Active Ink Software Blog

All-in-One desktops not all the same when it comes to inking.

Recently we had the chance to test drive a number of 23"all-in-one touchscreen desktops at Best Buy and we were shocked to learn that their performance as Active Ink Platforms varied widely.   Previously, we had reviewed the HP 310 and 610 Touchmsmart machines and we found their responsiveness to both finger touch and stylus touch to be superb.  The HP machines still offer the best response to handwritten input using both the finger and a stylus, but we can no longer give a blanket "thumbs up" to any large screen all-in-one desktop or any device using the NextWindow optical touch system.   Some of the machines we tested were quite poor at recognizing handwritten input and will be placed in our "Not Recommended" category.

Hp has replaced the 310/610 generation of machines with new models and in the meantime a host of other manufacturers have released similarly sized and powered all-in-ones.  Among the new all-in-ones we tested were 23" models from Toshiba, Dell, Gateway, Samsung and HP's new 520 model.  Most were outfitted with NextWindow's optical touchscreen system that we found to be quite precise when mated to the HP 310 & 610.  This system still performs well on the HP machines we tested, however we had significantly less pleasant experiences on the Dell, Gateway and Toshiba machines.  Our input error rate was very high on them, with stray marks, skipped spaces and unnatural-looking scripts abounding.  

As you might imagine, these errors caused our handwriting recognition on the Dell, Gateway and Toshiba machines to be rather poor and we would rate them only as "marginally acceptable" platforms for Active Ink.   The Samsung machine, which uses a traditional capacitive touchscreen like many smaller tablets passed none of our handwriting tests, proving that capacitive touchscreens' imprecision is not due to screen or font size.  Their imprecision of input makes them inadequate platforms for electronic handwriting no matter how big their screens are.  As a result, the Samsung 23" all-in-one is "Not Recommended" as an active ink platform.

We are at a loss to explain why HP offers a significantly better inking experience than its competition in the 23" all-in-one arena, but they are the clear winner in our minds.   After their recent failures with the Touchpad and Slate 500, it's good to see them come out on top again.

A Ferrari of a Tablet for under $1500 -- the Asus eeeSlate EP121

Two assumptions you should have when shopping for a Ferrari: One) It will go very fast, and Two) It will get poor gas mileage. 

Recently we drove a "Ferrari" in the world of Windows Slates and those two assumptions proved just as true for tablets as they are for Testarossas.   The tablet-Ferrari we tried was the Asus EP121.  It's beautiful and it screams down the information superhighway, but all that flash comes at the cost of battery life.  You'll be hard pressed to get 4 hours of active computing on one battery charge no matter how you adjust your settings.  But then again, it's hard to carp about short battery life when you've having such a good time during those 4 hours! 

The EP121 can be had for about $1200-$1500, which either makes it the least expensive of the "old school" Windows slates or the most expensive of the newer Ipad-inspired slates.  We chose to look it at as the top of the crop inthe latest generation of "inexpensive" slates, a category in which we place the Motion CL900, the Fujitsu q550, and the HP Slate 500.  The EP121 is a hundred dollars or so more expensive that the Motion CL900 and perhaps $400 more than the HP.  

We think the expense is well justified because the Asus is the only device in its category to sport the superior Wacom digitizing stylus (instead of the inferior N-trig stylus) and it also comes with an Intel Core i5 processor (instead of a weaker Atom variant).   It also has a big bright 12.1 inch display,and it ships from the factory with a leather folio case & an easy-to-use Microsoft bluetooth keyboard.   All these welcome goodies would be extra purchases with any other device.

When surfing the web, streaming video, or acting as a real computer running Office and other memory-hogging programs, the Asus runs laps around its Atom powered competition.  It does everything much faster and it flaunts everything it does on a bigger, brighter display.  When serving as a platform for Active Ink's e-forms, some of the Asus's extra horsepower is unnecessary because AI doesn't hog memory.  The slower Atom processors will keep well when filling out our e-forms, so the argument can be made that for Active Ink's purposes why "drive" a Enzo when an Elantra will do just fine.   But a bigger display always means more usable work area, which in turn means less scrolling when filling out forms and faster times-to-completion.  Those are always blessings.

You would think that with a markedly bigger screen and a faster processor, the Asus would be much heavier and run hotter than its competition.  Not so.  It weighs just 2 lbs 9 oz in its skivvies, compared to the CL900's 2 lbs 2 oz.   And it ran cool and quiet in all our tests.  So what are the EP121's defects?   It must have some, right?   Other than the short-battery life, we were hard pressed to find them, but we came up with the following:  

• It has no docking station or docking port (but bear in mind that its rivals' docks aren't very good),
• it has no swappable battery (neither does the Motion or the HP),
• it is not ruggedized like the Motion or the Fujitsu.  You drop it, it'll break.  (However, both of those other machines need a bump case or a folio case to be truly useful anyway and Asus gives you a nice one free.)

