Is ASUS 121 the only new (2011) tablet PC for TVPP 9.5?

[Kathy Engelhard]

Hi everyone! I am still wondering about the tablet PC'S of 2011. I now see that TVPP9.5 needs a dual chip CPU
and it has to have Win OS. But, is an Asus 121 the only one that is recommended at this time for the tablet PC's
that are available now?
Otherwise, the older PC's like Motion Computing Le 1700 or Toshiba Tecra M4 (that's what I have for a mobile PC) work, right?
Thank you.

[CartoonMonkey]

You're 100% absolutely correct. It's totally incredible, but android, and the ipad have wiped out all the possibilities for nice fast true Tablet PC's that run a real desktop OS like Windows. (Or OSX if you're handy)

First, I saw the death of high resolution SXGA+ screens, some years ago, and now..the death of the Tablet PC itself! None of the manufacturers are making a true Tablet PC with a Wacom digitizer any longer. I bought (and returned) the Asus Ep121, but as of this date, it's the most powerful tablet with a wacom digitizer for the value. ($1000 USD) I didn't like the weird aspect ration and lack of resolution to draw on.. but a beautiful machine none the less..

I myself stick with my old Le1700, because mostly I need the high resolution screen. It would be nice to have a faster processor, but I just don't really need it with the sketching / doodling I do on the machine. (I'm not doing heavy lifting / video editing type stuff on it when I'm out at a cafe.)

I'm really really hoping that Microsoft will surprise everyone with thin, core i5, core i7 or faster true Tablet Pc's that run Windows 8, and are fully backward compatible with all my old painting and animation apps. (no thanks to the mobile / Atom processors they're porting to, etc.)

I wish Microsoft would purchase Wacom, and manufacture their own line of patented Tablet PC's for working artists.
Sigh..
End of rant..

[idragosani]

I wish Microsoft would purchase Wacom, and manufacture their own line of patented Tablet PC's for working artists.

No no no!

[D.T. Nethery]

It's totally incredible, but android, and the ipad have wiped out all the possibilities for nice fast true Tablet PC's that run a real desktop OS like Windows. (Or OSX if you're handy)

First, I saw the death of high resolution SXGA+ screens, some years ago, and now..the death of the Tablet PC itself! None of the manufacturers are making a true Tablet PC with a Wacom digitizer any longer.

It is very frustrating that we are actually going backwards in terms of high-resolution tablets (with Wacom pressure sensitivity) that can run our go-to apps like TVP, or Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Artrage, etc. that professional illustrators and animators need to run on a Tablet.

From everything I've read the Motion Computing LE 1600 and LE 1700 tablet PC line was great , but there is not likely to be a new "LE 1800" with an up-to-date processor . And on the Mac side the "Modbook" tablet from Axiotron running Mac OS has been killed off by the iPad. (last year Axiotron had announced a "Modbook Pro" in development , which would have been a modification of a 15" Macbook Pro into a 15" screen tablet . I was waiting for that , but it never got beyond prototype) .

I know of a friend who recently did freelance storyboards on a feature film using his iPad , working at home on the couch or in the comfort of his local coffee shop , but he only did rough pass boards on the iPad using Alias Sketchbook Mobile (at 1024 resolution), then he had to import his rough board image files to his Mac Pro , then bumped-up the images to 1920 in Photoshop and did the clean-up board panels on new layers at 1920 resolution before importing to AfterEffects for the animatic. How much nicer if there was a tablet PC or true tablet Mac with 1920 or 2048 resolution ( and which ran Mac OS or Windows OS with "real" programs like TVP and Photoshop, although for myself I rarely use Photoshop, I'm doing everything I need with TVP, but I know a lot of people are still stuck on Adobe).

[Fabrice]

Hello,

I also posted elsewhere in the forum, but I think it's the right place.

After almost 4 years of daily use, my old TabletPC Toshiba Portege M400-11C (res 1050 x 1440) is finally not working anymore ...

