Some insights into Wacom > N-Trig change: Surface pro 3

[manicottiK]

He's publicly saying they did not get things correct in the surface pro 3...

Indeed, he is saying that.

...when in reality most of the issues he has can be addressed in firmware updates.

Hmmm, apparently, you're also saying that they did not get things correct yet. You speculate (correctly, I think) that these issues are correctable and he says that Microsoft is happily taking his input. Unexpectedly, you two agree again that we are on our way to a really good product by the June 20 ship date.

And to be fair, programs like Photoshop are sometimes clunky... He could have at least mentioned that Adobe has been working with Microsoft... And maybe that version of Photoshop runs smoother...

Unnecessarily wistful apologies for products not yet scheduled to be optimized. Please don't be upset that he likes the Surface Pro 3, but isn't yet ready to ask the Supreme Court to let him marry it. (Marriage is between one man and one transistor, right?)

He could have at least informed people that with updates the SP3 could be fixed. Instead he leaves an article that pretty much says don't buy this machine...

You're right, he could have ended with something hopeful, like this:

MS is going to be using me as a sort of artist guinea pig from what it sounds like. They will be bringing me new devices with some special options that they think may resolve my problems. As soon as next week I’ll probably be testing out some new stuff. I will keep you updated but for right now, I can’t tell artists to run out and buy the Surface Pro 3 today.

I read a lot of reviews of the SP3 before placing my order. The only ones that I considered unfair were the ones that focused only on the edge use cases for each uni-tasker (i.e., super-light tablet for holding and super-stable notebook for lap use) without mentioning that a multifunction device has benefits, too, one of which is the ability to straddle the fence between those edges. Gabe's wasn't unfair.

[Disclosure: I have no idea who Gabe or Perry Arcade are and I'm not defending the review out of some sense of loyalty.]

 

[RajeevT]

I've used windows which is what it runs. His point about power settings is wrong. I mean, I guess if you're lazy and don't go to the main control panel or search for it, you won't find it. The advanced settings for power are not located in the modern side of the settings. But most people with above average knowledge of windows 8 should know that.

And I doubt he's talking directly to MS Reps. If he is and they couldn't guide him to the power settings, then they should be fired. If MS plopped a SP3 in front of me right now, I guarantee you I could change the power settings within 15 seconds.

You couldn't be more wrong about Mike Krahulik not being in touch with MS. He's a pretty influential guy and people value his opinion, which is why they've been courting him (as well as other artists and graphics professionals) ever since the Surface Pro was launched which he reviewed very well, and he was also a guest of MS at the Surface 2 launch event. This is not just some guy trying to boast about his contacts within the company; he actually does have a guy from MS working with him taking his feedback, and they are listening to him very seriously because his opinion does matter.

As for your frankly ridiculous remarks and dismissal of him saying he must be dumb because neither he nor the MS reps can find the High Performance power plan, let me tell you that the only power plan that Windows provides for PCs with InstantGo (formerly known as Connected Standby) is Balanced. All others have to be manually recreated and aren't just hidden somewhere like you seem to think. About the Pro 3 running slower due to the same CPU/GPU combo powering a device with much higher resolution, have you even used one to know what he's talking about? How can you dismiss the opinion of an actual user who has had hands-on experience with the latest device and compared it to the previous generations (as well as test devices I might add which MS sends him) that he uses quite regularly and loves? This is not your typical anti-MS tech blogger talking out of his backside without any first hand experience; this is someone who the company itself is looking to and actively pursuing for valuable feedback based on which they'll hopefully tune the hardware/firmware so that it works well on launch for all of us potential purchasers. Given the amount of credibility he has I'd take his word any day over someone like you babbling something on some forum, and MS would be crazy to ignore his remarks (which it seems they're not doing and that's great news for us). Matter of fact my friend who's an artist by profession is willing to give the Pro 3 a shot purely because of Mike's review, because like others he was initially of the opinion that MS had made a huge mistake by dumping Wacom and going with N-Trig. Mike's comments about the N-Trig tech reassured him so much he immediately pre-ordered the 256GB HD5000 i7 one (because of the problems Mike had in Photoshop and Manga Studio with the HD4400 i5) and is eagerly waiting for it, hoping that the other minor quirks are ironed out by MS before shipping or even with a quick firmware update. I mean, when you come right down to it Mike's 3 main complaints are easily solved by:

i) buying the higher-end model with the better CPU and integrated GPU (driver/firmware updates down the line should also hopefully help somewhat with the lower end and mid range i3/i5 models),
ii) MS making a batch file or simple instructions available to recreate the High Performance power plan, and
iii) providing a way via a driver/firmware update to allow users to turn the Windows button (along with haptic feedback) on/off easily

At this point I'm pretty sure we'll see a follow-up post from Mike soon where he'll be super enthusiastic about the Pro 3 (he already thinks it is "so close to being perfect" anyway) once he's tried the higher end model and MS solves the other two issues for him (and everyone else).

