Tablet PC Recommendations?

[Gochris1]

Hello:

This topic comes up from time to time...

Does anyone use TV Paint on their tablet PC? Which model of tablet PC do you use?

I am looking for recomendations...

Gochris

[malcooning]

I got mine 3 years ago. It's powerful, if somewhat heavy.
If I was to look for a new one today, I'd consider these 3 factors as most important:

1. I don't know if technology had moved on, but it might happen that tabletPC digitizers nowadays can recognize pen tilt and angle. If so, this is something you most definitely should be looking for. As much as I love drawing on the screen in a cafe, the lack of angle recognition takes the juice away from most of my TVP brushes.

2. Another thing is weight. be sure to get a light tablet.

3. a bright screen, preferably not with glossy glass.

[Gochris1]

Which manufacturer and model tablet PC do you use?

[Fabrice]

I just add :

To have a good use of TVP Animation, please use a dual core computer if possible.

The resolution of the screen is also important. the higher the better.

nb : N-Trig tabletPC with stylus should be now supported, like the Latitude XT2 on which we had the opportunity to make our tests and development.
(you have to check the "ink" button in the preferences panel)

[Gochris1]

A latitude may be out of my price range.

If I decide to buy one now, it would probably be a used Motion Computing LE1600. These computers are about 4 years old.

It would either have a 1.5GHz low voltage Intel Pentium M 758 processor or--
a 1.0GHz Celeron M 373
System RAM uses 400MHz DDR2 chips
Either system would have 1 gig of RAM
An Intel 915GMS chipset with a maximum of 128MB handles graphics

It's supposed to have a high resolution screen, but I'll have to find out from Motion Computing what the specs are.

People are selling the LE1600 used on Ebay for very cheap.

A newer model is their Motion Computing LE1700 which uses

Core 2 Duo L7400 / 1.5 GHz LV - RAM 1 GB - HDD 60 GB -
Win XP Tablet PC 2005 - 12.1" TFT ( SXGA+ ) - Microsoft Office Ready

This system is newer and more expensive. Fabrice, it uses the dual core chip you mentioned.

I would try to use TVPaint on either system.

Am I making a mistake? Any thoughts? Thanks!

Gochris

[Gochris1]

The Mirage Nomad used the Motion Computing LE1600 Tablet PC
and Pentium M Single core processor running at 1.5GHz, and 1GB upgradeable RAM, a 30GB upgradeable hard drive

I realize this is not a dual core processor like you recomended...

Would it be safe to assume this system could run TV Paint 8.6?

If not, I will wait for the prices to lower on the Latitude XT2 or similar system.

Thanks!

[ematecki]

It all depends on what you intend to do with it.

If it's just for sketching stuff "on the field", it will work, even with TVPA 9.5.
If you intend to do the full animation on it, including coloring, or work in hi-res, a dual-core will be needed.

[Fabrice]

Yes, the latitude XT2 is very expensive. An animation company has lent us the tablet to make it work with TVP Animation, I was unaware of it before.
It's expensive because there is no hard drive but a SD storage device. (much faster)
I just mentionned it because the tablet doesn't use the Wacom technology and works differently with TVP.

About the LE1600 Tablet PC, it was enough for Mirage. However TVP Animation 9 require more power.
After that all depend of what you want to do : sketching only ? rough animating ? FX, etc ...

The LE1700 Tablet PC sounds good to me.
It's close to my current TabletPC (portege M400) as you can see :
Core 2 Duo T5500 / 1.66 GHz LV - RAM 2 GB - HDD 80 GB -
Win XP Tablet PC 2005 - 12.1" TFT ( SXGA+ )

[Gochris1]

Thanks for your reply and time.

I would want to do full animation with the tablet.

[malcooning]

I would want to do full animation with the tablet.

then save up and get the the highest specs you can afford.
it's worth shelling out on something powerful.
you will appreciate it when you're in the thick of things, switching between applications that hold heavy files.
and get 8 or more GB of RAM. will do magic.

[CartoonMonkey]

I second the LE1700 Tablet Pc! I have one and it's amazing, although no longer made.
An easy one to find one for sale with all the features you're looking for is to use this excel spreadsheet listing the model numbers.
Use it to google the correct model number you're looking for on froogle or ebay. That's how I found mine, with the nice bright screen.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... =firefox-a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

C

[meslin]

I have no experience with any tablet PC other than the one I've been using for four years now, the HP TC4400. You can find them on eBay for consistently less than $400. The drawbacks are low screen resolution (1024x768), no optical drive, and mediocre battery life. But when plugged in, with a smartly managed toolbar setup and a Wacom Cintiq 18SX stylus, it's quite a pleasant TVPaint experience. The low screen resolution may be helping the cursor keep up with the stylus, as I've seen some Toshibas with higher resolutions that have much more cursor lag.
I just replaced the DC jack, which is the first hardware issue I've had since purchasing in 2006 (as a refurbished unit then, no less).

David

[CartoonMonkey]

Cursor lag will absolutely not be a problem on a modern tablet pc. My Le1700 has zero lag running windows 7 64 bit, with a resolution of 1400x1050.
(It's around a 1.5ghz dual core processor with 3gb of ram)

For users on xp, I created TabTip Tamer. It adjusts the priority of the tablet pc TIP input panel, and makes drawing much smoother. If anyone here is on XP, I suggest you use it.
http://www.cartoonmonkey.com/TabTip_TamerV3.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also, people new to the tablet pc, forget to turn off "Flicks" and "long press for right click" in the tablet options control panel. The last one in particular screws up drawing, and causes a huge lag whenever starting a line in any drawing application. Turning this off will improve things a thousand percent when drawing on the tablet.

Using TVPaint on a nice large resolution portable tablet pc is just like having my little portable sketchbook / animation workstation with me wherever I go.
I highly recommend it, and tablets are very affordable on Ebay. Just be careful to find one with a true wacom digitizer, not an Ntrig, as that digitizer doesn't support pressure sensitivity across the board in all apps like Wacom does.

C

[meslin]

Chad, I didn't mean to controvert anything you said. I'm sure you would know better than I about performance issues, etc.
I was talking about the sub-$300 range of tabletPCs, in which case some sacrifices must be made.
The LE1700 does indeed look awesome and I'm sure it's better for TVP overall, but my eBay perusal leads me to believe that the auctions generally end up at about double the price of the tc4400. I have seen Core2Duo 2GHz (T7200) models with 2GB RAM and 120GB HD go for under $500.

I'm experiencing the joy of re-discovering the TabTip Tamer after a reformat, too. Thanks.

David

[JohnArtbox]

On the opposite extreme I have a new Fujitsu T900 2.66 ghz i7.
It's good in every respect except for intel graphics card. I've done a couple of things at full HD and it works perfectly. When animating I can play a HD file back without having to generate a proxy. The screen is relatively low res 1280x800 but large and vibrant, much better than my old HP TX 2500. In tablet mode it's no ipad, but it's comfortable enough to sketch on your lap. Battery time is about 3 hours in high performance mode which is surprising.
TV Paint runs flawlessly.
I did play with getting the motion JS 3400(1e1700's replacement), but since I spend a lot of time doing compositing and 3d, the faster processor on the Fujitsu won out. Next step is to add an external graphics card for GPU acceleration....