Acer Styluses, what an absolute mess!

Why on earth would Acer produce over 10 different styluses and make them incompatible with different models? And to make it worse, the boxes seem to just say "Acer Active Stylus" on them and the only feature differentiating them is a tiny number on the back of the box.
I know (now) that there is a compatibility chart, however, even that is incomplete. Where is the NC23811040 for example?

Why would Acer do this? I just bought a tablet (SW512-52) and as it didn't come with a stylus, I ordered one. Turned out to be the wrong one, so that's money down the drain.

I've got an Acer laptop too, that I like, but this has certainly left a bitter taste in my mouth, in regards to Acer.

Why Acer? WHY???

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StevenGen

First, the ONLY stylus pen that is compatible with your "Acer SW 512-52" is the "Elan NP.STY1A.009" if you looked at the appropriate chart here: https://au.answers.acer.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/42666/~/active-stylus-compatibility-chart-for-notebooks then you would realise that the ONLY compatible pen is the "Acer NP.STY1A.009" look for this stylus pen, simple.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/x3/ero44s768tih.jpg

spludgey

Thanks for your response.
In Australia, I believe that the NC23811040 is sold as the stylus for this laptop.
I don't know that is the same as the NP.STY1A.009 or not though.
That's what I ordered and it was advertised for that laptop.

I still can't believe that they use so many different styluses and make them incompatible intentionally incompatible. I mean printer manufacturers play a similar game to sell ink. But at least they tell you which ink to buy and don't give them all the exact same name.

billsey

It depends on which digitizer is used, the Wacom digitizer uses a different active stylus than the Elan digitizer. That's the root reason for the different pens that fit different models, not anything Acer has done (other than choosing different vendors for different models). I believe Acer just wants the flexibility to choose the best vendor for each design instead of locking everything down to one. If the various companies that create digitizers would standardize we'd all be happier.

spludgey

But why not at the very least give them different names rather than calling them all "Acer Active Stylus" and making it clearly obvious which one is for which laptop?
Also, is the digitiser on the laptops different? Or is this something that could simply be resolved with soft/firmware?

billsey

Yeah, they use different digitizers on different laptops, because different laptops have different target audiences. For something targeting graphic artists you want a higher resolution digitizer than with one targeting handwriting recognition. I agree though, it would make more sense if they could figure out a way to use different naming, so styluses could be better differentiated. Or at least have a "Fits models x, y, z" as part of the specifications.

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