Surface RT writing issues

[Sergio Salvatierra]

Hello everyone, I'm brand new on here but I have browsed this site many times before especially when I purchased my first windows phone a few years back.

Anyway I recently was looking around to buying a tablet geared more towards productivity than anything else. I have had an apple ipad 2 and honestly I was unimpressed, so now I purchased the surface rt and I loved it. Ive been using it with my college courses and its an absolute dream to use.
Now comes the problem. For me the surface is great, does everything and more than what I need, but... when I purchased a stylus so that I could take handwritten notes, I was left questioning the surface. Now I understand that the Pro has an actual digitizer in the screen with the proper stylus and is MADE for Inking. That I fully understand, unfortunately I do not have enough funds to go out and purchase what is basically the cost of a higher end laptop, so I stuck with the RT for a fraction of the price. Now I have used a stylus on the Ipad and it was perfect for my needs, I never had an issue, and so I figured it would be the same with the RT. The moment I went to write a simple word on the surface, it came out looking like dog s@*$... I mean my handwriting is not that bad :shocked:, after a bit of testing I realized that lines drawn at a 45 degree angle seem to look very similar to a sine wave, very consistent throughout the line.
Ive been looking on forums and videos to find a solution and all people reply with is: "Well its not a pro so no digitizer and does not support real inking" Yes I am aware of that, but its not a 20 dollar touch screen either. I downloaded an app from the android store on my cheaper metro Huawei Phone ( which I love) and drew lines on it and guess what, it came out just like on the ipad, if not more fluid.
I cant figure out if it is hardware or software as it is not very apparent if I draw with my finger, and some apps seem to diminish that effect to a certain extent. Can anyone help me here and I imagine a whole group of us with the same problem? I would really love to use this for notetaking and this is making it impossible. I have also passed the return date for Tiger Direct so that's not even an option now unfortunately

One more thing to add. I have seen videos with higher end styli (I believe that's the word) such as the adonit Jot Pro, and they seem to work fantastically, but its a long list of people saying it will scratch your screen so im out of that option too, I did find a far more expensive Adonit Jot Script which seems perfect, but I am just not sure that will honestly take care of the issue I am having with the wavy diagonal lines.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I really hope to get this fixed or solved before the next semester of school. Ill be needing it.

Thanks in advance
Sergio S.

 

[crash1989]

I saw this video sometime back

Note taking Using Surface RT as a Tablet (OneNote) - YouTube

it does have its quirks though.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

The lack of quality of the capacitive touchscreen of the Surface RT/2 is something that caused me a lot of frustration. As you discovered, people immediately justified the poor quality claiming that what is needed is an active digitizer found in the Pro. However, none of those people had much if any experience with an iPad. If they had, they would know that a simple capacitive touchscreen is capable of doing quite well.

None of the iPads had an active digitizer and yet, their "simple" capacitive touchscreens were more than adequate to produce smooth and accurate ink. Fingertip or cheap stylus, the results were equally good. After numerous tests between my Surface RT and my iPad 4 (and iPad 1), using the same physical styli (rubber and foam tip capacitive variety) and a minimum of 1/2 dozen writing apps on both platforms, I came to the conclusion that the Surface RT's capacitive sensor array has a lower resolution than that found in the iPad. The lines and shapes in the iPad drawings always looked smoother and straighter than on the RT. Attempting to draw a equilateral triangle resulted in a "curved stair-step" effect on two of the non-horizontal sides. There was never a scenario where the RT was equal.

Using a finger, the difference was less extreme. Inking on the RT with a fingertip produced adequate results. Still not as clean and accurate as the iPad, but good enough to not be a hinderance. This confirmed my conclusion.

It was then that a few people posted videos of them using an Adonit Jot (NOT the Pro version!). The results looked very much like what I've come to expect from my iPads. So, I purchased an Adonit Jot ($15 from Walmart.com). Tested it out on the RT. The results indeed looked nearly identical to what I get from my iPads. There are still differences, but none with complaining about.

Bottom line: The Adonit Jot will produce clear and accurate ink. You don't NEED the Adonit Jot Pro.

Hope this helps.

 

[Sergio Salvatierra]

Thanks for the quick replies, sorry it took somlomg for me to reply to this, been busy with exams.

Anyway I can't seem to replicate then results in the video with the same stylus, it looks horrible on my surface. How is that even possible?

I did see the jot classic and saw the results on the surface and they where a remarkable change from the rubber styli they compared it to, just as you said it made it look much better than with a regular one. I saw the same results with a jot pro and decided to get the pro simply because of the rubber grip and so it arrived today, I was excited to try it out and finally write n my surface. Once I tried it, it was nearly identical to the cheaper stylus that I purchased previously that gives the wavy lines. Almost exactly the same results and its left me confused. Ive clearly seen on YouTube people using the jot classic and pro and it looks as you said, very close to the iPads. I tried it in the ipad 2 and it was amazing to write with. I honestly feel like I wasted my money on this tablet

 

[steve_w_7]

I use the stylus on my Surface RT all the time. I primarily use OneNote, but it works equally well with word or any other application that utilizes the on screen keyboard. There are three different types of on-screen keyboards: The normal QWERTY keyboard, the split keyboard for using your thumbs and the handwriting "keyboard" (it's really just two lines of space for writing). Instead of using the normal keyboard to input text, select the handwriting keyboard and use any stylus (or your finger!). It will convert your handwriting - even cursive - into text. There is a very brief learning curve to get proficient at it, but once you get it, it works very, very well. I think it's one of the most overlooked features on the Surface RT.

 

[Sergio Salvatierra]

I have been using that feature which I actually really love but sometimes its just nicer having your notes in your own handwriting, haha I don't know if you would understand what I mean, its just frustrating dumping $350 on the surface I which I love except for this issue.
I Just wonder if it maybe Software related too since it detects a finger more accurately.