Bottom line:  In spite of its lack of ruggedness and short battery life, we can't think of another device we'd rather slip into a briefcase and fill out Active Ink forms with than the Asus EP121.

N-Trig vs. Wacom -- the digitizer wars

Active Ink is focused on one feature of tablet PCs more than any other -- we are obsessed with the look, feel, and performance of the stylus.   Our monomania on the subject of styluses (styli?) can be traced to the fact that our customers will primarily use handwriting, often cursive handwriting, to complete their electronic forms.   If a customer's overall handwriting experience is poor, his satisfaction with his tablet and our software will be poor.   As a result we demand a great stylus/handwriting experience and we have very high standards.

There are basically 5 methods for digitizing handwritten input on tablet PCs.   They are:

• Capacitive Touchscreens using your finger or an aftermarket "dumb" stylus --  This method is found on the Ipad, nearly all Android devices, and a few Windows tablets.  It is cheap and it produces poor handwriting results regardless of whether one uses a finger or any ofthe rubbery aftermarket styluses that are available now. Currently, we cannot recommend ANY device that uses a capacitive touchscreen as its sole digitizer. 

•   Resistive Touchscreens -  This older technology can still produce precise input using "dumb" (non-powered) styluses because resistive styluses have narrow tips, not a fat, rubbery tips like capacitive styluses have.   A resistive stylus must contact screen to register input, so you cannot float a cursor by hovering the stylus above the screen.  Surface feel and pen pressure are typically a little stiffer with a resistive screen than with the N-trig and Wacom systems -- a bit like the feel of a pencil on notepaper -- but many users prefer this stiffer feel.  Inexpensive, resistive screens are not as sensitive to finger-flick operations.  This technology is only found on two Windows tablets at present -- the Asus t101mt and the Active Ink Scribe.  But both of these devices work well with Active Ink and are recommended by us. 

• Optical Touchscreen Sensors -  This technology, made by NextWindow, is found in kiosk devices, big screens, some peripheral devices for laptops and HP's Touchsmart desktops.   It uses optical sensors which scan horizontally just above a screen's surface to triangulate the position of any object that comes in close proximity to the screen.  It works well with Active Ink using any kind of pointer, but it's not currently found on tablets. That may be changing soon with the Ipad!

• The N-Trig digitizer uses powered stylus with an internal battery, this system is currently found on the HTC Flyer, the HP Slate 500, the Fujitsu q550, and the Motion CL900.   The N-trig system will float a cursor if the tip of the stylus is held just off the screen, but the tip of the N-trig stylus compresses slightly upon contact with the screen, giving it a spongy feel and imprecise feedback, especially when attempting to double click.  We have found that the error rate when handwriting with any N-trig stylus is markedly greater than with the Wacom or resistive styluses.    An N-trig system will work with Active Ink, but it is not preferred by us.

• The Wacom digitizer - This older, familiar digitizer continues to used today by Motion Computing's higher end devices, as well as by the Asus Ep121.   It remains the gold standard for electronic ink.  This non-powered stylus does not have a piston-powered tip and will float a cursor when not in contact with the screen.  The Wacom stylus is famed for its smooth and natural feel and it is still Active Ink's preferred digital pen.

Tablet PC manufacturers seem to be shying away from resistive touchscreens on their newer models, so the stylus-enabled tablet market is currently split between Wacom devices and N-Trig devices.  N-trig seems to be capturing more of the low-end -- presumably because the N-trig technology is cheaper.  Unfortunately, the N-trig technology is also inferior -- in our opinion.   We've tested the N-trig system on three different devices so far:  the HTC Flyer (an Android tablet), the HP Slate 500, and the Motion CL900.  While each the styluses of all three can be used on any of the other three, we found that the inking experience varied quite a bit between the three, ranging from unacceptably bad on the HP 500, to mediocre on the Motion machine, to not-too-bad-at-all on the Flyer.  

Why does the same system perform so differently on these three machines?  We don't know.  Perhaps it has something to do with various sensor screens used by each differently-sized machine.  All we know is that even when it works well, we really wish it was a Wacom.

