"The only way to be truly satisfied, is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do." Steve Jobs
Once "inking" gets into your veins you will never be able to live without it. Frank J. Garcia

My Surface PRO 3 'Must Have' Accessories List

Friday, May 18, 2007

Digitizer vs Touch Screen

Every technology has advantages and disadvantages. A digitizer is more precise, you can hover, you can have an eraser included in your digipen... It's the ideal thing to have when you have a 12 inches and up screen. In another hand, we have touch screens where with a little bit of work you can almost do the same thing you do in a digitizer, less precise, no hover, no that comfortable but no needs of any special pen. You can use it with your fingers with a tooth stick, with anything you may thing being sure not to damage the screen. AND IT'S CHEAPER than a digitizer. These advantages is what makes me thing that touch screen is a must have in any UMPC.

The reason why I'm writing these words is because of the latest review written by Dennis Rice about the OQO 02. Let me start by saying that I like the design of the OQO 02. Like Dennis said, this OQO could easily become the iPod of the UMPC. But... it's not cheap, something that Dennis mentioned in his review, and it uses a digitizer which is a more expensive technology that could have been easily replaced by a cheaper and most useful on that size machine touch screen.
I almost pissed my pants when I was reading Dennis' Review, do not get me wrong, it's a well written review, it's a fair review and I like it but... here is what made me laugh. At the beginning of the review Dennis said:
It had an ACTIVE digitizer (yes, yes, yes!!). The inking experience was quite nice, although screen real estate is obviously an issue with a screen this size. No touch? THANK YOU VERY MUCH OQO. I don't want it.
And when he ended with all things that he liked then he added those things that he did not like it, and there was the funny part to me:
No pen included? When I got it, I immediately started looking for the pen garage. Hmmm, where is tha darn thing? It's gotta be here somewhere! Nope -- it's not there. Huh? Whassup with that? Active digitizer means I need a pen. What, not included? Tsk-tsk-tsk. Not good. A pen is included with XP Tablet SKU, but not with Vista? Need to change that one OQO.
Aha! If this unit would had a touch screen Dennis could have used anything to write on it, including his fingers! Did you get my point? Cheaper and easier to use, that's why UMPC use and must have always touch screens.

2 comments:

  1. Except that a touch screen drives you nuts if you're trying to write on it with the pen and you brush the screen with your finger. Been there, done that. I have a Sony Vaio U750P UMPC with a touch screen and that was always a huge hassle. I just ordered an OQO 2, and I'm looking forward to the active digitizer over a touch screen.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HP TX2*** series has active digitizer AND touchscreen. Is really nice to play with both ^^
    And not too big, either, but clearly not as small as an UMPC

    ReplyDelete

Spam will be deleted, do not waste your time.