 

[anon(5445874)]

You guys are nuts. He's claiming the device cannot run at the regular surface 3 resolution without slowdown, if that's the case then how in the world can the surface pro 3 run on a 4k monitor like they are advertising?

 

[Great deal]

let this thread die - its getting sooooo boring now. how old r u all?

 

[RajeevT]

You guys are nuts. He's claiming the device cannot run at the regular surface 3 resolution without slowdown

He's claiming with the i5 version there was noticeable cursor lag and stuttering when navigating files in Photoshop and Manga Studio, and I would bet he's working with huge files as well. Do you honestly think he would lie about something like this? For what possible reason? He even mentioned that reducing the resolution improved performance a lot, and of course he has none of those problems with the same CPU/GPU combo on his Pro 2.

if that's the case then how in the world can the surface pro 3 run on a 4k monitor like they are advertising?

How about we try one ourselves before pronouncing judgement on how well it drives a 4K monitor? Also, what you're trying to run and display on such a monitor will no doubt make a massive difference. I'd bet if there's a noticeable lag in his work-flow with heavy-duty graphics apps at the full 2160x1440 resolution, then trying to run the same while connected to a 4K monitor will result in even worse performance. Intel HD Graphics 4400 is no great shakes as everyone knows.

 

[Reflexx]

You guys are nuts. He's claiming the device cannot run at the regular surface 3 resolution without slowdown, if that's the case then how in the world can the surface pro 3 run on a 4k monitor like they are advertising?

Says the guy who hasn't used it.

 

[manicottiK]

I think that there's a known issue with cursor hover lag with N-Trig. I don't know if that's an old thing or a current thing and none of us know if the drivers installed on the pre-production SP3 are standard N-Trig drivers, if they're special ones for the touch tech that's in SP3, or if newer ones are coming before the June 20 ship date.

 

[Reflexx]

I think that there's a known issue with cursor hover lag with N-Trig. I don't know if that's an old thing or a current thing and none of us know if the drivers installed on the pre-production SP3 are standard N-Trig drivers, if they're special ones for the touch tech that's in SP3, or if newer ones are coming before the June 20 ship date.

Yes. Previous N-trigs have lag in "hover" mode.

 

[Peter England]

Hi all, my first time on these forums but I've pre-ordered a Surface Pro 3 i5/128 in the UK. I have been waiting for this device since MS announced the Surface Pro 1!

My primary use is editing photos in Lightroom and I've been using a Surface Pro 2 but the stylus is never accurate.

I was happy to see MS had upgraded the pen technology to improve this but with all the talk here about Ntrig vs Wacom I got worried.

There's a good video here though of a guy using the Surface Pro 3 to sketch and it's put my mind at ease.
Surface Pro 3 : Pen writing and drawing demo http://youtu.be/VD_fNrLkS54

Posted via Windows Phone Central App

 

[onysi]

This guy is awesome. he is so much more in depth than anyone ive found on youtube.

Hi all, my first time on these forums but I've pre-ordered a Surface Pro 3 i5/128 in the UK. I have been waiting for this device since MS announced the Surface Pro 1!

My primary use is editing photos in Lightroom and I've been using a Surface Pro 2 but the stylus is never accurate.

I was happy to see MS had upgraded the pen technology to improve this but with all the talk here about Ntrig vs Wacom I got worried.

There's a good video here though of a guy using the Surface Pro 3 to sketch and it's put my mind at ease.
Surface Pro 3 : Pen writing and drawing demo Surface Pro 3 : Pen writing and drawing demo ( Digitizer Stylus ) - YouTube

Posted via Windows Phone Central App

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Hi all, my first time on these forums but I've pre-ordered a Surface Pro 3 i5/128 in the UK. I have been waiting for this device since MS announced the Surface Pro 1!

My primary use is editing photos in Lightroom and I've been using a Surface Pro 2 but the stylus is never accurate.

I was happy to see MS had upgraded the pen technology to improve this but with all the talk here about Ntrig vs Wacom I got worried.

There's a good video here though of a guy using the Surface Pro 3 to sketch and it's put my mind at ease.
Surface Pro 3 : Pen writing and drawing demo Surface Pro 3 : Pen writing and drawing demo ( Digitizer Stylus ) - YouTube

Posted via Windows Phone Central App

That video is by the legendary Sean Ong. A regular guy who created a few videos showcasing the power and flexibility of the Surface RT and Surface 2.

I'm delighted to see that Microsoft gave him one to review. He's just a regular guy who does regular things. Love it.

 

[Artemsii]

I actually tried surface2 and 3 side by side today and on the 3 you have to press the stylus much harder In order to get the full value of stroke, not sure thi can be adjusted. On the 2 the stylus was very responsive.