Our beefs with the N-trig system are simple.  Their metal-tubed styluses are too short and too slick to hold comfortably, causing hand fatigue when used frequently.  We have heard that an anodizing problem with the HP 500 stylus caused much of that device's frustrating errors, but we couldn't verify this.  All three devices we tried had the same spongy tipped styluses that provided imprecise feedback, resulting in more frequent stray marks and more errors.  All three had "flush-mounted" stylus buttons that were positioned in such a way that we frequently hit them by mistake. 

All these ergonomic quirks resulted in the simple fact that it took us more time to complete a test form with the N-trig system than it did with a Wacom digitizer or a resistive touchscreen and we found ourselves preferring either one to the N-Trig system.

On a final note, regardless of their digitizing system, we constantly find ourselves turning OFF the touch capabilities of all the devices we use if we intend to do some heaving inking.   When touch is enabled, we find that it results in more stray marks on our Active Ink forms.  We recommend that you follow our lead as well.  Turn off touch whenever you want to lay down a lot of ink with the stylus.

CAN I USE MY IPAD WITH ACTIVE INK?

We hear this question more than any other these days.  Unfortunately, the answer is "no", you can't use an Ipad/Iphone with Active Ink and the reasons why you can't are somewhat insurmountable due to the Ipad's technical limitations.   Allow me to explain.

Active Ink is all about capturing information in a way that mimics our customers' natural use of a pen on paper.   That's all we do -- we replace your existing paper forms with nearly perfect electronic clones and those e-forms eliminate your need to re-key information that has already been "captured" via recognizable handwriting.   Since Active Ink enables your existing forms electronically in a natural manner, we are totally focused on the speed and accuracy of data input using natural methods.   We don't like clunky work-arounds or multi-step processes that require the consumer's re-education.  

Make no mistake --  we don't care who makes the device that enables natural input.   If the Ipad were the fastest, easiest and most accurate data-inputter around, we'd be all over it like a linebacker on a fumble in the end-zone!   Unfortunately,  while the Ipad is an unsurpassed platform for DISPLAYING information, it's a pretty crude device for CAPTURING information.   Here are the primary reasons why it is a poor data-capturing device in the mobile workplace:

1.  The Ipad has no built-in handwriting recognition engine.   Yes, there are apps such as Writepad that can recognize and convert handwriting within themselves, but there is no handwriting recognizer that interacts with the Ipad's OS, such as that found in Windows XP or Win 7 tablet editions.  In Apple's defense, they probably didn't bother writing a handwriting recognition engine built in their OS because.....(see point 2)....

2. Precise stroke input is impossible with capacitive-screen tablets!  And yes, the Ipad is a capacitive-screen tablet!  By "stroke input" I mean the lines that you can produce when handwriting or drawing.   Stroke precision with any capacitive tablet -- Ipad, Android, or Windows -- lags far behind what a resistive or active digitizing screen can produce.   You can't get very precise because the device needs to feel the target of your big, fat finger (or its prosthetic mimic) to triangulate input using multiple sensors that are spaced relatively far apart.  A fine-tipped stylus simply can't span the multiple capacitive sensors and therefore it doesn't work.  To date we have found no capacitive stylus that is any more precise than using your finger and using your finger is an unnatural and unsatisfactory way to write, in our opinion. 

The only "work-around" to this fine-tip obstacle is to blow your writing surface and your stroke size up to a huge font so your imprecise strokes are not so apparent.  Only then can a writer generate the necessary loops and peaks in his script which handwriting recognition engines can recognize.  

Not surprisingly, this is the handwriting method that all Ipad demos seem to use.   They zoom everything up to huge proportions, using the Ipad's entire visible screen as their work surface.  They write in huge fonts where only one or two words can fit in on screen per line.   This is, of course, an unnaturally large way to write, so when they want their drawings and writing to appear "normal", they shrink the zoom back down to normal sizes.

This method may work, but in our opinion it is not natural input.   It's akin to writing on a blackboard with chalk.   Yes, you can produce huge readable letters on a huge writing service, but how long do you want to be writing on a blackboard?   Ask any school teacher for the answer to that question.

So normal input is the main problem with the Ipad, and by normal input we mean writing in sizes which approximate normal handwriting on paper, i.e. fonts that are smaller than 20 point.   All of the apps for the Ipad/Iphone we've reviewed avoid this issue like the plague because you simply can't write on the Ipad's capacitive screen in a small/normal font.  Take, for example, the following video which reviews WritePad, an app with handwriting recognition that is used for taking notes on the Ipad.  This review actually begins with a disclaimer about the Ipad's shortcomings as an input device --  WritePad review.

