I just returned from our annual basic surveying course here in Poland.
The last thing we do on this courses is some paperless sketching. The previous six times we gathered all legacy WM PDAs we could from all around the country and did this part of the training on PocketTopo. But since it was becoming more and more difficult to source enough devices, this year we gave up and let people draw on their smartphones.
Now I am somewhat depressed after this Sunday afternoon. It turned out that it's not just my phone and my being accustomed to these good old resistive screens - but that generally drawing on this modern glass leaves much to be desired. With a rubber ?0.50 stylus, no-one could get even close to the quality we used to get on a 240x320 screen of a long discontinued Dell Axim X51.
I bought a so-called "active stylus" for ?50, it works somewhat better but still worse than a chopstick treated with a pencil sharpener (applied to a resistive screen). Besides, it seems a delicate piece of electronics and I really can't imagine using it in our Alpine projects (on rope and in mud-covered gloves etc.). Same goes for Galaxy Note styli. We also noticed that some cheaper devices (eg a particular lenovo tablet) perform ugly no matter what kind of finger or stylus is used: something hoped to be a straight line becomes a zig-zag anyway...
Anyway, I am writing not to complain but in hope to learn from others' experiences. Can you guys debating here on Sony Z-series phones and other fancy equipment that can be ruggedized tell us your newest tricks and share your results?
These modern devices cost significantly more and I would love to know what is actually possible before buying a phone, case and a stylus for a total of ?200+. Maybe my expectations are too high and I have to go back to paper and pencil...
To start with, this is what we used to get with a rugged Fujitsu-Siemens PDA (480x640). Obviously it's not a beginner's work: http://jaskinie.jaszczur.org/im/yes-you-can.png
Cheers!
Mateusz
The last thing we do on this courses is some paperless sketching. The previous six times we gathered all legacy WM PDAs we could from all around the country and did this part of the training on PocketTopo. But since it was becoming more and more difficult to source enough devices, this year we gave up and let people draw on their smartphones.
Now I am somewhat depressed after this Sunday afternoon. It turned out that it's not just my phone and my being accustomed to these good old resistive screens - but that generally drawing on this modern glass leaves much to be desired. With a rubber ?0.50 stylus, no-one could get even close to the quality we used to get on a 240x320 screen of a long discontinued Dell Axim X51.
I bought a so-called "active stylus" for ?50, it works somewhat better but still worse than a chopstick treated with a pencil sharpener (applied to a resistive screen). Besides, it seems a delicate piece of electronics and I really can't imagine using it in our Alpine projects (on rope and in mud-covered gloves etc.). Same goes for Galaxy Note styli. We also noticed that some cheaper devices (eg a particular lenovo tablet) perform ugly no matter what kind of finger or stylus is used: something hoped to be a straight line becomes a zig-zag anyway...
Anyway, I am writing not to complain but in hope to learn from others' experiences. Can you guys debating here on Sony Z-series phones and other fancy equipment that can be ruggedized tell us your newest tricks and share your results?
These modern devices cost significantly more and I would love to know what is actually possible before buying a phone, case and a stylus for a total of ?200+. Maybe my expectations are too high and I have to go back to paper and pencil...
To start with, this is what we used to get with a rugged Fujitsu-Siemens PDA (480x640). Obviously it's not a beginner's work: http://jaskinie.jaszczur.org/im/yes-you-can.png
Cheers!
Mateusz