I would like to use a Surface Pro 3 pen with another tablet.

Anonymous
2014-06-26T02:23:55+00:00

Hi everyone!

I'm going to try out the Surface Pro 3 soon, but I think that N-trig pen is cool, especially the click the top to open One Note feature I saw when it was introduced.

I've done a bit of research and found out the reason the Surface Pro 3 switched from Wacom to N-trig technology was to make the device thinner as the Bluetooth technology used by the pen eliminated the need for a special digitizing layer on the screen. This led me to believe that the pen would be compatible with any Bluetooth supported Windows tablet. Can anyone confirm this is true and whether purchasing the new Surface Pen is worth my money?

I'm asking this because I'm a little annoyed with the performance of the Wacom digitizer on my own tablet (which is not a Surface) and was thinking that a Bluetooth operated pen, which does not require this special internal hardware to be fitted into the device, would make an appropriate replacement and/or backup in case the Wacom fails to work at all. Better still, I'd love to see the click to open One Note feature functional on my unit as well. What do you say?

Appreciate your advice, as always!

CSD Surface Tester.

Surface | Accessories | Surface Pen

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Anonymous
2014-06-26T05:38:09+00:00

That is the reason why to check the specs on the pen.  The particular pen for the Surface Pro 3 only.  The pen itself functions in a dual mode capability but still needs power to do it.  It is classed as a "mechanical" pen because it has electronic components.

The two button batteries pre-installed in the top of the pen functions the Bluetooth connection.  The main battery actually communicates with the pen's driver installed in the tablet to work with the touchscreen.  No digitizer is needed.

If it was a generic pen, you would have an installation disk to install a driver for the pen and that drivers mates with the touchscreen along with adding it as a Bluetooth 4.0 device.

Now, if the Bluetooth connection fails, the pen will still function similar to a stylus where the driver will use the touchscreen like a digitizer surface.  The Bluetooth connection is for software control mainly.

It is a little complex but is a great concept in my thought.  You eliminate hardware (digitizer) and emulate that hardware with software (driver).  Believe it or not, a network adapter and a dial-up modem have been working in that fashion for years; where the driver was actually the modem (simulated hardware) and the hardware (interface card) was just a circuit and connection point.

Right now, you can get Bluetooth and WiFi adapters just slightly bigger than a USB plug.  There is only a very small chip in those and rely on the driver to do the rest.

This pen operates in the same fashion.  Since the driver for it is built in, it cannot be used with any other tablet and this particular model was designed solely for the Surface Pro 3.

Now, like I said, you can get a generic pen (probably from N-Trig) from their web site.  That one will include an installation disk and will work with any tablet that has a touchscreen and Bluetooth 4.0 adapter.  You can't with this particular model.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-06-26T20:54:14+00:00

    Yes, I do understand what you mean. which means since the OneNote integration is independent of the N-trig digitizer, the button should be functional on all Windows devices that support Bluetooth and have OneNote installed, regardless of whether they support touch or not. Is this true?

    As for the N-trig, I am guessing that the driver that makes the pressure sensitivity and palm rejection work is specific to the SP3 and SMini which does not allow it to be used on any other Windows powered tablet or touchscreen device. Have I got the story right?

    Also, even if incompatible drivers do not enable the special features of the Surface pen to function on a non-Surface product, shouldn't the pen be able to work fine as a basic stylus? And as I said before, shouldn't the OneNote button do the job regardless of the device?

    Having said this, I think I'm going to have to do some hands-on with the SP3 in order to figure out how exactly the digitizer technology works and to see if it is compatible, in full or in part, with other products.

    n-trig pens will only work on devices that have the n-trig digitizer installed (just like Wacom, Synaptics or Amtel - this are the other 3 Active Digitizer ODMs), none of these technologies are compatible with each other.

    Wacom and n-trig are both EMR Based, the difference between them is where the electronics live, on a Wacom the electronics live in the Digitizer and the pen is the passive receiver that breaks the field. On the n-trig it is the reverse, the pen has the active electronics, this is why there is a Quad-A battery in the pen (it is also why n-trig devices get better battery life and are thinner)

    n-trig devices currently out there include the SP3, Sony DUO  11 and 13, Sony Tap 11, Flip 15, Acer R7 (2013 Model), Fujitsu Q702 and Q550 and Q552, Motion CL-900, HP Slate 500 and Slate 2, HTC Flyer (Android), Dell XT 1 and 2.