Notice how the video shows input using both a fingertip and a stylus, but in each case the user writes IN GIANT STROKES using the whole screen.   Also note that while WritePad has handwriting recognition within itself, it doesn't interface with the Ipad's OS or with other apps or the web browser.   To do so, the user must "copy/paste" recognized text from WritePad into other applications -- a clunky, slow, multi-step process at best.

Of course, you can always type your text into a form using the Ipad's responsive virtual keyboard, but typing is not the input method preferred by most on-the-go tablet users.   You can also build customized forms, brick by brick, using a few other commercial forms apps, but with these programs you are constrained to building your forms the way the programs want to build them, you can't take your existing forms and "convert" them into an electronic clone as Active Ink does. 

Both of these methods may produce functional work-arounds, but a "work-around" is not the point in Active Ink's opinion.   Instead of a "work-around", we seek to give you a "work-with".   Active Ink works with your existing forms.   It works with the natural ways you do business and with the devices and operating systems that are familiar to you.   Active Ink is not a company that makes the mountain come to Muhammad.  Active Ink comes to you and we try to do things the way you already do them.

Bottom Line:  Until Apple gives us an Ipad 3 with more precise input sensors than are found on its current generation of capacitive-screen tablet, it will remain an inferior device for capturing information using electronic forms.

 

HP's TOUCHSMART DESKTOPS AS ACTIVE INK PLATFORMS

Lately we have been skewering some HP products in this blog (see our review of the quickly-buried HP Slate 500 Windows tablet), but this doesn't reflect our overall attitude toward Hp's entire product line.   We continue to use some of their products in house, namely the tm2t convertible, and we believe that HP's new Touchpad could offer interesting possibilities as an Active Ink webforms platform.   However, since the Touchpad runs webOS, not Windows, we won't be testing it any time soon.

And we can proudly tell you that HP's Touchsmart desktops -- the 310, 610, and IQ816 -- all make very good platforms for running Active Ink's Form Designer and Form Filler software in an office environment.   With their large screens (20", 23", 25.5") that use Next Window Limited's optical touch screen technology and Microsoft's familiar Windows 7 tablet PC interface, handwriting on them is a breeze since our Active Ink input fields are naturally zoomed up to a very large size and their input precision is so high.  The displays can also be reclined to write on and while they don't have palm recognition ability, they do have four point mutli-touch capability.   You must be careful not to rest your palm on the screen when writing on it, but we found that by dragging the MS tablet input window down to the bottom of the screen (a natural place to leave it anyway) you can rest your palm on the bottom frame and write very comfortably. 

In fact, this is probably the easiest device to write on with a pen that we've ever tested simply because the large screens give you so much work room nothing ever feels cramped or crowded.   And the ability to recline the screen into a semi-flat position to facilitate writing on it is a big plus over HP's early Touchsmart models which did not recline.  We found ourselves yearning for this same touchscreen technology in a tablet size, but sadly Next Windows currently only produces large screen displays.

Get this -- Next Window's optical technology requires NO SPECIAL STYLUS to function!  A fingertip, a pen-cap, a pencil, a credit card edge, a Mont Blanc fountain pen, or any existing Wacom or N-trig stylus -- all engage the Next Window optical sensors and produce precise input.   Naturally, you should not use anything that will stain or scratch the screen, but our point is that no special stylus is needed to move the cursor around or handwrite with this technology!   Nor does the user have to press very hard as with some resistive touchscreens.  For our purposes, the Touchsmart was responsive and delight to use.  We salivated at the thought of throwing away our Wacom input pads and drawing directly on-screen in Photoshop using Wacom's own styluses.  No more having to draw two feet off to the side of our screens while maintaining proper vertical and horizontal orientation!

Not everyone will appreciate these devices and the home owner who doesn't need to integrate his handwriting into a program like Active Ink probably couldn't care less.   But Active Ink or Photoshop users will immediately see benefits from using such a device in an office setting.   Most of our customers still need a portable tablet to fill out their Active Ink forms, but for those situations when portability isn't such an issue -- say in a doctor's office waiting room or as a form-designing workstation -- these all-in-one deskstops are the cat's whiskers!   And they are as cheap, if not cheaper than tablets.   The 20" 310 can be had for around $650, the 23' 610 starts at $850.

Bottom Line:   HP's inexpensive Touchsmart all-in-one desktop computers work extremely well as Active Ink platforms in situations where mobility is not required, thanks to Next Window's innovative optical touchscreen technology.

 

WHY DO CAPACITIVE-SCREEN TABLETS FAIL AS ACTIVE INK PLATFORMS?

