Sony N-Trig devices now pen pressure sensitive in 32-bit Photoshop

UPDATE March 20, 2014: N-Trig today published 64-bit version of its Wintab driver. See this post for details.

* * *

ORIGINAL POST

Sony and N-Trig have taken a major step closer to Wacom-equipped competitors with the release of a hotfix for VAIO devices with active digitizers.

The "Pen Pressure Update Software" installs a driver named N-Trig Wintab x32 that enables pressure sensitivity in 32-bit versions of Adobe Photoshop. I've confirmed that the update works with Adobe Photoshop CC on my Sony VAIO Flip 15A. Other users on the Sony Community site have reported success with 32-bit versions of Photoshop ranging all the way back to CS2.

Available for download from Sony's eSupport site here, the update is dated September 26, 2013, but curiously Sony does not link to it as part of machine-specific updates. In fact, the link to the list of Applicable Products on the download page is broken. I can't fathom why the manufacturer would keep this a secret, because users of Duos, Flips and other N-Trig enabled VAIOs have all reported success with the software.

Installing the software requires a reboot and doesn't create a Control Panel entry. The only indication that the software has installed correctly is in the Programs and Features control panel, which will list the driver.

Although limited to only 256 levels of pressure, the results in 32-bit Photoshop CC are still impressive.

Without a control panel to adjust the pressure curve, it takes a bit of concentration to achieve the lightest strokes.

Without a control panel to adjust the pressure curve, it takes a bit of concentration to achieve the lightest strokes.

I haven't tested the driver with other Wintab applications, but 32-bit versions of programs like Corel Painter should also benefit from the update.

UPDATE January 10: From my limited testing with SAI 1.2 Beta 5 and ZBrush 4R6, it appears only Photoshop recognizes this driver.

UPDATE January 16: The latest version of Adobe Illustrator CC released yesterday now supports Microsoft's Ink API. I tested the 64-bit version (17.1) on the Sony VAIO Flip 15A. See this post for more details:  http://surfaceproartist.com/blog/2014/1/16/new-adobe-illustrator-cc-improves-surface-pro-windows-tablet-support

Demanding professional users will likely miss additional levels of pressure and the lack of 64-bit support is disappointing, but for hobbyists or doodlers, this update puts the Sony VAIO Flip 15A towards the top of our list of Windows 8 convertibles. It's hard not to fall in love with its ample 15.5 inch display which makes even the unscaled Photoshop UI accessible to touch.  For more details on the Flip, see our earlier post here.

Thanks to Google+ follower +IvorThomas for the heads up about this update.

Posted
AuthorRick Rodriguez
Categoriesnews, Windows tablet
TagsSony, VAIO, VAIO Flip 15A, N-Trig, pen pressure, Adobe, Photoshop
9 CommentsPost a comment

Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga review: close, but not quite perfect

It’s taken me a while to get down to writing this review of the Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga because I know a lot of you are hoping that this convertible laptop addresses all the shortcomings of the Surface Pro while answering all of your artistic mobility dreams.

So, to cut to the chase: the Thinkpad Yoga is a very capable device for creative users, but it isn’t perfect.

Instead of offering a lot of technical details, I’m going to focus on the Thinkpad Yoga drawing experience and how it compares to the Surface Pro and other Windows tablets I’ve acquired over the past year.

The Display

The 1.9-inch diagonal size advantage that the TPY offers over the Surface Pro makes a significant difference. Even at its default scale, crowded desktop apps like Photoshop CC are easier to use on the 12.5-inch display. And if you run the UI scaling hack we posted here, Photoshop is even easier to use.

However, if you’re not a Photoshop user, the additional real estate may not be worth the decrease in portability vs. the Surface Pro.

If you don’t like reflective displays or want to occasionally work outdoors or in brightly lit environments, you’ll appreciate the Thinkpad Yoga’s matte screen finish, which diffuses reflections.  But the coating also makes colors less vibrant to my eye and type appears somewhat fuzzy or muddy. I tried to capture the difference on camera, but my iPhone 4S is not up to the task. According to one reader, the Thinkpad is only able to display 75% of the sRGB color space. I don't know much about the subject, but it does appear that colors are muted compared to the glossy displays of the Surface Pro and Sony VAIO Flip 15A.

