Does OneNote have palm rejection or a hand rest spot?

Question

I just bought an Acer Iconia W500. I really wanted to use it for taking notes and having all the amenities of a full blown computer without the size.

Using OneNote to take notes, I notice I can't rest my hand on the screen. I have read some about this and it seems the very best solution is to get a tablet with active digitizer technology, but there aren't too many with this and it is expensive.

So barring that, is there any way I can rest my hand on the tablet screen while taking notes in OneNote? Or am I relegated to hovering my hand over the screen while I write notes?

Does OneNote have a palm rest area or some sort of palm rejection?

Answer 1

Palm rejection is a feature of the hardware and device driver. To Onenote, all your computer is doing is moving a cursor. It has NO idea where your hand is. Heck, you don't even need a hand to emulate the movement. You can draw on Onenote using APIs.

It was generally considered for a LONG time that Walcom had by far the best palm rejection technology. But recently, the Ntrigs in the Dell XT2 have caught up. I haven't tried the Acer Iconia yet. Your best bet is to ask the guys at a Tablet PC enthusiast forum, like TabletPCreview.com and find out the manufacturer of the screen.

For example, I have a older HP TZ2500, which features excellent palm reject. It isn't multi touch, nor light as a feather. But I wouldn't trade it for a sissy media tablet anyday.

Answer 2

This is rather a comment, but posting as an answer because it is too long.

Now that you know you just have to buy the right hybrid laptop to get palm rejection, how does one go about choosing such a laptop?

There are at least two gotchas regarding this choice. One is that (a) just because the laptop model you want to buy is known to come with a stylus or a pen does not mean that it actually supports palm rejection. Another is that (b) just because palm rejection doesn't seem to work when you actually start writing with the pen on that laptop does not mean that the model does not support palm rejection.

This is how you can check palm rejection: you could go to a laptop store, and they will usually allow you to play around with a test hybtrid laptop, and then what you should test is this: (1) Open OneNote (Both Desktop version and Modern UI (a.k.a. Metro) version are fine for this test) (2) slowly move the tip of the pen (that comes with it) towards the screen (3) as soon as the cursor appears (it should appear before the pen touches the screen), stop moving and try touching the screen with your fingers (from your other hand) (while the pen tip is still there mid air at that spot you stopped) (3) now verify that OneNote does not respond to your fingers (as long as that pen tip is there just slightly above the screen). Then that test laptop supports palm rejection. Otherwise, it does not support palm rejection.

Even if this test shows the model supports palm rejection, you could come to the gotcha (b) with that model. In that case, you have two options: you could decide to not buy that model and try another model, or you could just buy this model but practice the habit of always landing the pen tip to the screen before landing your palm.