[prawn]

Adobe's Ink and Slide page is here: https://www.adobe.com/products/ink-and-slide.html

Coincidental timing as I have been looking at getting a stylus or Wacom tablet for sketching layouts and quick notes while at my desk. My Jot Pro with Penultimate has been a bit average, unfortunately.

At that <$250ish pricepoint, Wacom's main offerings appear to be the Intuos stylus or their non-pro touch surface line. In the case of the former, you're drawing on your iPad and your stylus is hitting the same surface as your "ink". Another benefit is being able to easily sketch on the iPad on the couch or wherever. Issue for me with this one is that it needs Bluetooth 4 and my iPad 2 doesn't cut it.

With the pen and touch line, you're anchored or near your laptop/screen and sketching is detached from the "ink" on screen. But everything drawn is right there where I'll likely want it in Photoshop, etc.

Not sure that this Adobe Slide ruler would be all that useful and the pen would come down to app support and responsiveness. From Adobe's video, it's hard to see what the lag on the pen is like. Ink requires a more recent iPad too.

Anyone got a current solution they're happy with? I'm thinking that I might need to upgrade my iPad at least.

[hobofan]

In my personal experience a pure Wacom tablet always beats a tablet + stylus combo. In past 5(?) years since I've bought a Wacom Bamboo, none of the tablets I tried even came close, and I tried most of them, including the ones with a wacom stylus. The problem all of them have, is that the surface is far to slippery and only the best I've tried came close in precision. The main downside with a Wacom is that you don't have the display directly underneath the drawing area (but you get used to it very quickly) and that that the area is quite small (I'd at least go with a Intuos now). I can't really see Adobes new product solving any problems in the tablet + stylus field.

In the end you obviously should try both and decide what suits you best, but I would choose my 5year old $70 Wacom over any tablet+stylus solution any day.

[tenfingers]

I agree. I've been trying several tablet with styluses so far, but I was always disappointed to the terrible precision/feel of the combination. I decided anything capacitive is not even worth trying.

This is still a capacitive screen, so you cannot rest your hand on the screen, like you would do normally with a true stylus. This is of uttermost importance for pressure control. And hey, you can use a regular ruler, like I normally do on wacom tablets.

I also cringe at the design of the stylus itself. I did try the Galaxy Note for almost 6 months, and decided it wasn't even worth the "Note" in the name. The stylus would lose 5% of the strokes at first (improved with "training"), and did so with an horrible lag, which you notice much more if the tablet is directly on the screen. The stylus was also too small to be comfortable (similar for the Lenovo Tablet 2).

I much prefer the HP or Toshiba styluses, which are much more like a regular Pilot/Micron drawing pen. I don't understand why they keep reinventing the "pen" (I also dislike the regular Intuos/Bamboo pen by the way - too big).

I don't really need "Cintiq" level. I did try the Surface 2, and it was much better than the alternatives, but it was too heavy and battery life too short. Couldn't try the Helix yet, but all in all, wacom-style pens is a must if you care about note-taking.

I'm disappointed by announce of the Surface 3 due to the lower pressure resolution of the stylus, which is a shame because this means much more narrow response customization. Double shame due to the higher-res screen would be really great for drawing. But I will try it as soon as it will be available in a shop nearby.

Sorry for the big rant/summary, but I still couldn't find a "portable tablet" that I could reliably use for note-taking :(. After my experience with capacitive pens, I really don't believe this can be taken seriously for drawing.

[drglitch]

Having been using Graphires (now called Intuous Pro?) for better half of past decade, there is no going back once you've tried a screen + stylus combo. Wacom also makes one - the Cintiq, although it was ridiculously expensive until recently.

It may be subjective, but the advantage of drawing directly on screen is tremendous - it truly feels like paper, as opposed of drawing "blind" while looking up at a screen.

I went to the adobe launch event in NYC yesterday and was blown away by the demos and by how simple and intuitive the device is. So far, i'm very pleased with it - lets see what a week of use will bring...

[egypturnash]

Pro artist here.

I find that there's a pretty big split between people who really love the Cintiq and its ilk, and people who would vastly prefer to draw on a separate tablet. I'm in the latter camp: the lag is more perceptible when my hand is right there, plus slight inaccuracies in location really throw me off, and the real dealbreaker is that I'm a righty, and my hand is not transparent. Also ergonomics - I don't have to hunch over my "drawing table" any more, I can have the screen at the perfect height to keep my neck happy, and the tablet at just the right place to keep my arm happy.

I mean obviously if you're using this new Adobe tool you're not going to have the "hand obscuring menus" issue, as it's a UI designed for touch - but then again you're also using a simple art tool, rather than a giant toolbox like PS or AI. Which is fine if that simple tool happens to cover all your needs. Not so fine if it doesn't.

I know pros who love their screen tablets, I know pros who have no interest in them despite easily having the cashflow for one.

Oh yes: Graphire was the entry level brand, it's been replaced by Bamboo. Intuos has always been the pro line. The tech has advanced over time, I think a Bamboo today is better than an Intuos of five years ago. The Cintiq tends to use the better quality of digitizers found in the Intuos.

[tenfingers]

I did try briefly the Cintiq. Did you notice some parallax effect?

After using for years with separate tablet/screen, I cannot say I "dislike" the combination. It allows you to draw upright, which is very comfortable after you get used to it. I've been using drawing desks for years, and I would say it's more comfortable than using a tilted plane.

It's also weird (in a positive way) how you can fully see the effect of the stroke on the screen, which are normally hidden by the hand/pen.

That being said, I definitely prefer "feedback" if I'm writing, for instance, so I can relate to your sentiment even though I couldn't try a cintiq professionally yet.

[digitalengineer]

I use my Wacom Bamboo al day. Have a look at http://www.smudgeguard.com/ This helps for both Wacom users as well as 'on-screen drawing' and even on iPad drawing.

[prawn]

Thanks (and to other respondents as well). I bought an Intuos Pen and Touch last night for about $150 and I'm keen to try that out.

I love sketching layouts and ideas, but tend to put off doing it on paper because then I have loose sheets everywhere or multiple notebooks, or pages that have a combination of sketches and other to-do notes.

Never tried a Wacom before, so very keen to give it a go!

[pash]

Adonit announced their new Jot Touch [0] today, perhaps not coincidentally.

0. http://www.adonit.net/jot/touch

[tritchey]

Not a coincidence. Adonit manufactures the Ink & Slide for Adobe, and apart from some cosmetic differences, and an additional button, the JTPP has all the same functionality as the Ink.

[2muchcoffeeman]

Hope it's better than the Jot Script. That is truly awful.

[moistgorilla]

It's more then 250 dollars but I love my galaxy note 10.1 2014 edition. Got it refurbished in a groupon buy for about 350 and it works perfectly. The digitizer is wacom and the display is amazing.

[phloxicon]

I have the 12.2 edition which costs way more than the price range of the OP but it's such a fantastic experience. I use it for everything but coding. I tried a Wacom pad and pen with my desktop but I really disliked it. I much prefer seeing what I write and myself writing it at the same time. My brain didn't like the disconnect of looking at a monitor while drawing on a pad. It made my handwriting much worse.