I just changed last week :
I have a now a "Lenovo X220 Tablet" with a i5 processor 2520M 2,5 Ghz, 4 GB of memory, 160 GB of SSD hard-drive, windows 7 64 bits.
(the i7 version was available on sale two days after my purchase ... grrr but the benchmarks on the web gave a value of 8400 for the i5, and 8700 for the i7, so maybe it was not necessary to have an expensive i7)
The stylus technology is Wacom (we expected N-Trig, but finally it was Wacom )

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/products/prof ... blet.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

x220t_hero.jpg (27.56 KiB) Viewed 30853 times

* The first important things to mention is the loss in terms of resolution : 768 x 1368 is incredibly small compared to the 1050 x 1440 of the old Toshiba, and I spent several hours to tweak windows 7, firefox, thunderbird to have more usable places on the screen. (I admit there is also a huge work on TVPaint Animation about this)

* The second one is the SSD : I tested a slow one last year, but the Lenovo's one is really great and fast.
When using : my external harddrive connected, + a video running + our antivirus software running + a defrag, and about 10 softwares installations ... the battery last 5 hours !
When working on my emails and japanese lessons (mostly office software applications) the battery last about ... 8 hours !
On the old Toshiba's it was about 2 hours whatever I did.

* About the stylus :
It's difficult to manage the preferences about the stylus and touch options, since there are so many possibilities between the lenovo and widows pref panels, and also several small embed softwares which are mostly disturbing.
It seems that it's not possible to scratch the screen even it you sketch a lot. (I had a lot of troubles with the scratched sceen on the Toshiba)

* About TVPaint :
It's much faster and responsive than everything I tryed before. The SSD provide enough speed the big files in less than 2 seconds, and the i5 gives enough power to the tools which requires it (animbrushes based on smear and shift)

I will keep you posted about it.

nb : Lenovo is in fact IBM. We have choosen it because I prefered to have a 768 x 1368 screen res, rather than the now classical (but not enough) 800 x 1280.

[D.T. Nethery]

I have now a "Lenovo X220 Tablet" with a i5 processor 2520M 2,5 Ghz, 4 GB of memory, 160 GB of SSD hard-drive, windows 7 64 bits.

The stylus technology is Wacom (we expected N-Trig, but finally it was Wacom. )

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/products/prof ... blet.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



I will keep you posted about it.

Thanks for the information about the Lenova X220 Tablet. So far it sounds good (even with the reduced screen resolution).

[Fabrice]

Just feel free to ask me anything about it, it's the right time to test everything

[Kathy Engelhard]

Thank you, Fabrice for your update. I've been spending hours and days searching the www. for a notebook/tablet PC that has a GeForce GPU or ATI GPU +
a Wacom digitizer with at least a 2 ghz CPU. I've thought about used ones and fantasized about really expensive ones.

I think get it! These would be the priorities in a laptop/tablet PC in order to use TVPP9.5 full strength and animate on (Right?):

1) a CPU that has a 2 ghz minimum with an Intel intergrated graphics
2) 4 gb RAM minimum
3) Wacom digitizer
4) a screen with the best resolution even 768 x 1368 pixels
5) WIN 64-bit OS
6) 7200 RPM hard drive with lots of storage

But, when you say TVP flies on the IBM Lenovo X220 Tablet, that is a possibility (if I can afford it) to this info hunter. My dream is to leave my old Tecra M4 on my desk with the HP desktop for a back up mobile PC, then use a strong and lighter-than-Tecra M4 laptop/tablet that lasts for more than 2-3 hours that I can use anywhere. Like most artists I lose track of time when I'm involved.

Thank you, D.T. Nethery for telling me about your friend who drew on an Ipad in one resolution then transferred and enlarged the image pixels in Photoshop. When I was reading your post that question was forming in my mind to ask. Then, you had answered it as I finished the paragraph! It sounds like an Ipad is great for drawing on, watching movies, email, etc. but no animating...

But, then maybe that would be enough for me, to just draw on it with the Alias Sketchbook Mobile, like your friend, and then transfer via bluetooth or flash drive if there's a USB on the new Ipad 2 to animate the files on my super strong HP desktop? I would want to use Corel Painter 12 if there's a mobile version, but it seems like Alias would be similar. I guess it really doesn't matter what drawing software is used as long as the file type and pixel size works. Right?
I might be in heaven using a little Ipad even if it did take another step in resizing images in order to animate. And another thought occured. maybe it really doesn't matter what tablet pc is used, when using it to only draw on, as long as the screen is sensitive enough, then transfer the files to resize and animate. It would be like using a tablet pc as a mobile Wacom tablet! What I should be thinking about is: get a laptop to draw and animate on or use an Ipad or one similar to just draw on, then resize and animate later on my desktop. The cost factor will help me decide!

