Tag Archives: HP

HP ZBook X2 and active pen market

October 18, 2017.  By Jennifer Colegrove Ph.D.

Today, HP just announced the new ZBook X2 detachable PC with a Wacom’s active pen with 4096 pressure sensitive levels. The active pen has natural tilt and almost zero latency.

Figure: HP ZBook x2 with Wacom pen

Source: HP

HP is the earlier adopter of active pen. Its TouchSmart 12.1” NB PCs has adopted N-trig’s DuoSense active pen technology around 2009. HP is the company which has tried many types of active pens in the past 8 years.

Fourteen major brands’ adoption of active pen is analyzed in the Active pen 2017 report.

About 4 months ago, Apple just announced two new iPad Pro: the 10.5 inch version and the 12.9 inch version with active pens.

The active pen industry landscape has changed dramatically in the recent 3 years: Companies actively working on active pens has increased from 60 companies in 2014 to over 120 companies in 2017. These over 120 companies’ profiles are in the excel database. The strengths and weaknesses of key players are analyzed in this report.

The Active Pen 2017 Report provides the detail pen technologies analysis of 21 types of pen: 13 active pen and 8 passive pens.

There is no perfect active pen yet in the market. The 10 key characters of an ideal active pen are analyzed in chapter 8. This report provides not only the outlook for active pen and penetration in touch devices, but also provide Bill of Material (BOM) analysis of active pen module for “pen only” and “pen and finger” touch in chapter 7.

Over 100 devices with active pen are compared side by side with pen technologies and pen suppliers in the excel database.

Touch Display Research forecasted the active pen market will grow rapidly in the next several years.

Thanks for reading,

Dr. Jennifer Colegrove and team

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with active pen

May 20, 2014
Today Microsoft announced their new tablet PC: Surface Pro 3. It’s an improvement version over the Surface Pro 2. Although both tablets are with active pen, Surface Pro 3 is 32% thinner at only 0.36 inch, while the Surface Pro 2 is 0.53 inch thick. How does Microsoft Surface group achieve the thinness? The answer is in the touch and active pen technology.
Figure. Surface Pro 3 with active pen
surface pro 3 b
Source: Microsoft, May 2014

Simultaneous finger touch and pen writing are the ideal human machine interface. Active pen technology is superior to passive pen in terms of accuracy, pressure sensing, and input of fine line. In our recently released Active pen technologies supply chain and market forecast 2014 report, we forecast that active pen usage will have rapid growth in the next several years.
Touch Display Research’s “Active pen 2014 report” provides analysis of over a dozen digital pen technologies: nine active pen technologies and six passive pen technologies. All the Android and Windows devices with active pen are compared side by side in a single chart.
The attitude of leading brands toward active pen is analyzed. This includes Samsung, Sony, Intel, HP, Dell, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Apple. You can subscribe to the report right now on our website.

Thanks for reading,
Jennifer and team