to be a great free-style note-taking application.

So have we discovered a great note taking app? Ive been searching the forums and havent seen anything thats impressed me.....And is it a pipe drem for me to think that a good app can read my handwriting and convert it to text? I will pay TOP dollar for a stylus and app like that.......

[ssbtech]

A stylus needn't be soft and squishy like your finger so I see no reason to assume just because a very light contact with your finger isn't sufficient to register that you'd need a large contact area when using a stylus.

Note that key word there: light contact. When using your finger and trying to use only a small area, you're forced to touch extremely lightly. When using a stylus you wouldn't have to touch so lightly, yet the tip wouldn't spread out like your finger does. They guy in the video is using a standard pencil, so I think that pretty much proves the point.

It's of course possible there's something about the PlayBook that means this 1mm feature won't work there, but clearly nobody knows that for sure yet.

The current crop of styluses DO need to be soft and squishy in order to spread out to a large enough contact point when you press on them. I have one and I need to use enough pressure in order to widen the contact patch enough for it to register.

The only reason pressure comes into play here is to allow whatever is touching it to spread out enough for the screen to register. There's no pressure sensing going on.

You can use your finger very lightly if you use a part of it that has a wide enough contact point to register.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see a 1mm stylus working on the PB. I don't have a pencil to try it with.

[ssbtech]

So have we discovered a great note taking app? Ive been searching the forums and havent seen anything thats impressed me.....And is it a pipe drem for me to think that a good app can read my handwriting and convert it to text? I will pay TOP dollar for a stylus and app like that.......

Pipe dream? At the rate things are going, probably.

[jacobh#CB]

i have the kensington ,virtuoso touch ScreenStylus and pen work great for me

[ssbtech]

i have the kensington ,virtuoso touch ScreenStylus and pen work great for me

That's the one I have.

Can you do me a favor? Open up a sketch app and try to write small, neat, legible letters with it.

[ssbtech]

I took a video of some handwriting on the PlayBook, but then I found this comparison online:

HTC Flyer handwriting test:


Apple iPad handwriting test:


PlayBook handwriting test:


My experience is spot on with the review above.

[a_silent_song]

I bought one made by Razorfish (I think it was; definitely had the word "razor" in the brand) from Best Buy. It was about $16, and it works great. It's usually in the iPad accessories, and I haven't had any problems with it.

[a_silent_song]

And is it a pipe drem for me to think that a good app can read my handwriting and convert it to text? I will pay TOP dollar for a stylus and app like that.......

I definitely would pay for this too! It'd make writing on it easier than it already is lol.

[ssbtech]

I bought one made by Razorfish (I think it was; definitely had the word "razor" in the brand) from Best Buy. It was about $16, and it works great. It's usually in the iPad accessories, and I haven't had any problems with it.

When you say you don't have any problems with it, does that mean it works fine for tapping icons, or it works well at writing with better results than in the video I posted above?

[swami62]

I wanted to update and correct my prior post. After going back to Staples to get another stylus, I couldn't find it and went to Best Buy, figuring I had gotten confused. Still couldn't find it, so I bought one of the rubber ones. Works fine but I have to press too hard to be tremendously functional. Finally remembered I had bought the original brush-type one I so enjoy at Future Shop and the model is the Blackbox Touch Stylus Pen.

An unrelated observation - since I dropped my screen brightness from about 80% to 40%, my battery life has been through the roof and I don't really notice that much change in the brightness.

[peter9477]

I posted to the support forums a followup on my earlier pointers to the potential "1mm stylus" support that's in the Cypress touch controller used in the PlayBook.

In short: no go, unless RIM put some extra magic into the hardware design which we don't think they did.

[thoots]

My experience with a stylus is that they're basically worthless. Perhaps for "drawing apps" they might be useful, but in general, while you can use tiny, light little taps and drags with your fingers, you are CRAMMING THE STYLUS AGAINST THE SCREEN HARDER THAN YOU COULD POSSIBLY HAVE IMAGINED in order to flatten out the stylus tip enough to make it work.

Oh, I haven't tried everything, but pay attention to words like "firm pressure" and such -- I've certainly come to the conclusion that you are far, far, FAR better off using your fingers to navigate on the PlayBook or other tablets, rather than turning the experience into miserable exasperation, trying to use a stylus.

So, again, unless you're really looking to use a stylus for "drawing," just save your money.

[saalnaz]

i have the griffin stylus which is a good stylus. the problem is there arent very good softwares where you can actually apply the stylus with ease.
scroodle probably has the best touch screen software where the response is good and clear and doesnt look like your hand has been shaking while writing with stylus.
skit is not that good to be honest. the writing looks bad.
if you are a fast typist, just type your notes and it is much faster than writing and you dont need to convert it to typed text later on.
as thoots said, and i may add to it, the stylus would suit a person if:
- your writing is faster that typing
- drawing perhaps
- i also found it useful when you want to tap on small icons/links as it would be very difficult to use your fingers and zooming the screen at times makes you not being able to see the entire screen..

[FF22]

i have the griffin stylus which is a good stylus. the problem is there arent very good softwares where you can actually apply the stylus with ease.
scroodle probably has the best touch screen software where the response is good and clear and doesnt look like your hand has been shaking while writing with stylus.
skit is not that good to be honest. the writing looks bad.

I purchased two styli/styluses about a week after I purchased the pb but returned them both - they were hard to use - too much pressure was required and I have not really re-examined the issue. But reading your reply, I opened Scroodle which I had not looked at in a long while. Interesting how easy it tracks my finger. I have not checked out that many "doodling" apps. But how can one app "feel" the screen differently? So there is some underlying ability that allows "screen sensitivity" to be programmed into an app???

[f1mx]

I don't know the model, but I got one at Staples that is like a paintbrush at the end and it works extremely well. Surprisingly sensitive. Took about a half hour of use before the bristles softened and from then on, it's been great.

I tried one like that. I think it was the pogo. It scratched my otterbox, threw it immediately u.u

[peter9477]

... I opened Scroodle which I had not looked at in a long while. Interesting how easy it tracks my finger. I have not checked out that many "doodling" apps. But how can one app "feel" the screen differently? So there is some underlying ability that allows "screen sensitivity" to be programmed into an app???

There is no sensitivity setting. The difference is merely that some developers are competent at this sort of thing, and others are not.

In terms of things they can actually do to improve the experience, one main thing would be detecting and handling taps that do not result in the position moving. Some apps are written (very poorly) to respond only to a MOVE event (which comes between paired BEGIN/END events for the mouse or touch point), whereas the better ones will handle BEGIN/END with no intervening MOVE by, for example, drawing a dot at that position rather than a line.

The second biggie would be making the code less sluggish. The MOVE events generate a stream of events at about 100Hz (actually I forget if it's quite that fast on the tablet... that's the value from the app in testing on a PC), which is pretty quick. Poor/rookie programmers attempt to do all their updates to the drawing inside the MOVE event handler, and the app can't keep up with the stream of events, becoming "laggy". Good programmers record the stream of events in a quick handler, and only update the display periodically, with more efficient code that can "catch up" and appear not to be so laggy.

[Siiid]

I'd pay good money for a good sketching app that's smooth and has good functions like Sketchbook by Autodesk.