Does it matter using TVPP 9.5 in Win 7 64-bit OS in one machine then transferring those files into another machine with Win XP 32-bit OS? It seems like it has worked for my older TVPP files but maybe I've missed something.
Thanks again everyone for such great help! My questions are endless...

[CartoonMonkey]

Some interesting info from the CEO of a Tablet PC manufacturer I am in contact with, on the question of high resolution Tablet PC availibility:

Hello Chad,
I’m sorry to tell you that while Windows 8 is a great looking O/S and will be a well-received O/S for Tablet users, the innovation towards Pen input is minimal, Redmond has focused its resources to the Touch community……
We continue to work on our larger format platform, but have run into delays due to the lack of a large high resolution panel with wide viewing angles being readily available to the market at this moment. We’ve secured some new executive level support from our friends in Santa Clara, which could help us get Hydis off the dime and deliver the system by CES with any luck……

We’ll keep you posted as we progress, as I would like to possibly use you as a Beta tester as we get mules up and running if you’re interested.

-So I have it on good authority that at least ONE manufacturer is looking for high resolution LCD screens, as well as Wacom digitizer and Corei5/i7 cpu! Also, this company I cannot name at this time, is working on what might be the worlds largest slate true Tablet PC, for artists, technical cad designers, and architecture markets. (also medical) -A 15 inch size slate! I for one really hope they can pull it together.

C

[Kathy Engelhard]

Thank you, CartoonMonkey for your help. This insight of a potentially great slate that is powerful enough to work with TVPP 9.5 has made me so excited!
I hope to hear more about it and that it will be available in the near future.

[Fabrice]

+1 ! Please tell us if you have some news about it Chad !

[v.veidt]

And on the Mac side the "Modbook" tablet from Axiotron running Mac OS has been killed off by the iPad. (last year Axiotron had announced a "Modbook Pro" in development , which would have been a modification of a 15" Macbook Pro into a 15" screen tablet . I was waiting for that , but it never got beyond prototype) .

As a ModBook owner, you're better off avoiding it. The pressure sensitivity and matte texture are excellent, but Axiotron provides no support and mine failed almost immediately out of the box. I had to rebuild the case with LEGO just to prevent interference between the Logic Board and Wacom Digitiser. Google ModBook Jumping Cursor and you'll see what I'm talking about.

As for quality all-in-one tablets, I'm just going to build my own next time if the options stay this poor.

[ematecki]

I had to rebuild the case with LEGO just to prevent interference between the Logic Board and Wacom Digitiser.

A picture !!! A Picture !!! A Picture !!!

I'm a great fan of LEGO :)

[D.T. Nethery]

And on the Mac side the "Modbook" tablet from Axiotron running Mac OS has been killed off by the iPad. (last year Axiotron had announced a "Modbook Pro" in development , which would have been a modification of a 15" Macbook Pro into a 15" screen tablet . I was waiting for that , but it never got beyond prototype) .

As a ModBook owner, you're better off avoiding it. The pressure sensitivity and matte texture are excellent, but Axiotron provides no support and mine failed almost immediately out of the box. I had to rebuild the case with LEGO just to prevent interference between the Logic Board and Wacom Digitiser. Google ModBook Jumping Cursor and you'll see what I'm talking about.

As for quality all-in-one tablets, I'm just going to build my own next time if the options stay this poor.

My son has a Modbook and it has run perfectly with constant , heavy use for 2 years. (regularly running apps like Maya , TVP, Sketchbook Pro, Photoshop ) It had a problem booting-up recently , but Other World Computing (the reseller who did the actual Modbook conversion) fixed it and returned it in 4 days (including the Fed Ex both ways) . Thank goodness we purchased the extended 3-year warranty with OWC. Other than this recent hiccup the Modbook has run like a dream . I'm sorry that Axiotron is dead and no Modbook PRO is forthcoming. iPad is now the only tablet Mac and Steve Jobs doesn't want anyone using a stylus (good luck with that , Steve-O) only their fingers.

[v.veidt]

I had to rebuild the case with LEGO just to prevent interference between the Logic Board and Wacom Digitiser.

A picture !!! A Picture !!! A Picture !!!

I'm a great fan of LEGO

As an added benefit, I was able to bring its running temperature down from 54º to 42º and improve battery life by 00:45.