I'm hoping here that stylus means the pen associated with an active digitizer and not just a pecking-stick for a touchscreen. The average consumer doesn't want a resistive screen with a resistive stylus OR a capacitive screen with a capacitive stylus. Both touchscreen stylus options miss the brilliance of what exactly you can do with an active digitizer.

Capacitive touch with an active digitizer would be a HUGE consumer win, based on my highly unscientific habit of lending people computers. Because I have a lot of devices that most people have never seen, I'm pretty generous about handing them over to strangers when I'm out and about so that they can see what they're missing. I also like talking to people about technology, seeing what they know, and trying to learn a thing or two myself.

Most people who I talk to prefer capacitive touchscreens over resistive touchscreens (I don't). When I hand them over a Tablet PC with an active digitizer they are floored. The “hover” feature of an active digitizer and pen is pretty unbeatable. An active digitizer experience is far more “magical” than any capacitive touchscreen, multi-touch or otherwise. Most people cite hover, accuracy, and decreased occlusion (the pen blocks a lot less of the screen then your hands and fingers do) as things that they really like. Most people agree that the pen is also far more comfortable to use for long periods of time then fingers. Personally, I think that pressure sensitivity is another big win in terms of the active digitizer, although only a minority of the people who I let try my Tablet PCs seem to care about that. I imagine if more than just drawing software took advantage of this feature then more people would care (for example, I've always wished that I could just press the scrollbar to scroll in a window, with a harder press resulting in longer scroll.) Perhaps one day we'll have “pressure gesture” much in the same way that multi-touch expanded to include new interface gestures.

Interestingly, almost everybody I talk to says that they like the active digitizer more than a capacitive touchscreen, but some of those still report that if they could only have one input method on a slate then they'd take the capacitive touch for reasons like “it's more familiar”, I can use it while I drive” (don't get me started on that), and “I'm afraid of losing the pen”. Recently, I've acquired a pure slate with both a capacitive touchscreen and an active digitizer. While I'm not personally into the capacitive part of it as much, this is now universally heralded as the best way to do a slate by non-tech types who I hand it over to. This is a beloved piece of technology and people “get it”. It gives them what we've come to call the “fast casual” input method of capacitive touch with the more formal, comfortable, accurate, and responsive input method of the active digitizer. And just to let you know how confused some people are about technology, most don't know that active digitizers already exist and believe that the pen is some sort of special technology that's emerged because of capacitive multi-touch.

HP already has two convertible Tablet PCs that have capacitive multi-touch and active digitizers (I own neither) together, and if they can bring forth a slate with similar goodness then they have a chance. Having said all of this, price and battery life are all that's going to matter.

Hey guys i need some help im in medical school and iv looked and researched far above my level of knowledge in these areas but iv come across many issues concerning the stylus (i want something i can take fine point notes with on power point slides w/ no need of converting my handwriting) with pressure sensitivity like the wacom drivers support…and not something that will make me have to have a weird hand posotion to take notes on bc i cant rest my palm on the screen…also i like the duel digitizer idea but it would have to be further than 1 inch from the screen before it switched to purely stylus bc i cant keep my hand rested on the tablet the whole time..thats annoying…w/out worrying about my palm marking up my slides…any ideas on what r my best options (iv ruled out the ipad bc of the operating sys doesnt support Wacom press. sensitivity and fine writing and the fact that i cant rest palm on screen…ruled out wacom bc it doesnt support microsoft software (powerpoint, etc)…and well not sure about some of these other devices like the HP Touchsmart Tm2 bc it only switches to stylus mode within an inch of screen..so afraid palm would mark up screen and ruled out ASUS bc again cant rest palm on screen…any ideas would be much appreciated. Prefer something similar to ipad but tablet PC would do as well