[Daniel Ratcliffe]

Unfortunately, I think the Pro might be the best choice for you. But be sure to ask around in our Surface Pro section, to check if it has all the stuff you need. That will then allow you to make an informed choice. Don't get me wrong, the Surface RT looks like a great device, but I also use my tablet for note taking, which is why I own a HTC Flyer with an active-capacitive dual-digitizer (I got it before Windows 8 and the Galaxy Note series, so at the time it was the only semi-mainstream tablet available). Much as I would love the Pro, not sure I can justify the cost given I have a MacBook Pro (with a dual-boot). Just thought I would also share my experiences. But yeah, ask around here about the Pro, and see if you can sell your Surface RT here (we have a marketplace section but make sure to check our rules).

[loribinca]

I'm going to keep it Daniel, and hope that at some point MS or a third party addresses these shortcomings. I can but hope :)

I hear you about the 'inking' being better on the Surface pro, and with an active pen I am sure it is way better than capacitive, but I would have at least hoped/assumed that the capacitive pen capabilities on surface/RT were at least on par with an iPad1, which doesn't seem to be the case. That's kind of mind-blowing really, but it is what it is I guess.

There are a few things I could still use it for. It's such a shame because if it was able to do a couple more things (capacitive pen note taking, Cisco VPN) , I could really make a lot more use of it, than I currently do.

Most days, it just sits lonely in my office, while I take my gen1 iPad out on the road with me, which can do both of these things

[johninsj]

The iPad appears to have a higher resolution grid of touch sensors, which gives it smoother inking ability. The RT's touch hardware was designed primarily for touching UI elements, because the OS supports dual touch (active pen and capacitive) and the active digitizer is WAY more accurate for inking. Software (like the app I linked to) can do some smoothing/fitting of the rough points into more curved shapes, but at that point it's just guessing :)

So on Windows 8 - use digitizer based hardware for fine inking. Use capacitive for touching UI elements. On the iPad, use capacitive for both.

[rdubmu]

The Surface RT only supports 5 point multitouch while the pro supports 10 point. I use One Note 13 for taking hand written notes on my Surface Pro. Works great.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Tapatalk

[Rhody#WP]

Did MS scrap Journal? That was a pretty good bare-bones note taking app, like a pad of paper.

[11B1P]

Do these apps recognize input with just you're fingertip?

[loribinca]

Did MS scrap Journal? That was a pretty good bare-bones note taking app, like a pad of paper.

Apparently it's still in windows 8 - but NOT RT .. again RT seems to get the shaft .. :( sigh

[Rhody#WP]

Apparently it's still in windows 8 - but NOT RT .. again RT seems to get the shaft .. :( sigh

That might be a sign MS does not envision an RT tablet with an active digitizer.

[jhoff80]

Or, it's because Journal is a small subset of the features in OneNote, and OneNote is included in Windows RT, whereas it's not in Windows 8?

[Vinayp]

hey - did you end up finding anything?
about to try 'scribbleRT'

[loribinca]

I tried scribble, and I found this to be the best of the bunch, but to be honest, at the end of the day, you are going to be hamstrung by the capabilities of the digitizer grid in the hardware.

It kinda boggles my mind why the digitizer resolution is not at least on par with a gen1 iPad, but there you go. That's MS's design decision.

[infinidim]

Try Note Anytime. Pretty good inking even with your finger...

Note Anytime app for Windows in the Windows Store

When I tried to get to it in the store it said "it was no longer available" - sad...

[Nick Miller2]

Something I've noticed with ALL the tablets... iPad, Samsung, and Microsoft. .. I've had all 3. If your tablet doesn't support a dedicated stylus, make sure you get a "mesh tip" stylus, rather than a rubber tipped one. That makes a HUGE difference in your experience. I switch to the mesh stylus and the Surface exceeded my iPad 2.

[loribinca]

Something I've noticed with ALL the tablets... iPad, Samsung, and Microsoft. .. I've had all 3. If your tablet doesn't support a dedicated stylus, make sure you get a "mesh tip" stylus, rather than a rubber tipped one. That makes a HUGE difference in your experience. I switch to the mesh stylus and the Surface exceeded my iPad 2.

Good to know Nick. I've ordered one from Amazon, to see if it's better. thanks

[Philip McDunnough]

It may be true that few people handwrite but if you are just going to type text you might be better off with a laptop. There are many scientific fields where handwriting is important. Try taking notes in a math lecture using a typewriter. Unless you are the best TeX person in the world it won't do. I'd imagine the same would hold in any field which uses a fair amount of mathematics. That is not something to write off so easily. I happen to like Windows RT, but the Surface RT is not to me a real tablet. It is uncomfortable in portrait mode and really does work better in landscape mode.