In the following screenshots I attempted to demonstrate the color, brightness and reflectivity differences in different lighting conditions. All shots were taken with the devices at maximum brightness.

The matte coating on the Lenovo screen diffuses reflections vs. the sharp reflections on the Surface Pro 2 display.

Laying flat in tablet mode, the reflections on the Surface Pro's bezel are even more distracting than on the screen itself.

The Digitizer

The drawing experience on the Thinkpad Yoga is comparable to any other Wacom-equipped tablet pc. Like many of you who’ve had troubles with Wacom tech on the Surface Pro and other tablets, I’ve encountered several annoyances along the way that I’m forced to work around.

I’ve been unable to get either the touch or pen calibration set up 100% perfectly despite running both the standard and Wacom calibration tools dozens of times. Installing Wacom’s feel drivers deletes the standard calibration settings, but I was able to confirm that the problem I describe below isn’t introduced by the Wacom drivers.

The problem I’ve encountered is that pen alignment and touch don’t match. If I tune the calibration for pen accuracy, the screen won’t respond to taps along the bottom edge of the display so I can’t unhide the desktop taskbar.

I’ve ended up compensating for this by purposely tapping just below the bottom points in the Wacom calibration tool. Now taps on the bottom edge are recognized but there is a one or two pixel drift in cursor accuracy as I move the pen up the screen.

If Wacom ever gets around to releasing a calibration tool with more than four points, it should be easier to limit that drift to the very bottom of the screen.

Based on reading the community’s experience with the Surface Pro, it’s clear that digitizer accuracy varies from machine to machine, so please don’t assume that all Thinkpad Yogas will display this same behavior.

The Stylus

Not much to say here. It’s a tiny pointer that will do in a pinch, but will otherwise stay in its silo forever.

The screen’s matte coating interacts with your pen’s nib very differently than the Surface Pro’s glass. The soft felt nibs I prefer on the SP offer a little too much resistance and feel slightly waxy. Hard plastic nibs don’t feel quite as slippery as they do on glass.

Thanks to the TabletPCReview forum reader who first suggested I try the Fujitsu stylus, I also purchased a set of flex nibs to try. These are black with a white rubberized tip and to paraphrase Goldilocks feel “just right” when sliding along the Thinkpad Yoga’s screen.

All the Surface Pro compatible pens I’ve tested work equally well on the TPY, although they also may require recalibration for best results. This shouldn’t be a problem for most of you who may have one or two at your disposal. I’m sure I’m unique in having 10(!) pens to choose from.

The weakest aspects of the Thinkpad Yoga are its clickable touchpad and the stylus which makes a very poor drawing instrument compared to full size pens.

The Form Factor

I expected not to like the feel of the keyboard behind the screen while in tablet mode. And, while it’s not ideal, I find it’s not as distracting in practice as I thought it might be.

I think this is because the size and weight of the Thinkpad Yoga forces you to either cradle it on your forearm or rest it on your lap. It would be very taxing to hold the convertible for long with the keyboard resting on your hand. My average sized hand covers the entire back of the Surface Pro, but it only extends to about two thirds of the Thinkpad.

The clickable touchpad doesn’t lock when in tablet mode, but I find that’s only distracting when I try to draw in portrait orientation. Then either my fingers or palm are certain to come in contact with it, causing the occasional errant click. The system doesn’t recognize the click, so it’s not really a problem, but it just feels wrong.

Though not as distracting as I'd feared, the keys can still be depressed slightly while in tablet mode. As seen here in portrait orientation, your fingers or palm are more likely to accidentally press the clickable touchpad which doesn't lock in place.

While in tablet mode, you’ll also need a bluetooth keyboard around, at least until someone develops a Thinkpad Yoga-specific ArtDock. With the Acer and Sony convertibles I’ve used, you can always lift up the screen to access the keyboard in a pinch, but the Yoga design makes it all or nothing.

