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Samsung Galaxy Tab Bluetooth Stylus Details Pop Out

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I’m guessing Samsung doesn’t quite feel the way Steve Jobs does about using a stylus. At least after seeing this post from Engadget linking to Play.com this morning. Apparently details are starting to pop out on a Galaxy Tab Bluetooth Stylus.

Looks like the UK price is set at £49.99. Though not officially announced by Samsung yet, it looks like a capacitive stylus and that it is Bluetooth multi-point capable, allowing you to connect it to two devices simultaneously. Apparently it can also allow you to accept and reject phone calls.

Note that both the Play.com link and Engadget focus on handwriting recognition as a feature. Of course Apps will have more to say about that then the stylus. But then again, everyone knows that Digital Inking on Tablets and Slates only works when you use it for handwriting recognition.

Gosh, I hope we don’t live through that all over again because, you know, it worked so well the last time around.

13 Comments

13 Comments

  1. Mike

    09/28/2010 at 8:26 am

    I saw this on engadget as well.
    I am a bit confused to be honest – what is it that the bluetooth is for on a stylus?
    Does it have buttons maybe which work through the bluetooth?

    I don’t know – the bigger question then become about palm rejection.

    And finally – I am not sure I would be doing a lot of work/note-taking on a 7″ device anyway.
    I would be far more interested in something like this for 9″+ size screened device.

    • Sumocat

      09/28/2010 at 9:54 am

      The Bluetooth is strictly for answering the phone; no relation to its function as a stylus.

    • Roger J

      09/28/2010 at 12:03 pm

      I agree about the size, I’m interested in that Fujitsu T580 convertible, but will this have palm rejection?

      I just want a pen that writes like my Toshiba M700 Portege pen, but on a device no more than a 10.5″ screen.

      • acerbic

        09/28/2010 at 12:32 pm

        If a system has a capacitive touchscreen and a stylus that does nothing but mimic the electrical properties of a finger, any palm rejection has to be done by software tricks only and none of them do it anywhere near as well as a combination of cap. touch and active digitizer.

    • sam

      02/28/2011 at 11:35 pm

      I think it will just finish the tab to be that professional device!

  2. Travis Carnahan

    09/28/2010 at 12:32 pm

    any idea if this will work on a “standard” tablet? (Lenovo x61t for example)

    • WellThen

      09/28/2010 at 12:57 pm

      I’m with you, Travis. Will this work with the active digitizer in a table like the Fujitsu T2010? I have trouble writing with the slender stylus that comes with most tablets, and have been wishing for an oversized stylus to help with that.

      • peter

        09/28/2010 at 1:42 pm

        This stylus is oval in shape.
        Thick from one side slender on the other. So its great to hold in your hand.

      • Sumocat

        09/28/2010 at 2:07 pm

        Regarding use with Tablet PCs, in most cases, no, a capacitive stylus will not work with an active digitizer. Active digitizers require pens designed for the digitizer.

        However, many recent Tablet PCs are equipped with dual-digitizers that allow both active pen and capacitive touch. The Lenovo X61t is such a device. However, I’ve used the Wacom dual digitizer on both the Wacom Bamboo and the Fujitsu T900, and they’re not nearly as responsive with capacitive styli as with direct touch.

      • Nameless

        09/29/2010 at 3:29 pm

        No-you need a Wacom Penabled pen specifically.

        Fortunately, I’m seeing Axiotron Studio Pens on eBay for $35 shipped, Buy-It-Now. It’s anything BUT slender, possibly even outdoing FinePoint pens (and Wacom pens designed for updated revisions of once-FinePoint-based product lines) in terms of thickness. It also has two side buttons, an eraser, and a ton of extra nibs (6 felt nibs, 3 spring-loaded stroke nibs, 2 solid plastic nibs).

  3. acerbic

    09/28/2010 at 2:29 pm

    It’s a nice design. The tip looks smaller than in the usual stubby capacitive stylii. If it works with other gadgets than their tab, they could sell a bunch by dropping the bluetooth gimmicks and moving the decimal point in the price a little bit to the left.

  4. Nameless

    09/29/2010 at 3:34 pm

    Well, this is a surprise. Samsung gets it to some extent.

    Sadly, if the Bluetooth is only used for accepting/rejecting phone calls, that doesn’t fix the underlying issues with making a capacitive stylus for a capacitive-only device.

    What they could’ve done was add a pressure sensor behind the nib like most, if not all, EMR pens have, and use Bluetooth to communicate the pressure sensor’s state to the system. The capacitive nib could track position data, but it wouldn’t treat it as a click or press or anything without the pressure sensor corresponding with that contact.

    Getting the system to actually recognize which contact point is the stylus and which are fingers and/or palms may be tricky, but it could work by scanning for pen pressure data the instant it detects a new touch point. If it doesn’t change, it’s a finger. If it does, it’s the pen.

    Too bad even that still won’t do anything about the lack of hover input…

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