Microsoft's new Surface Slim Pen 2 does everything it can to make you believe you're writing on paper.
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Pen and paper are our most fundamental means of writing and drawing, and probably the most comfortable. And yet, outside of graphic design and other specialized applications, we rarely use them to interact with our desktop computers.
The new Surface Pen may not change that, but it does bring a crazy innovation to the pen-on-glass game: haptic feedback that makes the pen vibrate to mimic the feel of writing and drawing on paper. And unlike the Apple Pencil, the Surface Pen works on a laptop, sort of.
"The biggest advantage of the pen over the mouse is that it's much healthier in the long run. Using a mouse for long periods of time can be very comfortable, but many people who use mice develop carpal tunnel syndrome, whereas a pen input device doesn't put a lot of pressure on your wrist in the first place," health and fitness publisher Erik Pham told Lifewire via email.