The biggest design flaw of Thinkpad Yoga is the location of its fan vents.

The vents are located at the back of the keyboard, which theoretically blows the hot air away from you while in laptop mode. In practice, this is not always the case. For instance if you’re in bed and like to prop the keyboard up on your knees, the fans will blow right into your legs. Or worse, ventilation will be obstructed by your bed covers.

In tablet mode, the vents blow into you unless you rotate the tablet upside down: with the home button up and the camera lens down.

And the vents can get hot. Not scalding like the bottom of my 2008 MacBook Pro, but uncomfortably warm.

Pictured side by side with the Surface Pro. The Thinkpad Yoga is too large to hold in one hand. In this orientation, the fans point downward and will blow hot air into your body as you hold it.

Despite moving a lot of hot air, the fans are very quiet and seldom noticeable. When compared to the Surface Pro, however, the fans are definitely louder. To stress the CPUs, disks and graphics hardware, I ran Passmark’s Performance Test 8 and while the Yoga’s fans were audible throughout half the tests, the Surface Pro 2 remained silent.

Fit & Finish

Like most Lenovo products, the Thinkpad Yoga won’t win any design awards. It’s a utilitarian device that feels solid and built for durability.

It avoids some of the sharp edges of the Surface Pro and the magnesium alloy finish resists fingerprints and smudges.

The keyboard feels great and is certainly one of the most popular features for road warriors. I really don’t like the clickable touchpad which feels cheap and flimsy. I don’t know what Lenovo’s reliability record is for this touchpad design, but I worry that it will be the first thing to go.

The keyboard also features the signature red Lenovo TrackPoint touching stick which is fairly redundant on a touch screen, but can be mapped as a middle mouse button. I haven’t tried this but that is a nice feature if you need it.

As I mentioned in my unboxing, my Thinkpad Yoga has a small defect in the upper right corner of the screen. There is a bit of tape or something sticking out between the display and the matte coating. It’s no big deal and I’m not going to risk cutting it off, but a $1735 retail device shouldn’t have such an obvious manufacturing flaw.

In laptop mode, the screen is quite springy. The slightest tap will start it wobbling.

The power button on the right side of the keyboard is very small and hard to find without looking.

Performance & Battery Life

 Several of you requested that I run extensive benchmarks and software tests on the Thinkpad Yoga, but I’ve been unable to do so. There are a lot of hardware dedicated sites that do that sort of thing all the time and you’re likely to find more reliable results there anyway.

Using the aforementioned Passmark benchmarks, the Thinkpad Yoga scored 1944 vs. the Surface Pro 2’s 1975. Clearly the Core i7 in the TPY doesn’t make a huge amount of difference in the overall rating.

In practice I found the Yoga to be equal to the Surface Pro 2 in all respects, except for occasional stutters while using Clip Studio Paint 1.27. I’m not certain what to attribute those hiccups to; there may have been background activity going on that I was unaware of, but these delays only lasted a second or so. I did have one freeze that cost me an hour’s worth of work on CSP that may have been caused by a loss of network connectivity.

Some users have complained of weak wi-fi signal, but I can’t confirm that. Running a couple of speedtests side by side didn’t show any difference between the two systems.

I haven’t run the Thinkpad Yoga all the way down to zero battery, but it took about five hours to go from 100% to 10% remaining, all while working in Clip Studio Paint.

Conclusion

So is the Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga perfect? Far from it. Is it better than the Surface Pro 2? Not really, given the price difference.

But if your top priority is screen size in a Wacom penabled device, the Thinkpad Yoga is your best option for the moment. We’ll see what manufacturers have up their sleeves in a few weeks at CES 2014.

 

 

Posted
AuthorRick Rodriguez
Categoriesreviews, Windows tablet
TagsLenovo, Thinkpad Yoga, Wacom, Surface Pro 2
16 CommentsPost a comment

Surface Pro 2 vs. Thinkpad Yoga Smackdown Video

Don't ask me which one's better, because I'll advise you to buy them both. 

