How often do you really use your pen?

[Matt]

Having had the RT before the pro I really appreciate how much better the Pen is to the capacitive stylus I have for my RT.

I have really joined the Onenote crowd. Absolutely love this. And as it syncs with my OneNote app on my Galaxy Note 3 phone the 2 go together perfectly. For me its great for scribbling notes while out and about away from my desk.

 

[TunaSurface]

I use the pen about every other week for drawing purposes.
The pen and MS paint is the best combination for me, made my profile
pic. with them too.

 

[glx]

I don't use it very often. The pen also broke about the second day I had my SP because of the strong magnet that holds the pen (on its button...) at the SP .. Now the button is always loose because the forend got broken and I don't want to attach it to the SP anymore because I'm afraid the button completely rips off ..

 

[jblan]

New to the forums here, and have been searching and reading on others using the pen. I'm looking to get a SP3 that will be used for sketching and using Adobe's Painter program, and I see quite a few of you say you use it to sketch and take notes in various apps. So I'm really curious as to how well the SP handles the palm detection when using the pen?
Thoughts on this please...thanks.

 

[InspectHerGadget]

I think that the SP3 is poor on palm detection. I returned mine because of this and went back to the SP2.

 

[jnjroach]

New to the forums here, and have been searching and reading on others using the pen. I'm looking to get a SP3 that will be used for sketching and using Adobe's Painter program, and I see quite a few of you say you use it to sketch and take notes in various apps. So I'm really curious as to how well the SP handles the palm detection when using the pen?
Thoughts on this please...thanks.

Pen performance is subjective, most here think for note taking the form factor and the pen are an improvement over the SP2 and Wacom in general, there are decenters from this view, and as the poster above states went back to the SP2, poster is also using it as a left hander so for southpaws it is something to take into consideration, but also Bill Gates is a lefty and uses a SP3 as his machine and takes notes in OneNote.

As someone who is asking as an artist, one big thing to consider is if the program you need relies on the WinTab Driver N-Trig doesn't offer as wide level of support, the latest Adobe Creative Cloud supports N-Trig and High DPI Screens and has moved away from needing the WinTab Driver.

 

[Steven Du Bois]

One of the primary reasons I bought the Surface Pro over a convertible ultrabook like the Dell XPS 12 is access to the digitizer pen for taking handwritten notes in OneNote.

But I have found that because I can type so much faster than I write, I am rarely using the pen for inking. Also, obviously because my handwriting isn't the best, search accuracy at a later date will be more accurate with typed text. I find myself using the pen less for writing and more for diagramming, a task which could be easily handled by a normal stylus with a finer point which are commonly available today.

So, I am torn. I suppose that it is nice having the pen there in case I have to scrawl down some handwritten notes quickly and I don't have access to both hands to type - for example if I am in a restaurant on the phone and I don't have on my bluetooth headset and need to hold the phone with one hand as I write with the other.

So, glad I have it, but don't use it nearly as much as I imagined.

What's your experience?

I cannot get over how much I use the pen...In small group church studies, lectures, even business meetings I have used that and one note to write and take notes. Also as a master's student I do research and now rather than print all the PDF articles for research I save them and open in Drawboard PDF and highlight, underline, and take notes on the PDF itself with the pen. Having the pen has given me a reason to be more proactive in journaling my days and conversations with God, also in One Note...another useful tool I just recently learned...in office 2016 you can use the pen to mark up a draft you have written or something you have opened up in word, excel, or powerpoint. Very useful indeed

 

[Moonsurface]

I use mine a lot, easy more than I thought I would. I also type faster than I write but at lectures and meetings I prefer to take handwritten notes as it's less intrusive and also allows me to draw diagrams arrows, highlight things and circle things easily.

 

[InspectHerGadget]

I was never in love with the pen on the SP3 and I hope they have improved it with the new SP4. Mind you I only use mine for handwriting which is quite different to drawing. I'm left handed too which seems to give me issues with activating menus accidentally.

The best writing experience was on the SP2, I thought it was perfect for handwriting and I really enjoyed using it.

Being able to write is very useful for many people. For me though it was about writing customer notes and the combination of no place to put the pen (and leaving it behind) combined with the average writing experience on the SP3 put me off.

I now use the pen only rarely.

 

[jrioux]

Since this is such a long lived thread, I thought I'd add my comments. I only use my pen about twice a month, maybe three times. I use it to take meeting notes on a PDF agenda in XODO. That keeps my notes and the agendas in a single file. It's handy, but not enough to buy the pen if it wasn't included with my SP3.

 

[AndrewFitz]

Teacher here, I use it every day in my classes. The Pen + OneNote is now my whiteboard for class. I prefer handwritten notes too for meetings, graduate classes, etc.

 

[CrippsCorner]

Must admit I hardly ever use it... bit of a gimmick for me! Though I did draw some artwork for my girlfriend's birthday