Writing on the Screen

 I got into computers shortly before the turn of the century.

Wow, it feels a little odd to say "turn of the century" and mean the 21st Century, and not the 20th Century.  At least it feels odd for someone born in the middle of the century.

1996

That is when I got a job that required using a PC.  Before I went in for the job interview, I had sat in front of a Mac for about half an hour.  That I was able to get the job despite having no PC experience, says something about the other applicants.  There was a PC portion to the interview.

Be that as it may, it was later in 1996 when a friend built me my first PC out of his spare parts.  And yet, with very limited PC experience, I was able to get a job at Dell, doing Tech Support, in mid-1997.  I think it showed a lot more about how desperate Dell was than how good I was.  But I learned fast.

Now, 23 years later, I still work Tech Support at a State Agency.

More than 2 years ago, I wrote a review of the HP Elite X2.  That was a work PC, and before that I owned an HP iPAQ 214 PDA.  And actually, back during my Dell days I had a Dell Axim PDA.  I am not trying to give you a history of my computing devices, just the ones where I could write on the screen.

With all of these, as well as my Samsung Tab A 10.5, the experience of writing on a glass screen is not great.  I got used to it on my PDA, but I have never liked it at all on any tablet...until now.

I recently bought an Acer Switch 3.

I actually enjoy writing with this stylus on this screen.  I think that the difference is the tip on the stylus, but I cannot tell for sure.

The problem with most 3rd party styluses (styli?) is that they fall in to two categories, passive styli with soft rubber tips, and powered styli, with hard plastic tips.

The soft rubber tip is floppy, and that is its biggest problem.  There is generally some resistance, which is good, but the floppiness of the tip ruins the experience.  The powered stylus, is one that you charge via USB or you use 4A batteries.  The problem is usually that the hard plastic tip on the glass screen gives no resistance at all, so there is no feel.  It is hard to know how much or how little you are moving it through the stylus body.  It works, but not well.

The Acer Switch 3 is different.  There is resistance when you move the stylus across the screen, just like with a pen on paper.  It isn't perfect.  It isn't as nice as a good quality fountain pen when writing on good paper, but it is better than most.

The Acer Switch 3 has a dedicated stylus that came with the unit.  I did not have to pay extra for it.  Something I forgot to mention earlier was my Dell Venue 8 Pro.  It didn't come with a stylus, but I bought the Dell stylus intended for it, and it does not compare to the Acer.

Now, if I could only get a similar experience with my Samsung Tablet.