In our recent spate of tablet testing to see which units make satisfactory platforms for Active Ink software, we noticed a few salient points.   One, our software doesn't use very much memory or CPU power, so a tablet does not be the top of the line to be a very satisfactory Active Ink platform.   This is good news, because our customers can buy cheaper tablets than they otherwise might consider.

 The second discovery we made was that ALL the "capacitive-screen" tablets we tested failed to meet our benchmark for a satisfactory Active Ink platform.   This is devastating news for the economical consumer because the vast majority of inexpensive tablets coming onto the market are capacitive screen devices.  

 
  Please bear in mind that when I say "capacitive-screen" tablets, I'm referring to touch-only capacitive tablets, not machines that also employ N-Trig or Wacom digitizing technology.   These N-Trig and Wacom tablets usually work quite well for our purposes, but they are currently few in number, including: the HTC Flyer, Asus ep121, Fujitsu Q550 (at left), Motion CL-900, and HP Slate 500.  They should be considered in a different category than the "touch-only" capacitive screens that bear the brunt of my wrath in this post. 

In the category of "touch-only" capacitive tablets I include the Ipad, most Android devices, and a number of inexpensive Windows tablets.  They usually do not ship with a stylus, nor are they meant to be used with one although a number of aftermarket manufacturers (including Targus, Wacom, & Rocketfish) produce capacitive styluses for use with them.  Regardless of their other merit-worthy features, the downfall of these devices lies in the imprecision of their handwriting input using these aftermarket styluses.  Simply put, it sucks. 

This is why -- capacitive screens triangulate a touch point when a big fat finger tip (or its prosthetic mimic) spans several sensors and therefore a fine tip stylus simply cannot work because it does not span a number of sensors.  You can, of course, write with your fingertip or its rubbery prosthetic mimic, but doing so is only a marginally-successful and unsatisfying exercise.   The current crop of capacitive styluses generally employ spongy, rubbery tips that are only slightly smaller than a pinky.  Sensory feedback is poor, and in most cases these stubby pens produce only a vague fascimile of your natural handwriting in which most of your normal loops, peaks and crests are flattened.   Without clear definition to your script, Active Ink and Microsoft's handwriting recognition engine has no contours to work with and recognition errors soar.   When errors soar, handwritten fragments must be corrected or rewritten many times -- and the time-to-completion of any given form multiplies exponentially.  

At the same time, user frustration levels go through the roof with capacitive screens and styluses.   In our tests, the experienced tablet user who knows how "old school" tablet PC's with active digitizers can perform, will discard a capacitive screen device and its rubbery after-market stylus in seconds, declaring the whole experience useless and not worth any marginal money savings.   The novice users experienced the same dissatisfaction, but they usually didn't understand why their results were so poor and often they blamed the software when the true cause lay with the inescapable imprecision of the capacitive stylus and the screen.

Let me be clear in stating at this point that Active Ink has not yet tested all touch-only capacitive tablets or all capacitive stylus.   We've only tested a few of the "good" ones -- the ones that other reviewers thought were a notch above the rest.   But in the end this made no difference -- even the "good" ones failed to pass our muster.   All have fat imprecise tips.

In fact, our research on the net indicated that no one is satisfied with the performance of capacitive screen devices or their styluses.  For example, go to the following link and see what another reviewer thought about the current crop of capacitive styluses.  http://www.imedicalapps.com/2011/02/ipad-stylus-review-best-handwriting-touch-screen/

If you poke around a bit for reviews of Ipad styluses you will occasionally find Youtube raves for certain pens, declaring how wonderful they are for writing in certain art apps.   But when you look closer you see that these demos are using the Ipad's full screen with giant 72 pt font sizes.    This is akin to writing your name in beach sand with a walking stick.  At these zoom levels, imprecision quibbles disappear because the writing surface and fonts employed are so big.  But does anyone actually write business correspondence at one word per Ipad screen?    A walking stick might make a good writing implement on the beach, but how does it perform with 10 pt fonts on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper?  In our opinion, these Ipad-as-a-handwriting platform reviews are simply ridiculous.

Once again, the critical test criterion with any test platform is one of speed of input.  We test all our hardware testbeds using a standard form that our technicians can fill out on an "old school" Motion Computing F5 in about 35 seconds.   Of course, this is a very subjective test which is highly dependent on the user.   Users with better handwriting can fill out the form faster on every machine, even the touch-only capacitive screens.   But regardless of the user, our test results on these capacitive screen testbeds soared to triple or quadruple the times required by active digitizers.   In some cases, users simply refused to complete the test because their error and recognition rates were so high it was clear that no one would use the device.