Lisa Gade of Mobile Tech Review compares the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 and the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga.

Posted
AuthorRick Rodriguez
Categoriesreviews, Windows tablet
TagsMicrosoft, Lenovo, Surface Pro 2, Thinkpad Yoga
1 CommentPost a comment

Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga unboxing and first impressions

Since Lenovo first announced its penabled Thinkpad Yoga, it's been clear that the convertible Windows 8 laptop would be the device to offer the Surface Pro its stiffest competition for the artist's dollar.

I received my Thinkpad Yoga earlier today and it definitely lives up to expectations. Officially listed as the Thinkpad S1 Yoga, the specs are very similar to the $1299 Surface Pro 2: 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, Intel HD Graphics 4400 and the all-important Wacom active digitizer. But unlike the Surface Pro, the Thinkpad Yoga is powered by an Intel Core i7 processor and features a 12.5-inch HD display. At $1739, this is not an inexpensive upgrade, but when you add in a keyboard, the Surface Pro is actually $1428 and the only other Wacom equipped tablet in the 12-13 inch range is the $2000 Cintiq Companion.

I was fortunate to get a 12% discount on my Thinkpad Yoga order, which brought the price down to $1530. I won't be surprised to see Lenovo offer even steeper discounts in the new year, so if you're interested in one, make sure to order by phone and ask if discount codes are available. Also, be certain that the model you're ordering has a digitizer. There is an i5 model listed on their site for $1299 that doesn't have pen support.

While not exactly a lightweight at 3.5 lbs, the Thinkpad Yoga is nowhere near as heavy as the 15-inch convertibles from Acer and Sony that I've reviewed recently. But despite its weight, the Lenovo's size makes it a little difficult pick up with one hand while in tablet mode. The keyboard keys on the back of the device have a little bit of give when your fingers hold the weight of the tablet which can be a slightly unsettling feeling.

I knew I'd be spoiled by my couple of weeks with the Sony Flip 15A and Acer Aspire R7 displays. Although the Yoga's screen is big, it's not quite big enough to sit on your lap every time you work; you'll want to occasionally cradle it closer to you for detail work. Though not impossible, the weight and dimensions make this a bit more of a challenge than you'd like.

PC wonks heap praise on the Lenovo keyboard and while it's nice, I don't think it's quite all that. Keyboard travel is good, but still relatively shallow. I wish the spacebar was bigger. For some reason, Lenovo put a Function and PrintScreen key on the bottom row that eats up space and is sure to cause me to mistype. I also am no fan of the red pointing stick which seems like an absolute anachronism in this age of touch.

 "Those of you who've been holding out for a Wacom device with a larger screen... may have finally found a suitable option."

The worst part of the keyboard is the touch pad, which has a significant amount of travel. It's pretty noisy to click and doesn't lock when the Thinkpad is in tablet mode. It's not active, but still feels very strange when you depress it while it's on the back of the screen.

Getting the Yoga set up was relatively painless. The laptop ships with Windows 8.1 so it only needed a handful of updates, including a couple from Lenovo itself. There's very little crapware, so I just had to uninstall Norton Internet Security.

The Thinkpad Yoga does not ship with Wacom feel drivers pre-installed. But once they are, Photoshop CC and other Wintab-dependent programs run great. Although the Adobe interface is still small, it's far more usable with the additional screen real estate. And you can always run the UI scaling hack we published yesterday. UI scaling is not enabled by default, and you may not think it's necessary, but I like the desktop icons and text to be a bit bigger.

I also tested the old standby Manga Studio this afternoon and it also ran perfectly. Despite the extra screen size, I still appreciated being able to run the software in tablet mode where the touch targets are even easier to hit.

The display appears to have a matte screen protector that may or may not be removable. It's so snug that I assume it isn't. The surface of the screen cover interacts with the pen nibs and yields very different feedback than the Surface Pro's glass. The felt nibbed Wacom Bamboo Feel styluses that I normally prefer offer a bit too much drag. The Surface pen tip feels less plastic, but the best results I got came from the Modbook Pro pen. Its tip glides like satin as does the nib of the otherwise terrible (because it's puny) standard stylus.

