Editing The Pen Addict 274/transcript (section)

== Wacom Bamboo Slate ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, let's talk about the Wacom, Wacom, bamboo slate.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wacom, bamboo slate. So, what if you had a slate, essentially, a tablet, but you don't write on the tablet. You place the paper on top of the tablet, and then your pen, like you said, is not a proprietary pen. It's an attachment to your existing pen, and then you can transfer. So, that's not what the bamboo slate pretends to be. But I'm testing one of these out, because they have a cool partnership now with Rodia. And Execlare, the U.S. distributor for Rodia, sent me one of these. Now that they're partnering with them, they're providing the pads to Wacom. What did you say? Wacom?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, it's Wacom. You can say Wacom if you like, which I know is what Marco likes to say, but it's Wacom.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wacom. So, technically, the pen detail transfer to the digital device is killer. Like, it works exceptionally well, but there's 8,000 hangups.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, you put the notebook on top of a piece of plastic, right? And then when you write on the notebook, it transfers digitally to an app.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But it's all the pen. It doesn't have to be on the slate itself. So, why does the slate exist? It is your sync. It's part of the sync platform. I haven't totally gone through the details, because if you think about it, I'm writing on a Rodia pad that's 80 pages thick, and I'm writing on the top page that does not come through to the slate itself, because I'm writing on the topmost page.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's super clunky, because it's like this huge piece of plastic, like a clipboard, but it doesn't actually add functionality. It just syncs it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So, it's the sync piece. So, yeah, I'll have plenty to say about this, because it's really not that great for what they're asking for it. I think it's $149. And while my output is super clean and neat, it's kind of pointless. But we'll go into that as I review it more. But I wanted to talk about this, because mentally, I can see a time where I actually have a slate, and I throw my Tomoe River paper on there, and I have my fine cursive italic fountain pen nib, and somehow what I write gets transferred digitally, and in color. That's another thing. These are just black and white, which is freaking annoying.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You see, the slate thing is like as clunky and awkward to me as needing to use a proprietary pen or paper. It is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It totally is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because that's what you do. You're using the same pen technology with the same D1 refill.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you know, which is fine. But I just don't really have that wide acceptance use case that I can picture in my head. Yeah. And that's what I want. I want that widely accepted use case for all of these things. Because I see the value in the technology, but I don't see it as a widely accepted thing yet. No, because there's no elegant, truly elegant solution.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And there's no fiddly solution for all of us, right? We want to be fiddly with this kind of stuff.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I consider the fiddliness elegance. Right. Yeah. Because it's like, I don't want there to... I want this thing to happen, but I don't want to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it. Right. Like, that's the problem.