Bottom Line:  Active Ink has seen NO touch-only capacitive screen tablets or styluses that it can recommend as platforms for the filling out of Active Ink forms.   All units we have tested fall so far below our basic standard of acceptability that we believe it is pointless to even consider a device that does not also employ the N-trig or Wacom digitizing styluses.   (Even some of those N-trig devices -- namely the HP Slate 500 -- did not pass our muster.)   Given their inherent limitations and unless significant technological improvements occur, we will decline to test touch-only capacitive tablets in the future.

LINK TO A GREAT TABLET PC REVIEW BLOG

Here at Active Ink we are trying to give you our personal evaluations of a number of Tablet PC devices that can serve as useful platforms for running our software.   Obviously, our focus is narrow and if you want a broader overview of these devices we want to point you to a blog that does a much more thorough job of scrutinizing tablet hardware than we do.   Visit http://www.robbushway.com and check out what rob has to say.   We couldn't find ourselves disagreeing with any of his opinions and you probably won't either.

Active Ink Review of the HTC Flyer with Optional Pen

  Those of you who follow our company closely will be wondering why we are reviewing an Android OS device when Active Ink is strictly a Windows OS company.  The answer is two-fold: 1) we are constantly barraged with customer inquiries about Android/Ipad tablets, and 2) we are currently testing a web-based version of Active Ink forms that can be accessed by any device with an internet connection.  

In theory, these web-forms could be filled out by any Ipad or Android; but it turns out that your ability to fill them out is constrained by the type of device you are using.  If your device has no pen and has no ability to recognize handwriting, you can only interact with a small subset of  the e-form features that you can access on a traditional tablet PC with an active digitizing pen.  Since the Ipad and the Android tablets do not offer handwriting recognition and most do not offer styluses, they fall into the “limited subset” category.  You can use their virtual keyboards to fill out type-in fields, operate menu pull downs, and select check boxes, but you cannot write notes on top of images and you can’t sign your name to an e-form.   This is because the Ipad and Android’s touchscreens interpret fingertip or stylus wiggles as an attempt to scroll the image, NOT as a writing input.

  Even with those limitations in mind, we decided to test the HTC Flyer ($499) because it is one of the few Android tablets that comes with its own digital pen (a $79 extra) and software to support it.  We wanted to see if this device and its pen could be put to an Active Ink use.  It turns out that it can’t.  While we liked the Flyer and its pen, this is not a device that can be used to complete an e-form containing any complexity -- meaning with signature fields and note fields.  This is because the Flyer’s stylus (called a “Scribe”) is NOT a true digital pen or stylus in the traditional sense.  It is  a unique input device designed to be used with only a few pre-arranged drawing functions with in the Flyer's OS.  It cannot be used as a pointer or key operator and it can only write on special pages (such as with the Flyer’s book reader) or on jpg screenshots that the Flyer can save and share.  While we can see a myriad of cool uses for these annotatable snapshots, they don’t jive with Active Ink.  Most importantly, you can’t convert the Flyer’s handwritten scribblings into text in any program, they can merely be saved as flat images.  As a result you can’t sign your name to web-based form using the Flyer, with or without its pen, unless you take a flat "screenshot" of that form after you have typed in most of the fields, saving the signature field for last.   Doing this creates a flat, lower-resolution  copy of the form, which could be emailed or archived, but none of the inputted data could be extracted.

That said, there are a few positive things that we can point out in this little Flyer.   While its screen size is smaller than the HP Slate 500 that we recently reviewed, its workable area, resolution and precision of input all feel less frustrating than that Windows machine.  However, this impression is probably due to the fact that the ease of scrolling, page turning, and zooming are all superior to that found a traditional Windows machine, which requires you to locate down a tiny scroll bar, grab it, and slide it with your fingertip or pen.  

One of the frustrating points with the Flyer if you are a traditional tablet PC user is the temptation to try to use its pen as an active digitizing pen -- it looks like a traditional two button A.D. stylus so you will find yourself point and clicking your way through pages as if it were a traditional stylus.  All this does is create screenshot images of whatever you touch, causing to start over and put the pen down.

Bottom line:  Can you use the Flyer (or any other Android tablet) to fill out a web-form?   Yes you can – as long as the form requires only typing, menu pull-downs, and check-box selecting.  You cannot draw on or annotate the simple forms these devices can handle, you cannot sign with them, and you certainly cannot convert handwriting with them.   

These limitations remind us of the world of baseball.   If the traditional Windows tablet PC were a baseball player, it would be a versatile triple threat that could hit, field, and pitch successfully.  Using Active Ink software these traditional tablets can convert ink to text, provide precise pen input resulting in elegant handwriting, and they can draw on documents or produce real signatures.  

