Protoype improved stylus

How about u tell me why my venue 11 pro is not working, it they did a repacment order on the 8th as to date its the 1st still in production no response from support, everytime I call they are fine with taking all my information than 10 mins in tell me I've reached the wrong department and to call back on Monday at so and so. This device I was supposed to have as a replacement for my previous device that wasn't working at all, now I'm stuck this manufacutor deffecet, it wasted about 3 months. Can u tell me what's going on with the new repacment why its taking another month.

I'm not sure how a post about the improved stylus would be able to answer your questions about why your Venue 11 Pro isn't working...

Thank you for your post CrazyDan. It's good to know some progress is happening. I wish I could beta test the stylus too.

Simple question: Do you still have the hover-click issue?

I have an odd question/suggestion that would be nice to pass off to the devs, but I doubt it will happen for technical reasons. Since the battery is a bit of an issue... has a rechargeable one been considered at all? Something that you could plug in a micro usb port and charge the pen. Just something interesting I think would be amazing...

Thank you for your post CrazyDan. It's good to know some progress is happening. I wish I could beta test the stylus too. Simple question: Do you still have the hover-click issue? I have an odd question/suggestion that would be nice to pass off to the devs, but I doubt it will happen for technical reasons. Since the battery is a bit of an issue... has a rechargeable one been considered at all? Something that you could plug in a micro usb port and charge the pen. Just something interesting I think would be amazing...

I haven't noticed any unwanted inputs when the pen is hovering above the display, but I haven't had the opportunity to test it extensively. I'll try to test it out today and give you a more confident answer. 

As for batteries, I ended up buying a 50 pack off Amazon for $28. While a rechargeable solution might make sense, I think the cost would be comparable to the 50 pack and not really worth it. By the time I use all 50, I'm hoping that there will be a stylus that doesn't need batteries (hey, I can wish) available. 

Hopefully, CRAZYDAN just bought a 50-year supply of batteries for his pen — that is, if Dell Marketing isn't just 'blowing smoke' (after inhaling it, of course). The advertised pen life is supposed to be a year; they're working on that, too...

Even if I ended up with a 'couple' of extra batteries, I would love it if each lasted a year.  I used the stylus to take notes today and everything seemed pretty spot on.  It seems like there are still slight remnants of the tails, but that can likely be fixed with firmware updates.  I'm beginning to think that they've pretty much fixed the stylus hang in there everyone, hopefully it'll be available shortly!

The only thing I'm still puzzled with is that the buttons don't seem to be programmed to do anything, which I'm guessing is because this unit is a prototype.  Has anyone heard if there is a way to assign functions to the buttons?  I'd love it if Dell made a utility that let us customize what they do.

Really? How many buttons are on there and where are the situated on the pen?

That's nice, I can think of a few things I would do with a button or two on the stylus if it was programmable,

It just has the rocker switch with the two different options.  It's identical to the older versions.  However, upon playing with some other settings tonight I saw in the control panel an option for stylus recognition.  Maybe there's something there that will allow me to assign functions to the stylus.  

This is not an 'official' request — but I hope you'll agree it is a sensible suggestion...

A limited number of Venue tablet owners were asked to evaluate hand-reworked samples of the digitizer pen, & comment on any observed performance differences from the original pen; these prototypes do not represent production units and the final design may be further modified based on feedback from testers. As one of those testers, I was asked to provide detailed feedback on my experience & concerns — to the Dell engineering staff. I have already passed along my results, but I have chosen not to post public feedback at this time, because:

(A) Some prototype pens may exhibit defects or issues which weren't caught before sending them out to testers and the performance of individual pens shouldn't reflect on the entire batch; beyond that — the production version may incorporate additional changes not present in the units we were asked to evaluate; and —

(B) Discussion threads on these forums are poorly organized and becoming increasingly fragmented. New forum members and occasional visitors may have a difficult time understanding whether comments apply to the old pens, the proto-pens, or eventually — the production release of revised pens.

I believe that my feedback along with that of other testers will be taken seriously by Dell's engineers, and I'm encouraged to think that a revised product could be shipping in a matter of weeks; for the time being — even for the external test participants — that's really all we know for sure...  :emotion-11:

There is already a revised stylus shipping, but what I'm not sure of is if it's this pen beta tester people have or not.  

The pen is revision A01 and has a manufacture date of Jan 2014.   People who have had styluses shipped in the last 4-5 days are receiving those styluses now.  

Because the evaluation samples were reworked by hand from original version pens, they can't be visually identified as the "A01" rev. — but I've received separate confirmation that the eval units are functionally equivalent to rev. A01 pens. I have mixed feelings about that, because I now doubt the several hours I spent over the past week, with my own testing as well as soliciting feedback from several other people, resulted in any contribution to the revised design — and I've been asked to ship back my alleged "A01" eval unit — after waiting for 2 replacement pens since early December...

:emotion-50:

This is not an 'official' request — but I hope you'll agree it is a sensible suggestion... A limited number of Venue tablet owners were asked to evaluate hand-reworked samples of the digitizer pen, & comment on any observed performance differences from the original pen; these prototypes do not represent production units and the final design may be further modified based on feedback from testers. As one of those testers, I was asked to provide detailed feedback on my experience & concerns — to the Dell engineering staff. I have already passed along my results, but I have chosen not to post public feedback at this time, because: (A) Some prototype pens may exhibit defects or issues which weren't caught before sending them out to testers and the performance of individual pens shouldn't reflect on the entire batch; beyond that — the production version may incorporate additional changes not present in the units we were asked to evaluate; and — (B) Discussion threads on these forums are poorly organized and becoming increasingly fragmented. New forum members and occasional visitors may have a difficult time understanding whether comments apply to the old pens, the proto-pens, or eventually — the production release of revised pens. I believe that my feedback along with that of other testers will be taken seriously by Dell's engineers, and I'm encouraged to think that a revised product could be shipping in a matter of weeks; for the time being — even for the external test participants — that's really all we know for sure...  :emotion-11:

I'm not fully sure what the "sensible suggestion" you're referring to was, but I can only guess that it was not to talk about the prototype devices on the forums.  There were two reasons why I decided to bring it up on the forums.

1.)   There is a lot of negativity on the forums regarding the current version of the pen.  While most know that a replacement is on the way, I felt that sharing my experiences would let people know that improvements have been made and that, hopefully, the improved stylus would be arriving soon.  

2.)  I wanted to give users who weren't lucky enough to test a prototype the opportunity to voice their frustrations with the stylus, so that I could attempt to provide insight as to if those frustrations were fixed.  

Before posting on the forums, I contacted the engineering department and asked if it was okay for me to talk about the improvements and they said yes.  I had already provided my feedback to the engineering team and wanted to help others.  No harm, no foul in my opinion.  

Concern is mostly moot, now that rev.A01 pens have been shipping for a few days, but your posts 'bout your 'rev. encounter' showed that your pen behaved differently from my prototype. Since there are several dozen of the prototype-pens in circulation, I believed (still do) that several testers reporting inconsistent results might create more confusion & unrest, rather than reassuring folks. I'm relieved that more testers didn't post their conclusions publicly.

However, any outside testers who were told their feedback could inluence the final design might have cause to wonder about that, since the samples we received were hand-tooled prototypes of the already finalized A01 pen – which was already in production...

Could you post some pictures of your results with this updated stylus ?

Hey Marcelo, sorry about the delayed response.  I've been pretty busy with school and stuff.  I'll try to get some pictures of the differences posted shortly.  Anything in particular you would like me to attempt?