With the first tablet pcs with Wacom’s new Active ES digitizer now on the market, the task of selecting a penabled device has become significantly more nuanced.

PC manufacturers seem to love to hide the details of their pens from the buying public. And now instead of asking, “Does it have a pen and is it Wacom or something else?” we need to ask “Does it have a pen and is it Wacom EMR, Wacom Active ES or something else?”

I’ve been using and really enjoying the 10” Toshiba Encore 2 Write for a while now and I still owe readers a review of that AES-equipped product (artist Eric Merced has just published one that I will be reprinting shortly). But in the meantime, I'd like to focus on what may be among the last of a breed: a tablet pc with the Wacom EMR (Electro-Magnetic Resonance) tech we’ve known for over a decade.