I think every remote job that sends employees a laptop should also be sending them a wacom tablet.
I'm using a "cheap" one (I think it was like 80 EUR), and it's mind blowing how convenient it is despite its small size. Now trying to use a physical whiteboard for brainstorming, feels the same way as trying to use pen and paper for programming: technically doable, but I curse internally because the inconvenience.
Just being able to select stuff and move it around, or undo with a quick Ctrl+Z, or rotate things, makes all the difference.
Sure, I love using a paper notebook for my notes, and the feel of writing with a pencil on paper is really nice; and I would use it for drawing quick stuff if I don't have anything else at hand. But if I think I'm going to be erasing a lot, or that I will be doing the kind of stuff that is usually done with a whiteboard, a drawing tablet is (to me) a vastly superior option.
There are also some online ones, although I'm not sure how well they work in a multi-editor situation.
Might not be flexible enough for a really open brainstorming, but enough for stuff like figuring out domain concepts.
PlantUML - quick and simple text representation of diagrams, really easy to iterate on and see changes reflected live.
reveal.js - Quick and simple slide creation, I can reorder slides with ease, tweak wording, don't waste time faffing about with fonts, text box sizing etc. All reflected live in a browser.
This can be done by a script automatically executed at power-on, which may also choose how the buttons should behave, if you do not like the defaults.
For instance, for my Wacom stylus I set the tip to be left click, the first button to be right click and the second button to be double left click. Actually doing double click with the stylus buttons is more inconvenient, so it is more comfortable to map the single click on some button as a double click.
My kids even prefer that with a big (and pretty old) wacom tablet.
(P.S.: I apologize for other unanswered comments in the thread; I can't reply anymore because of how many days have passed since.)
I once got an bigger "upgrade" for my small wacom tablet, but it only collected dust. It used too much space on the desk to always keep it ready, and the larger active area meant too much travel distance when using the pen as a mouse.
And concerning Wacom, they were the first to have someone working on Linux drivers, and the only one for a long time, back when tablets were new. Not sure how it is today.
Wacom still has great Linux support, but now there's OpenTabletDriver which supports many other tablets [1].
In comparison with a mouse, a stylus is much more comfortable, much faster and more precise.
Give them something with a screen instead (e.g. cintiq knock-offs, ipads, samsung tablet, surface) or a webcam mounted to record a whiteboard/blackboard or mounted overhead to record a sheet of paper. That might also help to get better audio at the same time.
Side-note: When remote meetings became necessary in recent years, lots of software/hardware solutions were improvised, not great, but workable and with a hope that better solutions will become available later. Somehow that did not happen and people are still "scratching unintelligible diagrams/equations with their mouse" because there is no standard, widely available software and hardware that makes this easy.
The impetus was from wanting to be able to practice digital art in free time regardless of where I am, but it has ended up being extremely convenient as anything can be quickly drawn up or written, easily shared with everyone else and does is trivially retained.
What laptop do you recommend with S Pen support?
I had also tried the regular Galaxy Book 3 360 for a day, but I felt the screen was a bit small and not as sharp as I'd like.
That said, since EMR pens also work in-place of S pens, I'd guess that S pens will work on any device that supports EMR pens (minus the bluetooth air gestures, those aren't available on windows laptops). For me the value was the 'ecosystem' with my other devices which also happen to be from Samsung, including the ability to share the stylus between everything.
It's so annoying dealing with a separate tablet just for the sake of writing. Why not a tablet PC or such?
Tablets need extra space only when replacing the embedded touchpads or trackpoints of laptops.
For someone who uses a desktop or who prefers mice to touchpads, a tablet does not need any extra space, it just replaces the mouse and the mouse pad with the stylus and the tablet.
There are big tablets too, but for replacing a mouse and for simple drawings a small tablet like Wacom Intuos S is perfect.
For an office job I'd take the external tablet, since my laptop would likely be plugged in all the time.
You could also keep it permanently in tablet mode and use an external monitor, mouse, and keyboard. Just don't underestimate the mode change.
* only glossy screens
* screen with touch layer look worse than non-touch counterparts
* poor to very poor software support
Not to mention the hefty price tag.
In VR, you can point, draw, and share virtual desktops.
Otherwise, no one knows what the hell anyone is talking about, and perhaps get the wrong impression about one another.
I strongly disagree with RTO as ass-in-seat-mentality for knowledge work jobs that don't design or manufacture physical items. I've been part of fully WFH companies since ~2000 spanning up to 8 time zones. The quality of discussions requires the ubiquity of tools for expressiveness.
We have been trialing using it to draw graphviz graphs for discussion and it has been working very well both as an in meeting tool and as a reference later on.
Would be interested to go the Wacom route but my my handwriting is very bad and only getting worse
I'm pretty sure it was a tooling issue rather than the tablet itself, and wouldn't mind taking another punt at it.
>I'm pretty sure it was a tooling issue
Depends on whether you want shape/diagram recognition or not. If the only thing you need is free-form drawing, you can use just about anything.
I will try it on linux later. Hopefully it will work there.
My initial gripe is that there are three different toolbars, all separated from each other. I want to change tools and their settings quickly, not move my hand across the entire screen. For example, select brush tool on bottom toolbar, select size on the left toolbar, then select color on the top toolbar.
When I was a prof, I used the Wacom on linux with OpenBoard [1] to teach online for two years of the pandemic. My work gave me a Macbooks, but OpenBoard has some weird bugs on MacOS. So I am using GoodNotes, which is very annoying, but the best of what I tried. In another life, I would dedicate a few years of my life writing a decent note taking app.
[1] https://github.com/OpenBoard-org/OpenBoard
Edit: Besides the software, I think it takes a few weeks of writing on it daily where it becomes natural.
I have a Wacom Intuos S.
Sample size 1, but I haven't been inconvenienced by its size, even while handwriting or drawing at Krita.
On one hand, I don't think a thought like "this would be easier with a bigger tablet" has ever crossed my mind; but on the other hand, it's also true that I haven't tried anything bigger, so my only point of comparison is tablet vs mouse or tablet vs whiteboard/notebook.
The surface of the tablet is mapped to your screen in terms of input. The Intuos M is just a bit smaller than 13 inch laptop screens. So what you see on the screen is roughly the same size as what you draw with your hand. Additionally, while writing at normal pen/paper size, my hand moves comfortably from the left of the tablet to the right as I write across the whole screen.
If I had to use a Intuos S, then I imagine, I would have to write a lot smaller with my hand, but then have it appear as bigger on the screen. But my hand would not move a lot, and making tiny characters would tire my hand out faster. I think my brain would get used to it, but it will still be a jump.
Only in absolute mode though. If you switch it to relative mode though, then it's a bit more flexible.
Contour drawing is not taught in primary education, and it really should be: it generalizes on how you learned to write by learning some muscle memory and then playing it back to make a mark. Nobody who can write should be going around saying "I'm untalented at art, I can't even draw a straight line".
Best thing is that they have a plugin architecture that can do some basic customization.