In contrast, Android tablets are lumbering designated hitters.  They can’t “pitch” or “field” at all, but they’re pretty good at going to the plate with their one specialty.  Android tablets can’t use Active Ink software and they can only “see” certain dumbed-down web-based forms, but they scroll well and typing on their virtual keyboards is easier than using a Windows tablet virtual keyboard.  If a company had no need for handwriting input, ink-to-text conversion, free-form annotation, or signatures; it could deploy a fleet of Android smartphones to fill out its greatly simplified forms and get by.   The question is, will the marketplace demand more designated hitters or more triple-threat utility ballplayers?  Time will tell.

Active Ink Review of the HP Slate 500

It seems that small, sub-$1000 slate computers are popping up like mushrooms these days and in order to alleviate some of the confusion among our clientele, Active Ink will assess some of these devices as platforms for filling out electronic forms.  We realize that this one criterion is not a fair gauge of a machine’s overall capabilities, but it’s the only aspect we’re interested in and if you’re reading this, chances are it’s the only thing you’ll be interested in too. 

For most of our customers, the tablet pc is a one-purpose device.  They use it in business to input data into electronic forms as fast as they can.  Therefore the speed and ease of input are their paramount concerns because by saving time and eliminating redundancies, they save money.  Anything that interferes with the speed or ease of data input is a negative that can fatally detract from the desirability of a platform in spite of its many other attractive qualities.

With these thoughts in mind, we examined HP’s new Slate 500, one of the first sub-$1000 Windows tablets to hit the market.   We had high hopes for this device thanks to HP’s promotional videos which showed that it was fully capable of accepting pen input and functioning in a business environment.  When combined with  HP’s solid reputation, the device’s a small form factor and its initial $799 release price, we thought this Slate would be a killer. Then we opened the box.

Sadly, our real world experience with the Slate was decidedly less impressive.  And in the ultimate test of desirability –- namely, which worker in the office wants to take this sucker home and keep it -– the HP Slate 500 faired poorly.   None of us were very impressed with the gadget and today it sits in a drawer; unloved, unwanted, and destined to be unloaded on ebay when we get around to it.

Our blasé overall impression was due to the Slate’s ergonomics rather than its technical specifications.  Since the HP Slate 500 is a Windows 7 tablet, it is fully compatible with Active Ink and our e-forms can be filled out on it without resorting to any work-arounds.  This is a major plus.  Furthermore, there is nothing really wrong with the HP Slate’s performance or its combination of ports, cameras, display size, memory, or chips.   It’s just a difficult little device to hold in your hands and fill out forms with its digital pen. 

First there is the Slate’s plethora of awkwardly-placed external buttons (volume, control/alt/delete/home, keyboard, & power) which are all found along the sides of the device towards the corners – in exactly the same spots where your fingers tend to hold the device!  In our experience, inadvertent pressings of these buttons were numerous and frustrating.   If you try to move your fingers to avoid them, you have to hold the device in an awkward position.

We also took some small issue with the screen, which seems smaller than its 8.9” size.   It is smaller than the Ipad, but larger than the HTC flyer that we’ve also reviewed in this blog.   If you pull up the virtual keyboard or the Microsoft Handwriting input panel at normal size, you can see little of the form behind them, necessitating nearly constant scrolling and scrolling on a small-screened Windows device  is quite a bit more frustrating than scrolling on an Android or Ipad with their flick-and-expand sensitivities. For example, examine the following comparison photo.

Finally, the most frustrating aspect of the HP Slate 500 is its pen.   The Slate is a touchscreen device, so it is essentially a dual digitizing tablet, but it uses a unique hybrid stylus that has a spongy tip, which compresses slightly when touching the screen, probably to trigger activation of its electronic features powered via an internal battery.  This means that even though the Slate has a touchscreen, its stylus can control the cursor position by floating its tip just above the screen.  However, when the stylus was touched to the screen it was frequently hard to tell if the spongy tip had successfully engaged or not.

We have never encountered this type of hybrid stylus before and we found its responsiveness to be sporadic and imprecise, causing us to make frequent errors.  Since every error necessitates a repeated attempt to input a data string or to activate a screen function when used as a pointer, this imprecision slows things down and increases the user's frustration factor.  Handwriting with the Slate's stylus was challenging, with a noticeable lag, frequent omissions at the start of words or sentences, and that irritating spongy feel.  We quickly found ourselves yearning for a “dumb” touch stylus or an "old school" active digitizer with more reliable responsiveness.  Sometimes a hybrid fish & fowl can neither fly nor swim and this seems to be the case with the Slate 500's stylus.