I tested for the "black hole" digitizer bug that many early European buyers reported and it does not seem to exist in my unit. Likewise, I didn't notice any latency or burn-in that several users are now saying plagues their displays. Some Thinkpads use LG panels which also created issues for recent Apple MacBooks.

As always, the true nature of the Thinkpad Yoga's strengths and weaknesses won't emerge until I've spent many more hours with the pc. But for the moment, it appears that those of you who've been holding out for a Wacom device with a larger screen (and don't mind paying a premium for it) may have finally found a suitable option.

Do you have any specific questions or software you'd like me to test? Please let me know in the comments section below.

The Lenovo packaging is a very utilitarian affair. Despite traveling all the way from China, there's no double boxing.

The Lenovo packaging is a very utilitarian affair. Despite traveling all the way from China, there's no double boxing.

The contents are also very basic: the Thinkpad Yoga, a power cord and power supply and a one sheet set of instruction. Period.

Except for its stylus, you could easily mistake the Thinkpad Yoga for any business-oriented Windows laptop. The included pen is too small and thin to be your everyday drawing instrument, but the nib feels very smooth on the display's screen protector. By contrast, the Wacom Feel pens offered too much resistance on the display. The ModBook Pro pen's nib came closest to providing the same silky feedback as the Lenovo stylus (go figure).

In tablet mode, the keyboard's backplate rises, disabling and effectively "lowering" the keys. You can ignore the slightly ridged texture of the keys as you're holding it in tablet mode, but real distracting element is the touchpad, which is very springy and easy to click. It doesn't do anything, but it would be nice for it to be locked while flush. 

This image doesn't do the display justice. Color is even and picture sharpness is very good. The display appears to have a screen protector which makes it significantly less reflective than the Surface Pro and other Windows 8 devices I've tested. I'm unsure whether this film can be removed from the display. You can see in this picture that the device has a small yellow tab toward the upper right corner that I might use to peel off the screen protector, but it also may be a small manufacturing defect. If anyone knows, please let me know; otherwise I'm not going to mess with it because I actually prefer the more matte finish.

Despite its larger display, the Thinkpad Yoga is remarkably thin: just barely thicker than the Surface Pro 2 with Type Cover (right).

Most artists will appreciate the extra two inches of the 12.5-inch Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga display vs. the Surface Pro's 10.6.

Although the active display is just shy of 11-inches tall in portrait mode, it's only 6.1 inches wide. A standard American comic like this page from Dynamite's Red Sonja #1 has to be reduced to fit horizontally, leaving two .8 inch black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. I'm still pining for the perfect 8.5 x 11 display where my comics and magazines wouldn't have to be reduced at all. 

Posted
AuthorRick Rodriguez
CategoriesWindows tablet, reviews
TagsLenovo, Thinkpad Yoga, laptop, convertible, Wacom
31 CommentsPost a comment

Unboxing the Monoprice Interactive Pen Display

"If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all."

Never has that memorable quote from Bambi's pal Thumper felt so appropriate.

Like most of you, I've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new Monoprice Interactive Pen Display since it was released last month. Though I just got the Yiynova MVP22U, I couldn't pass up the offer of an under $400 tablet monitor with similar capabilities, especially coming from a trusted name like Monoprice from whom I've purchased many cables and thingamajigs over the years.

To add to that excitement, expert artist and trusted tablet guru Ray Frenden posted his own very positive review of the device this weekend. 

So when it arrived this morning, I quickly trumpeted the fact on Twitter and set out to do my usual quick unboxing and first impressions post.

But here it is eight hours after its arrival and I'm regretting my words. I love technology. I know this stuff is almost magical. And when it doesn't work as expected or as others have led me to believe it would, I feel a deep sense of disappointment. And this tablet monitor may be the most disappointing device I've ever used.

Why? Because I know UC Logic digitizers deliver (see my Yiynova posts). Because Ray Frenden has written very highly of Huion, the Chinese manufacturer who builds the other tablets sold by Monoprice. Because it looked so good out of the box: nothing cheap or homemade about this device.

