PDF reading: 701IQ vs. 902/903

[fishNco]

thanks for all your help @paolamanzini, you're a star!

[Nick_Djinn]

There are some generalizations here.

"Touch Screens" are not necessarily a problem. Its a certain TYPE of touch screen that is sub par. The Wacom screens that are BENEATH the e-ink that require a stylus are are example of a technology that should not decrease screen quality. There is also a capacitive touch screen that wont decrease the quality of the screen I believe, though I dont know the details. I think its the pressure screens that are ABOVE the e-ink that create glare and loss of clarity.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Nick_Djinn

There are some generalizations here.

"Touch Screens" are not necessarily a problem. Its a certain TYPE of touch screen that is sub par. The Wacom screens that are BENEATH the e-ink that require a stylus are are example of a technology that should not decrease screen quality. There is also a capacitive touch screen that wont decrease the quality of the screen I believe, though I dont know the details. I think its the pressure screens that are ABOVE the e-ink that create glare and loss of clarity.

Quite true.
But, strictly-speaking, the Wacom screens aren't touchscreens anyway; they are digitizers. They don't respond to touch at all but rather track the motion of the bundled stylus. And they are a *lot* more precise than any touch screen if used with the proper software.
Using Wacom tech solely for gui control is kind of a waste of potential.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Quite true.
But, strictly-speaking, the Wacom screens aren't touchscreens anyway; they are digitizers. They don't respond to touch at all but rather track the motion of the bundled stylus.

And respond to the tip of the stylus being pressed. I have played with mine in scribble and if the stylus is close enough to the screen, if I press the tip of the stylus with my fingernail I can draw without touching the screen.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

And respond to the tip of the stylus being pressed. I have played with mine in scribble and if the stylus is close enough to the screen, if I press the tip of the stylus with my fingernail I can draw without touching the screen.

On tablet PCs, Wacom digitizers track the stylus in 3D space so you can move the cursor around the screen without touching the screen and then activate on-screen objects by touching them. On the digitizer pads for artists, pressure detection is extremely precise and, when used with the right software (Corel Painter 11 is one) can reproduce natural media effects perfectly. An artist friend of mine got a Wacom pad and Painter 11 and the thing is justabout eating all her free time. But she is producing amazing artwork as good or better as she does with traditional materials but a lot faster.

I don't know what kind of resources processing stylus pressure data would demand (or even if the 903 digitizer can go beyond on-off pressure detection) so I'm not sure a natural media sketchpad is doable but it might be a useful way to easily distinguish between highlighting and annotation input on PDFs and ebooks: light pressure producing a thin-line annotation and high-pressure producing a broad highlight...
(shrug)
There's a lot of room to explore in the ergonomics of natural user interfaces and even Microsoft (TabletPC, Kinect, Surface, Voice Command) can't explore them all. Plenty of room for other players to bring added value to products there. Asus is bringing some of it to the Eee Note pad so maybe Pocketbook can (later) bring some of those capabilities to the 603/903 line.

Or, even better, to a future IQ followup, combining (as some TabletPCs do) both a resistive touchscreen *and* a Wacom Digitizer.

We may yet see some fun toys.