    Synaptics and Amtel have created a new technology called Active Capacitive and currently doesn't give the best results, although Amtel has improved greatly in their v. 2 pen found on the new HP ElitePad 1000 G and Propad 610. Currently the only Synaptics Pens I'm aware of are on the Dell Venue Pro line (8 and 11).

    James is confusing the Bluetooth in the SP3 Pen with technologies that have been implemented by IHV Startups creating Bluetooth based Pens for the iPad (there are 3 or 4 now), the difference is that these Pens are Bluetooth 4.0 LE and require the App to be written using their SDK, again each implementation is different and not compatible with each other.

    None of the Bluetooth based Pens are compatible with Windows HID (Human Interface Driver) Model and we probably won't see them anytime soon on Windows.

    The last type of pens are the passive capacitive pens, these can give OK results on screens that have don't have Active Digitizers.

    As far as the SP3 Pen Top, I have no idea if it is compatible with other devices...sorry

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-06-26T20:35:19+00:00

    Yes, I do understand what you mean. which means since the OneNote integration is independent of the N-trig digitizer, the button should be functional on all Windows devices that support Bluetooth and have OneNote installed, regardless of whether they support touch or not. Is this true?

    As for the N-trig, I am guessing that the driver that makes the pressure sensitivity and palm rejection work is specific to the SP3 and SMini which does not allow it to be used on any other Windows powered tablet or touchscreen device. Have I got the story right?

    Also, even if incompatible drivers do not enable the special features of the Surface pen to function on a non-Surface product, shouldn't the pen be able to work fine as a basic stylus? And as I said before, shouldn't the OneNote button do the job regardless of the device?

    Having said this, I think I'm going to have to do some hands-on with the SP3 in order to figure out how exactly the digitizer technology works and to see if it is compatible, in full or in part, with other products.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-06-26T20:23:28+00:00

    After going through N-Trig's site, they build products for other companies.  Getting the generic pen is probably not going to happen unless a company markets them as an accessory.

    The pen works only with devices that have both touchscreen and Bluetooth 4.0.  A driver is required for the pen to work.

    Now, chances of the digitizer layer failing on your tablet is not going to happen unless the screen gets smashed and even then, it will probably still work.

    I had mentioned of the JOT ADDONIT version of the pen and most likely, N-Trig probably built it for them.  There is no driver from ADDONIT for PCs and only apps for iPad and Android.

    You can probably contact N-Trig to find out who does sell the pen as an accessory.  These are brand new on the market and have never been sold before.  In fact, the ADDONIT model didn't show up until after the Surface Pro 3 was announced with it.

    There are no alternatives.  These are the only two companies that have them.

    It was announced that the Surface Mini supports it but you may have noticed that the Mini is not on the market yet.  Microsoft built 20,000 of them and then parked the order.  It is unknown what the future will be for those and maybe, they will be redesigned and replaced with a version with future technology.  There is no official word on it.

    If all fails, you can always get an attachable digitizer tablet and YES, it does not use the screen.  I have a RT and a Genius model digitizer tablet and it works great on it.  I don't use it, but it works.  Not practical to carry around or taking notes.

    I would say to just get a regular, off-the-shelf JOT ADDONIT stylus pen for about $35 which is non-mechanical but work great.  All you need is a touchscreen for it to function.  Anybody can launch OneNote manually.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-06-26T19:30:23+00:00

    The Bluetooth on the Surface Pro 3 Pen is a separate piece of hardware, it is the top button to activate OneNote, Create New Pages and do Screen Clippings, it has nothing to do with the n-trig digitizer, the bottom 3/4 of the pen is the n-trig pen, the top 1/4 is the Bluetooth Device. They even have separate batteries.

    You can use any n-trig pen on the SP3 but will lose the top button OneNote Integration, also if the Surface Mini does come out, yes you can use the pen to write on it (assuming it uses the same technology) but we do not know if the Bluetooth Device can be paired with more than one device...

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