 The sensell morph is unlike anything we've ever used. Some might call it an overgrown touch pad, but others have praised it for its creative applications in music or programming. To be fair, it is essentially an overgrown touch pad, but it's also much more than that. Its overlays, including one that you can design yourself, can make it useful for nearly any kind of creative work. So it's got a lot going for it on paper, but a slick spec sheet and a crafty Kickstarter campaign can only take you so far. How does it actually fare in everyday use? And how will I fare transitioning to our sponsor, Origin PC? Origin PC laptops can now be customized with 11th Gen Intel Core processors and Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series graphics. Check out Origin PC at the link below. Sensell raised over $400,000 on Kickstarter back in 2015, eventually shipping to all their backers in 2017. And since then, they've been hard at work developing their unusual touch technology. The Morph's special sauce is that it features 19,425 sensors or sensels under its surface, with each of them capable of detecting up to five kilograms of force with a total of 32,000 levels of sensitivity. What that means is that compared to a normal touch pad, which relies on relatively rough approximations of your fingers pressure and movement, the Morph is extraordinarily precise. It also has wireless functionality lasting for up to a day of use at a time. And with the Sensell app, any of the overlays can be easily remapped and customized based on each user's individual needs, just by plugging into a Windows or Mac computer. Now our unit needed a firmware update before we got started, but the process was shockingly painless compared to some of the other tablets we've seen and the Morph's lights actually act as a progress bar while it's updating. Cute. Now one of Sensell's main selling points on the website is their MPE or MIDI Polyphonic Expression support, which is an extension of MIDI that allows per-note expression beyond just velocity, pitch and aftertouch. But just looking at the Morph as an innovative music device sells it a bit short. Want a macro pad with 78 tactile reprogrammable buttons? Well, provided you have some experience with auto hotkey, you're ready to rock. Want a dedicated drum pad, XY pad or MIDI controller, or even a drawing surface? You can do all of that and more with the Morph. And what's really unexpected is that you can do it well. Well, mostly, but more on that in a minute. Musically speaking, using the Morph is as plug and play as any other MIDI controller. Plug it in, add your overlay and enable it in your digital audio workstation or DAW of choice. Do be mindful that not every DAW natively supports MPE properly. And some, like FL Studio, don't support it at all. But others have already embraced it in their ecosystem. And synths like Vital really let you do a lot of crazy morphing with it. Ableton is a good example of a DAW with native support for MPE, even in some of its included plugins. And when you can play around with it, it works incredibly well. Being able to wiggle your finger, even in a slight manner to completely change how a note reacts is a special kind of feeling when it's first experienced. If I had to criticize the experience, I would say the subtle ridges that guide you between the white notes takes some getting used to. And sometimes it feels unproductive to compose on it. But a big part of that is because of how gosh darn fun it is to use. I mean, sure, it'll never have the feel of a regular piano with hammer keys, striking the strings, or even the feel of a cheap MIDI controller with semi-weighted keys. And if you want your piano playing to have character and depth, you're gonna need to modify your velocities per note after recording. But those complaints are all kind of like saying, hey, that riff that you did on the recorder, it might need some post-work to spice it up. Cause it's horses for courses, and what the morph does well, it does really well. Swapping out for the drum overlay. If you like finger drumming, then this does get the job done. It's not as utility driven as a launch pad and not as large as a MIDI fighter, but it's still great for quickly drafting up some beat ideas or for a cool live performance video. And moving to the Buchla Thunder overlay, this one is kind of awesome, even if it's a bit confusing at first glance. It turns a traditional keyboard into a full three-dimensional keyboard with space for your fingers to modify the sound through mapping vertical and horizontal motion on each key to different MIDI channels. There's also a control surface overlay that has more traditionally styled MIDI pads and a bunch of additional slider surfaces to control MIDI parameters. I'd say though that the black and white keyboard is still where it manages the best with both character and expression. That being said, the keyboard with MPE can be pretty taxing on CPU power, so make sure that you have a good