But then I had to go and power it on.

Frenden's review mentions that viewing angles are bad and even recommends using the display on a monitor arm. But in my estimation, the Interactive Pen Display only seems to have one acceptable viewing angle: head on. The slightest tilt immediately results in color and brightness shifts that are readily apparent and reproducible (see photos below).

The rest of the issues I've had are software related and I've reached out to Monoprice to see if I can access development drivers that work better than the ones shipped in the box or that are available for download on the Huion website. Suffice it to say that the Windows 8.1 experience so far has been pretty painful. I won't elaborate until I hear back and will update this post as soon as I do.

Stay tuned for hopefully more positive news...

The Monoprice Interactive Display ships in an attractive box that promises a professional experience.

The 19-inch pen display includes Mac and Windows manual, a driver installation CD, the pen and holder, a power supply, power cord, USB pen charging cable, VGA cable and USB cable.

Out of the box, the tablet monitor is as attractive and well-made as any higher end display.  The VESA stand provides a wide variety of support angles. Unfortunately, color representation is not accurate at this angle.

This is the monitor stand's most upright position, just shy of 90-degrees. I don't like to work with the monitor at this angle, but it is the only that delivers an accurate color display.

The pen and holder are wonderful, much better than the stylus that ships with the Yiynova.  The entire pen is rubberized and the buttons are firm. No extra nibs or nib extractor is included. The pen is battery powered and rechargeable.

The connectors (USB, power, VGA and DVI) are a little hard to reach. You'll want to set the monitor on its face to plug everything in.

Unlike the Yiynova, all the buttons are easily accessible and located on the front lower right corner.

Connected to the Surface Pro without a docking station, the USB and VGA cables can be unsightly. I am using a miniDisplay to VGA adapter. The resolution of the Surface Pro has to be lowered to 1440x900, the pen display's maximum resolution. Mac users do not have to mirror their displays. This is a Windows only limitation. You can see some of the color banding in the darker colors on the upper right of the Monoprice screen. 

On the Surface Pro screen above, note how the color is uniform from top of the display to the bottom.

At approximately the same angle, note how the colors shift on the Monoprice.

This is a typical screen shot head-on. Colors are saturated and even.

But looking down from above or from any other angle, that same screen fades to white. 

I'm hoping that Monoprice will point me (and you) to development drivers. The default click sensitivity is set so light that any tap results in 100% pressure. The pen display is supposed to work with Windows 8 automatically, but the pressure setting makes it impossible to double click on any items. The pen only becomes usable as a navigation device with the drivers installed. Unfortunately, this conflicts with the Surface Pro's Wacom drivers, so the two cannot be used at once. For the rest of my driver tests, I was using a non-touch Windows 8.1 laptop.

The drivers also allow 4-, 9- and 25-point calibration. But the calibration didn't work on my system. Before I could click the upper left calibration point, it would click itself. The results were unusable. Fortunately, you can turn the calibration off by unticking the box.

Posted
AuthorRick Rodriguez
CategoriesWindows tablet, reviews
TagsMonoprice, Interactive Pen Display, Huion
25 CommentsPost a comment

Unboxing the Acer Aspire R7 convertible; UPDATE: New Ezel mode pics & video

Competition in the 15+ inch Windows 8 convertible space is beginning to heat up with the release of Acer's Aspire R7 refresh.

The Core i5-equipped model R7-572-6423 is sold exclusively at Best Buy for $900. This includes 8 GB of RAM, 1 TB of storage and a 15.6-inch 1920 x 1080 display with N-Trig active digitizer support.

The closest size competitor is Sony's VAIO Flip 15A which retails for $1250 at Best Buy. That extra $350 nets you an i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce GT 735M graphics vs. the Acer's Intel 4400.

You can get a comparably priced Sony at Best Buy by going with the Flip 14A.

Below are unboxing shots with first impressions.

On the box sleeve, the Aspire resembles the Starship Enterprise. This is a little deceptive because the screen is not meant to work at this angle.

