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
    2014-06-27T03:05:37+00:00

    No, it is actually a little different.  Still investigating on this myself but I came across the information from a web site that I forgot all about.  There are a bunch of crazies that take apart new devices just to see how they tick and what they do is create repair manuals from that information.

    They took apart a Surface Pro 3 i5 (current shipped model) and described the components inside and it turns out that the controller that controls the touchscreen also controls the pen as well.  It was described in the past that the pen works with the touchscreen but no mention on HOW.  This right here was the missing puzzle piece.

    Bottom line though, that pen will only work on a device with a N-Trig touchscreen controller of that model type for which is dual purpose is for both touchscreen control as normal plus as a controller for the pen.  The controller is not the digitizer, that component is in the pen itself.

    So, it means that the device the pen works with DOES require a piece of hardware and that means that you cannot use the pen in no fashion with any device unless it has a N-Trig controller chip to do that job.  Any device that would have a controller like that would always include a pen - it is useless without it.

    Now, there is nothing wrong with a regular, non-mechanical stylus pen if it has a fine point because a lot of software allows for that type of pen input.  This N-Trig version would require software that supports a digitizer input feature.  The pen sort of reverses the role of a regular digitizer tablet in a fashion.  Doing that eliminated a lot of hardware.  This means that no mesh is required behind the screen and allows the screen to be built thinner and thus able to make the whole tablet thinner as well.

    It may still be a little confusing on how it works but personally, I wonder how come this technology wasn't used before with the Pro and Pro 2.  Apparently, these have been around for a while but never 'advertised' and the other devices that use this pen type never mention it either.

    So, yes!  It is not a generic product and cannot work with any other device.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-06-27T02:42:41+00:00

    So N-trig is just Wacom with the active components in the pen rather than the screen itself; it is not a generic product that can be configured to work on any device. I seem to get it now. An I right?

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-06-27T00:30:20+00:00

    That is the hardware.  It doubles as the touchscreen controller and the pen.  Click on that link in the previous post and it will take to the N-Trig page.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-06-27T00:16:31+00:00

    Hey James,

    The pen still needs the n-Trig hardware in the screen assembly, the pen would be useless without it.

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