Bottom Line:  While the Slate 500 is a true Windows 7 tablet and it can use Active Ink software right out of the box, no one in our office wanted to adopt it as their tablet of choice.   The frustration factor of the Slate’s awkwardly-placed buttons, its imprecise pen, and its crowded screen made us dread filling out forms on it.  It may carry a low $799 price, but we found ourselves wanting to either pay more for different machine or pay less for a used "old school" device that is one or two generations old. 

Do Touchpads have the Golden Touch?

Sometimes progress can be confusing.   This is especially true when dealing with the latest generation of touchscreen tablet PCs.   Because these small, inexpensive touch-screen tablets use a host of approaches to capture input, some of which work and some don't, many business consumers are likely to be disappointed when they put them to work in a commercial setting.  Care should be taken when selecting a machine and in many cases the “old school” tablets with active digitizing technology are still the best choice for the business user.

The IPad Revolution -- In the old days before the Ipad, tablet PC buyers knew that their machines would operate to a certain basic standard.  It was a Windows XP world back then and the PCs that used that operating system all worked in basically the same way whether they were made by Fujitsu, Panasonic, Motion Computing, Tablet Kiosk, Lenovo, or HP.   They all used active digitizing pens and the consumer could be fairly confident that his tablet experience would conform to a certain level of expectations.
Now all that has changed and as you might expect, the Ipad changed it.

The IPad created the perception that the personal Tablet PC should look and act differently than those old Windows Tablets.  It is a machine focused on data display and it does that beautifully.  But at the same time the IPad is not a good machine for capturing data and it is substandard at capturing handwritten information, the forte of the Windows tablets.  The IPad comes with no stylus and although you can write or draw with your finger in some applications, the resulting input is inferior to that acheivable with Windows tablets.  Aftermarket styluses can be purchased for the IPad, but they are little more than prosthetic fingers and the handwriting they produce is large and crude.   

In our opinion, the IPad is still not a suitable platform with which to fill out an electronic form using handwriting.  But make no mistake – the Ipad has changed the game because it has changed the focus of the traditional Windows tablet PC manufacturers.  After the IPad tablet PC users thought that they should be able to get slimmer, lighter machines that were touch-enabled and could be purchased for under $1000.   Manufacturers have been happy to oblige and in the first quarter of 2011 Ipad-looking tablets began to flood the market.  Most of these were small form-factor devices designed to appeal to the leisure time consumer, not the dedicated business user, and most have fallen short of expectations.  One of the first such devices we tested was HP's Slate 500.  (See this blog for our separate review of the Slate 500.)

 
Like the Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy, most of these new devices have smaller-than-10” touch-screens and they use Android operating systems.  A few others, such as the Dell Duo, the Asus eeePC , and Active Ink’s Scribe have gone with the “old school” world of the Intel Atom processor and Windows 7 operating system using touch-screen digitizers.  Many similar devices are scheduled to drop in the weeks to come and all seem to take a slightly different approach to building their tablets, further confusing the consumer and crowding the marketplace.  

Time is of the Essence -- The problem is that some of these machines work well when filling out electronic forms and some don’t.  Often it is hard to tell which ones will work until you lay your hands on them.   That’s because the single most important factor that determines each device’s success or failure when filling out electronic forms is the time it takes to fill out the form on that device.   Any ergonomic issues the device has only had to the time necessary to fill out forms on it.   If the “feel” of the device’s virtual keyboard or stylus is clunky, then mistakes are made on input, those mistakes must be corrected and the time to completion skyrockets.   Furthermore, these ergonomic issues can sometimes be so daunting or annoying that the business user will give up in frustration, tossing his new tablet in the trash before going back to something else that works.  Often that something else is the older generation of active digitizing tablets. 

Why such variety?   The newest generation of cheap tablets employ a wide assortment of data-input strategies and technologies.  Some use capacitive screens and styluses, some use resistive screens, some tout “3-finger multi-touch” or “4 finger multi-touch”, or even “multi-touch with palm recognition”.  Some have both touchscreens and active digitizers, some support handwriting recognition and some don’t.   The differences are sometimes subtle, but these subtle differences make all the difference when filling out hundreds of electronic forms on a tablet.  If the inexpensive touchscreen device has ergonomic shortcomings that add greatly to the time required to fill out a form, then their cost advantage over a more expensive "old school" active-digitizing tablet disappears.

To be Continued ... -- In part II of this discussion, we will get into the nitty-gritty of what makes some of these touchscreen tablets suitable platforms for filling out e-forms and how some of them fall short of our expectations.