 

[hopmedic]

I'm late to this discussion, and don't know any of the reviewers involved, as I'm not a person who sees Penny Arcade as a big deal (never heard of it). But it seems to me that just the fact that he HAS a SP3 says something about what Microsoft thinks of his opinion, even if you don't look at anything else.

 

[hopmedic]

Having now read the article linked on page one, as well as an update to it (Penny Arcade - Surface Pro 3 update), I'm sufficiently convinced that the guy has the ear of Microsoft, and that Microsoft is actively listening.

 

[stephen_az]

To start, this is a blog post and like many such posts it presents the author's speculation as fact. In this case, at least one of the claims is not even true. Microsoft has not stopped advertising Wacom technology in the earlier devices and the Microsoft Store located a mile from my apartment will absolutely tell you its advantages. In fact, while looking at one of the Dell Venue 8 Pro units in the store, the first thing pointed out was that the pen support was a nice bonus but you really needed to look at Surface Pro 2 (or the Asus VivoTab 8) for best performance. What do those two devices have in common? Yes, they use Wacom technology and they certainly will call it out by name. As to the subject of it was needed for a thinner device, has anyone picked up one of the little Asus VivoTab 8s? It is hardly thick and after updated Wacom drivers were released the performance it very good. Sorry but all this amounts to is pointing to using another person's uninformed speculation to shore up what has been a point of contention regarding Surface Pro 3. Oh, Wacom will license its technology - that is how they make their money. Sorry but there are no facts to be found, just speculation.

As to whether or not Surface Pro 3 performance is inferior to Surface Pro 2, I think the lead article on this site addresses that subject. As some of us have already pointed out, yes the button placement is clumsy and yes the device absolutely suffers from noticeable lag. Both will be fixed but one points to awkward design (where were the focus groups on this one) and the other to inferior technology. Rationalize to one's heart's content and they still replaced industry standard with not industry standard (to put it mildly). They are also attempting to market a product in part by creating a problem that does not exist (need for a new pen) and a solution no one requested. This may work when you control the market but it does not when you are still trying to develop that market. BTW, it also implies their previous Surface Pros used inferior technology and further creates technological fragmentation in offices that might have both. You cannot use pens interchangeably anymore, nor can you grab the Wacom pen from the digitizer. Instead you have to make an entirely new investment in something that sits segregated from the rest of the design technology in your office.

To just wrap up why this does not work for me (and those in my line or related lines of work) look at the comment by DSD Cert in the following article: TickTakashi: Wacom vs N-Trig - A Modern Comparison. Throw in lag and this is precisely my experience when testing Surface Pro 3. The joke is in the associated article, most n trig advantages were (like this blog post) speculative whereas the Wacom advantages were actual real world advantages. The comment, likewise, is real world use and speculate and ponder however one wants but real world trumps marketing and promise.

 

[mozman68]

To start, this is a blog post and like many such posts it presents the author's speculation as fact. In this case, at least one of the claims is not even true. Microsoft has not stopped advertising Wacom technology in the earlier devices and the Microsoft Store located a mile from my apartment will absolutely tell you its advantages. In fact, while looking at one of the Dell Venue 8 Pro units in the store, the first thing pointed out was that the pen support was a nice bonus but you really needed to look at Surface Pro 2 (or the Asus VivoTab 8) for best performance. What do those two devices have in common? Yes, they use Wacom technology and they certainly will call it out by name. As to the subject of it was needed for a thinner device, has anyone picked up one of the little Asus VivoTab 8s? It is hardly thick and after updated Wacom drivers were released the performance it very good. Sorry but all this amounts to is pointing to using another person's uninformed speculation to shore up what has been a point of contention regarding Surface Pro 3. Oh, Wacom will license its technology - that is how they make their money. Sorry but there are no facts to be found, just speculation.

As to whether or not Surface Pro 3 performance is inferior to Surface Pro 2, I think the lead article on this site addresses that subject. As some of us have already pointed out, yes the button placement is clumsy and yes the device absolutely suffers from noticeable lag. Both will be fixed but one points to awkward design (where were the focus groups on this one) and the other to inferior technology. Rationalize to one's heart's content and they still replaced industry standard with not industry standard (to put it mildly). They are also attempting to market a product in part by creating a problem that does not exist (need for a new pen) and a solution no one requested. This may work when you control the market but it does not when you are still trying to develop that market. BTW, it also implies their previous Surface Pros used inferior technology and further creates technological fragmentation in offices that might have both. You cannot use pens interchangeably anymore, nor can you grab the Wacom pen from the digitizer. Instead you have to make an entirely new investment in something that sits segregated from the rest of the design technology in your office.

