Comparing Tablet PCs- "Tools of the Trade"

OK- Fair Warning!! You are now entering tech land. I'm going to be talking about my computers for this post, so if that doesn't really interest you, move on to the pics ladies and gentlemen.... ;)



Well, I recently picked up a used Fujitsu t5010 to test out. Bigger, bigger screen, faster processor, more onscreen buttons, etc. And yet, I haven't really fallen in love with it. My Lenovo x200t Superbright Outdoor is over a pound lighter, 1/4" thicker, and much much brighter and readable outdoors. And it's got the little Lenovo Trackpad, which I've strangely fallen in love with-- ergonomically, it helps provide the user a palm rest while using it, and I'd forgotten what a pain a touchpad can be.

I didn't think those things would matter that much, but they do. And so, although I've had the Fujitsu for about 3 weeks or more now, and have finally set it up, got things working (pressure sensitivity, secondary landscape, Dropbox, etc.) it's the Lenovo that I've continually gone back to for daily and work use.

Mostly, I just find the Lenovo x200t much more ergonomic. I remember my fears when I got the Lenovo because I had been using a very thin Motion Computing le1700 slate (it was less than an inch thick). My Lenovo's about 1 1/4" thick- about .4" difference, a not unsubstantial change. Well, in the end, although I liked the Motion's thinness (there's no doubt about that) the Lenovo being thicker didn't make that much difference to me because I could still easily hold it in my hand. It was still within the range of what my hand could grasp, despite the difference. And the extra weight and thickness was easily worth the 2x-3x improved battery life, waaaaaay better screen, and having a keyboard with me all the time.

Well, the Fujitsu offers me none of those things, but it's still costing me another pound of weight and another 1/4" inch thickness- and I'm finding that 5 lbs and 1.5" thick is just too thick for me to easily carry around. It's crossed a tipping point for me. Even if I take out the extended battery, it's still 4.5 lbs and just ....too... thick to really be mobile. Anyways, for that, I get a bigger screen, better placement for onscreen buttons, and a faster processor. The screen's bigger, but not THAT much bigger. The buttons are nice, no doubt, but I'm unconvinced I'm seeing that great of an improvement for brushes, etc. Painter 12 still won't run for me, even on the Fujitsu. So, in the end, eh.

We'll see. I've got to send the Lenovo in for some repairs while I'm still under warranty. So, starting sometime next week, I'm going to be sans-Lenovo, and then we'll really put the t5010 to the test.

As for the bigger screen, which I still want? Well, I'm thinking about saving up for either a Yiynova MSP19, or an older Cintiq, like the 18sx, which has a 14" x 11" screen-- essentially 2 of my Lenovo screens turned on their side and smushed together!! Yummy screen real estate!! I think that might offer me a better alternative. Then I can run the larger Cintiq off of my tablet pc when at my office (as they both use Wacom drivers-- thanks for that tidbit Shogmaster!), and have the x200t be very light and mobile for the field (perhaps even defaulting to the 3.5 lbs one gets with the smaller battery, now that I've been using the Lenovo car charger). I wish they'd just make a slate that physically attaches/detaches to the keyboard. Then I could have a _very_ light slate for field work, a laptop for typing and surfing, and a big screen for a desktop. It's coming... eventually.

In the mean time, here's some of the pics comparing the screens. The x200t with the Superbright Outdoor screen has a anti-reflective layer. So, not only is it really bright, but it also diffuses reflections really well without pixelating your view the way many screen protectors do. Many people talk about the t5010's screen as being one of the better ones as well. Well, I can only say that IMO there's no comparison. Sure, the x200t runs red and the t5010 runs blue, but beyond that, the x200t is just very very vivid, and much ...much better at working outdoors. I'll let the pics do the rest of the talkin'.

Pic one- indoors. Here you can see that the reflection from the window clearly bounces on the t5010. It's actually across the Lenovo too, I checked. You just can't really see it much.

Here they both are outdoors on a cloudy day, in tablet mode.

Here's the x200t cradled in my arm, as I often use it outdoors. The camera creates/reads a digital "haze" that you see here on the screen. That's not there with the naked eye. Still, the image is pretty readable. No real reflections, and pretty bright.

And, finally, the t5010 in my arms. Still reasonably readable, but definitely reflective.

The Fairy Band

This is a drawing I did last week in an attempt to continue building a portfolio for illustrating children's books. I later painted it with watercolors, but was unhappy with that work. The pen and ink went better though.

I used Paint Tool Sai entirely for this portion of the exercise. Went for a fast and loose drawing style- particularly so on the fairies. Give it a click if you want to see it at a larger resolution. Open it in another window instead if you want to view it at it's largest.

One issue I ran into was that I was simply working at too high a zoom level. There's a lot of juicy textural stuff going on with the pen and ink work here, and it's definitely lost at print/screen size. Next time, I'm going to need to work with a large pen tool, and just attack it with what is comparatively a blunt object. The detail is great, but if you lose that sense of reality that comes from texture, what's the point? Here's a close up to give you an example. As always, click for closeup.