Are the newest Surface Pens really different?

[PEN]

The newest Surface Pens have a hexagonal shape and only come in 4 colors. The older pens are cylindrical and come in more colors. You can get a bundle of the Surface Pro 7, type cover and the older pen, but if you look in the specs, it doesn't show the Surface Pro 7 as supported. You have to hunt around a bit on the MS Store website to find the newer pen, but it does show the Surface Pro 7 as supported. So my questions are:

Does the newer pen really offer anything other than a new shape?

Are the older pens really incompatible with the Surface Pro 7?

Posted Dec 3, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

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wavespeech•6 yr. ago

Newer pen is more sensitive, less pressure required when doodling. Supposedly more responsive but that depends on which model Surface as its the digitiser too that makes a difference.

All pens work on all Surfaces. (well maybe not the Surface 1 pen, but from SP3 onwards)

Oldest compatible pens, SP3, have 2 side buttons. Also require additional button cell batteries for the Bluetooth eraser/button.

mongoos1000•6 yr. ago

I thought the new pen is the one from Surface ARM. Is there s new Pen for the plain Surface Pros, really?

linuxlibOP:Pro:Surface Pro 7/i7/16 GB/512 GB SDD•6 yr. ago

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-pen/92fp8q09qhxc?cid=msft_web_collection&activetab=pivot%3aoverviewtab

The top picture shows the shows the older pens, but in the box with the "Open Gallery" link, you can see the newer pens. The gallery clearly shows the hexagonal shape.

KonoKalakahua•6 yr. ago

Those pictures all show the same pen (from the same gen) it's just that that generation of surface pen (which is the 4th gen/the version without a clip [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4519767/identify-your-surface-pen-and-features]) has one flat side/edge and the rest of it is rounded. So you are seeing two different sides of the same pens (actually the previous gen pen-with a clip) also has a flat side/edge).

In fact the ice blue and poppy red colored pens you can see in the upper/top picture were actually released more recently then the cobalt blue, platinum and black colors (just different colorways).