To just wrap up why this does not work for me (and those in my line or related lines of work) look at the comment by DSD Cert in the following article: TickTakashi: Wacom vs N-Trig - A Modern Comparison. Throw in lag and this is precisely my experience when testing Surface Pro 3. The joke is in the associated article, most n trig advantages were (like this blog post) speculative whereas the Wacom advantages were actual real world advantages. The comment, likewise, is real world use and speculate and ponder however one wants but real world trumps marketing and promise.

The problem with your entire post (and any other post that wants to argue the merits of either technology based on their individual preference/occupation) is that all of that stuff only affects you and an extremely small minority of people like you.

My own experience with the pen versus that of the SP2 version is that I can click the button and it opens OneNote....so I can take notes....since that who they are marketing to...their gajillion business customers (like me). The extremely small, digital artist community will just have to suffer....slightly... :evil:

 

[onlysublime]

From reading Gabe's post at Penny Arcade (who is an artist who uses this stuff professionally and not just as a hobby), it tells me 4 things:

1) engineers design things one way without realizing that the design may not work with everyone. The placement of the Windows button on the side fixed it for some people (if you ever did a salesman PDF slide presentation and held the SP2 by the side and flipped from page to page, the Windows key kept getting in the way), but messed it up for others (righties who draw on the SP3).

2) the N-Trig is inferior in real-world situations, at least for now.

3) Microsoft is listening to its customers and target audiences. Their fix for the Windows button seems to work great for Gabe. They're working hard to get the pressure sensitivity to where it needs to be by altering those pressure curves to fit artists better. Microsoft should be applauded for this. Getting the rough edges out of the system before it's released is a good thing.

4) people who own the SP2 should be happy with what their machine offers. It's a great machine that should feel snappier than the SP3 because it's only having to drive 1920x1080 pixels versus 2160x1440 pixels. It has the Wacom technology that is more established and at least right now, better real world capabilities. If you need the larger screen or want the thinner body and lighter weight or want the wireless AC, the SP3 will be great. But the SP2 is great and perhaps better in a number of ways as well.

This isn't to say that articles pointing to N-Trig advantages are wrong either. Both systems have their pros and cons. The Wacom tech isn't perfect by any means. On my SP2, no matter how much i calibrate, it never seems like the point on the screen is at the same place as where my tip touches the screen. Still works great but a bit visually irksome.

 

[houkoholic]

2) the N-Trig is inferior in real-world situations, at least for now.

No - it is inferior in *some situations* for *certain people*, even Gabe acknowledges and even said to the MS engineers that he is a fringe case of a niche group of users and that it should be acceptible to most people. Things like pressure curve is not necessarily objective but a subjective preference, and then it is already said that N-trig is simply more accurate and has less parallex than Wacom, you can't suddenly dismiss these facts to be irrelevant in real world usage and jump to claim N-trig is broadly inferior - there may very well be people who finds the Wacom edge issue to be inferior in real world usage too. Therefore this does not make N-trig inferior in real world situations at all, only that there are pros and cons depending on the person's usage. Stop feeding the meme machine - just say that the N-trig system has some issues that needs to be solved and leave it at that.

 

[onlysublime]

Stop feeding the meme machine - just say that the N-trig system has some issues that needs to be solved and leave it at that.

I would say stop taking every word the Microsoft advertising machine pushes as gospel.. When it comes to integrating any technology, there are pros and cons and politics to why something is used and something else is not used.

This is why we hate Apple fanboys who soak up everything Apple says. It's not necessary until Apple says it's necessary, right?

 

[houkoholic]

I would say stop taking every word the Microsoft advertising machine pushes as gospel.. When it comes to integrating any technology, there are pros and cons and politics to why something is used and something else is not used.

This is why we hate Apple fanboys who soak up everything Apple says. It's not necessary until Apple says it's necessary, right?

No, this has got nothing to do with taking Microsoft marketing as gospel, as pretty much every objective review about the whole Wacom vs N-trig thing has agreed that both has its own pros and cons, Wacom has a better pressure curve for artists, has wider software/driver support etc. but N-trig is more accurate and less parallex and offers a better note-taking experience that has been praised as the closest to a pen on paper experience is also a fact that has been repeated by a lot of reputable sites and reviewers. Taking these facts into consideration, it is absolutely wrong to say that N-trig is inferior to Wacom in all real world situations, my statement - that N-trig is inferior in *some situations* for *certain users* - namely artists whom has a particular preference in their drawing equipment, is, in fact, the most correct statement that someone can make. Stating otherwise would actually be what you are trying to accuse people of as being repeating Microsoft marketing, but the shoe would be on the Wacom ******'s foot trying to pass off their own limited usage scenario as gospel. Again, even Gabe doesn't fall into that trap and I respect in him for being so understanding that his own usage may not be a objective representation of every usage scenario.