The iPad has many excellent note apps that do have palm rejection capabilities and they work really well. If you are willing to spend $70 on a stylus then you get palm rejection via Bluetooth 4.0 from several of the newer stylii.

Samsung has their Note 8.0 and 10.1 Android tablets with excellent note taking using Wacom active screen technology.

I really want win 8 to succeed as it's very neat but falling back on the old Office trick is not going to work. Office is not state of the art. It's very good but it's really part of technology that is fading. I realize most businesses still are into it but they will at some point move into a more scientific era and not the VisiCalc one. The Surface strategy, both Pro and RT, didn't work obviously. Nothing wrong with RT not running legacy apps but that seems to have not gone over well with Windows' users. Odd as I thought the RT approach made more sense than the expense, low battery life, Suface Pro.

Using OneNote on the RT is painful. It just doesn't compare to many iPad and even Android apps. I don't think the handwriting recognition thing is important and hence whether or not something integrates well with Office is not a priority for me.

I am not saying there is no place for the Surface RT. It's a very good first shot, but things are moving quickly and Android and iOS devices are not making it easy for people to bother with a 3rd platform. I guess as an Office machine it makes sense as is. Beautiful hardware, great GUI, ... just missing an identity. Obviously something is wrong as no one is buying them.

Philip

[Philip McDunnough]

Apparently it's still in windows 8 - but NOT RT .. again RT seems to get the shaft .. :( sigh

Journal is great. You would have thought that would have been easy to put into RT. Really excellent program. When it wasn't available on the Surface RT I cancelled my order.

Philip

[Claudia Wey]

I agree with Nick. Windows 8 doesn't work well with most of the capacitive stylus. The amPen (~$5 on Amazon) is the only one that works great.

[Sachinmeet]

Innote just got released

[Ben749]

Hi everyone
I'm proud owner of a galaxy note, as well as a Samsung Slate 7 tablet, both use a wacom digitiser screen and same pen works on both.

On galaxy note I use LectureNotes, which is pretty good, except he doesn't recognizes handwriting ..

On the slate 7 ( still under windows 7 ) I'm balanced between windows Journal and OneNote, even when they're lacking features such as :
- custom pen definition ( color, thickness, alpha )
- custom background ( I mainly use black background in my notes .. )
- native palm rejection

Because I mainly write on it with small handwriting, I'm lacking a "thiner" pen definition, or custom background / more colors in OneNote

[WillysJeepMan]

The iPad appears to have a higher resolution grid of touch sensors, which gives it smoother inking ability. The RT's touch hardware was designed primarily for touching UI elements, because the OS supports dual touch (active pen and capacitive) and the active digitizer is WAY more accurate for inking. Software (like the app I linked to) can do some smoothing/fitting of the rough points into more curved shapes, but at that point it's just guessing :)

So on Windows 8 - use digitizer based hardware for fine inking. Use capacitive for touching UI elements. On the iPad, use capacitive for both.

Your observations have mirrored mine. I have done extensive testing and research on the matter. It does appear that the iPad has a higher resolution grid for the capacitive touch sensor. For many uses, a hi-res capacitive sensor array is sufficient... as is evident by what is possible on the iPad.

On the iPad, foam, rubber, and Adonit Jot styli work very well. On the Surface RT, only the Adonit Jot was capable of producing something comparable to the iPad. I think it was a poor decision on Microsoft's part to cheap-out on the capacitive touch, and it is equally disturbing for advocates to suggest going Surface Pro to get acceptable inking results.

Something I've noticed with ALL the tablets... iPad, Samsung, and Microsoft. .. I've had all 3. If your tablet doesn't support a dedicated stylus, make sure you get a "mesh tip" stylus, rather than a rubber tipped one. That makes a HUGE difference in your experience. I switch to the mesh stylus and the Surface exceeded my iPad 2.

That is completely different than my experience. True, mesh glides across the screen better than rubber. But neither produced acceptable results for my on my Surface RT. No where near as good as on my iPads. Try slowly drawing an equilateral triangle (use any app you'd like) on the Surface RT. You'll end up with wobbly sides of the triangle, a curvy stair-stepped line (a result of the lower res capacitive touch sensor array).

[Ben749]

Obviously, can't find currently a bette app than windows journal .. kindof shame ..
- the minus are : it tends to have a high cpu / ram usage as a page is filled with stroke, no color picker like sketchbook or lecturenotes
A lecture notes portage to the windows ecosystem should be such a killer ..

[onlysublime]

Have you tried Skitch Touch? It also integrates into Evernote. I use it on my RT but not really for doodling (but it has that option). I use it more for annotating pictures.

[rkarolak]

If you haven't, you may want to try the handwriting "keyboard." It may be a good alternative.