CPU. We actually have an upcoming video on what it takes to build a good music production PC, so make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss it. Now, Sensil used to offer an art overlay, but it hasn't been in production for a couple of years now, and honestly speaking, that's probably for the better. Because there's no traditional stylus-receptive digitizer, the Morph only detects input when something is actually pushing on its surface, which makes drawing with it a little bit awkward. Now, I've read online that some people absolutely love using it as a drawing surface, but personally, I would say you're better off going with a dedicated tablet instead, because having to hold your stylus down on the surface, both when you're drawing and when you're moving it around, isn't a particularly intuitive experience. And that's when it actually works. Guys, there are better drawing solutions out there for a fraction of the cost, just buy one of those instead. As for the video editing overlay, it's, well, it's fine. It has dedicated buttons for common command in Adobe Premiere, but then most of those have easy hot keys as it is, and the composition scrubbing tools, that's a cool idea, but they don't feel that precise. Honestly, I'd rather just remap a regular keyboard and put stickers on the keys, especially with the tactile feedback that the Morph provides, which brings us perfectly then to the tactile keyboard overlay, which Sensil describes as feeling fantastic to type on and offering mechanical feedback. Oh, that's a lot to unpack. I would say that I agree with those statements, but only if I had never felt a keyboard before. I have pulled keyboards out of e-waste bins that offered noticeably better typing experience than the Morph's keyboard overlay. It's mushy and unsatisfying at best, and at its worst, it misses keystrokes entirely. Furthermore, due to the silicone overlay, the tiny touchpad spot is neither accurate nor is it comfortable. It's really not the kind of thing I would normally rip on when reviewing a jack of all trades product like this, but I think they were asking for it. Misleading claims from manufacturers need to be called out, and those were a couple of doozies. With that being said, the keyboard overlay does make a great option as a macro pad since it is fully remappable. You can use non-standard inputs and reroute those throughout a hotkey to spit out phrases or perform macros, and it works pretty well. I mean, heck, with remapping, you can actually even use the Morph as a game controller, although the experience of using a flat surface as a full game pad would be an acquired case, to say the least. Finally, hold on a second, Linus. I mean, this is just a giant touch surface, right? Why not use it as a fancy track pad on its own? Well, if you wanna use the entire tablet as a touch surface to replace your mouse, you actually can do that. It's got respectable accuracy and good gesture support, and I would have said, it's awesome. You can use the configurable pressure sensitivity to fine tune your hard press, and it even makes a little click noise and stuff when you press down. But here's the thing, Sencel also sent over a sample unit of the haptic touch pad that they're building for laptop partners like Lenovo. And even compared to this thing, it's a game changer. Like first Windows touch pad that is flat out better than a MacBook. Be excited. Back to the Morph, though. The conclusion of this video is pretty simple. If watching this sparks the creative part of your brain into saying, oh, gee, I could use the innovator's overlay to make my own thing that does whatever it is that I do, you'll love it. Their configuration and API documentation is great, and you're gonna have a lot of fun with this thing. However, if you've been glazed over for the last seven minutes watching the way that my eyebrows move when I talk, then all that you need to know is, hey, Sencel, they're cool guys who make cool tech, and you're gonna want it in your next laptop. Oh, and you'll probably also need to know about our sponsor for today, Notion. Notion is all about getting more done and easily sharing your work. With Notion, you can take notes, manage tasks, set goals, and so much more. And it'll help save time and increase productivity by making it easier for everyone to find the info that they need. Notion is so customizable that you can tailor the tools to fit your team or your own needs. And many of us in the office use Notion, both at work and personally, just to seamlessly manage and collaborate on different projects around the office. So sign up for Notion for free using the link down below and give it a shot. If you guys enjoyed this video, you might enjoy our video of the Gemini Portable Touchscreen Monitor. That thing was pretty cool and groundbreaking because it was both touchscreen and affordable, which is, for whatever reason, really hard to find on standalone products, even though it's integrated into $200 laptops.