The box itself is an elegant black carrying case very reminiscent of Apple packaging.

Inside the box is the Acer with prominent silver Ezel hinge, a keyboard palm rest, power supply and cord, cleaning cloth and manual.

I was surprised by the included palm rest until I inspected the keyboard. For some odd reason, the touchpad sits above the keys and bottom row of keys sits very close to the bottom edge of the device. You will definitely need that palm rest in order to type comfortably on the R7.

UPDATE: In my rush to post the unboxing pics with my first impressions, I totally blew my assessment of the Aspire R7's Ezel mode. The trackpad placement allows you to position the touchscreen closer to you, theoretically replacing the need for a touchpad. Although there's a little bit of flex, the screen remains surprisingly stable at this position. I wouldn't draw at this angle, but perhaps traditional painters may find this orientation useful. Swiping and tapping while browsing is definitely easier than standard laptop mode, but desktop touch targets will force you to reach for your stylus or a bluetooth mouse.

UPDATE: Less chance of needing Gorilla arms to reach out and touch the display in Ezel mode. In this browsing, consumption mode, the lack of room to rest your palms at the bottom of the keyboard may be less of a problem. Or you can just use the padded palm rest that's included in the box.

UPDATE: Kiosk mode is also surprisingly stable, though I don't see myself ever using the device like this.

Another surprise is that the screen doesn't lie entirely flat in tablet mode. The angle is a nice pitch for drawing but it's not as thin as you would like for a drawing slate. UPDATE: This angle also results in a significant amount of screen flex. See the video below.

In this shot, the wedge shaped VAIO Flip 15A is in the foreground. You can see how much taller the R7's screen is in the tablet position.

The Acer Aspire R7 side by side with the Sony VAIO Flip 15A. The Acer screen is 1/10 of an inch larger, but it's very difficult to tell. Image quality on both devices is very good, but I'd give a slight nod to the Sony. I much prefer the fit and finish of the VAIO.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

If you can live with the N-Trig digitizer (no Photoshop, Painter or other Wintab program pressure sensitivity), the Acer is a decent option.

It's a pleasure to draw on a 15+ inch display though it comes at the cost of extra weight. The R7 weighs 5.3 lbs so you'll definitely want to keep this on your desk or lap as you work. Don't think about holding it in one hand.

The keyboard keys have a bit more travel than the Sony's and feel a little squishier. A lot of users have complained about keyboard flex in the Sonys, but it doesn't bother me too much. I also prefer the Flip's brushed aluminum finish, although I like the rubberized bottom of the Acer vs. the plastic bottom of the VAIO.

The keyboard and trackpad placement is terrible for standard laptop use, but it's secondary if you want to use this primarily as a drawing tool or in Ezel mode.  The omission of a pen is odd, but it doesn't ship standard with the Sony either. The pen costs $50 direct from Acer vs. $30 for the Sony pen.

Opening, closing and transitioning between laptop, easel,  tablet and display modes is very easy compared to the Sony. However, it's not possible to lock the screen in place, which could be an issue for some.

UPDATE: I've run into an issue with the R7 that may force me to take it back before I'm able to do much more testing. The screen is intermittently shutting itself off in tablet mode. This unit may have a defective or loose connection.

Acer ships with a lot of custom apps that seem redundant with Skydrive and other Microsoft standards.

In my brief tests of the pen, accuracy seems very good and perfectly in line with what I've seen on the Sony. If you're a Manga Studio artist, be assured that you can work very comfortably with 256 levels of pressure.

UPDATE: In tablet mode, the R7 has quite a bit of flex on the screen which some may find distracting. See the video below for a demonstration.

Despite the superiority of Wacom tech, these lower cost N-Trig entrants will surely put downward price pressure on the Surface Pro and others.

UPDATE: The $350 price difference (Best Buy configurations only) is not insignificant, and either convertible will work for Manga Studio, ArtRage or Sketchbook Pro artists. But in my estimation, the Flip is the better way to go for those wanting the largest possible Windows 8 portable art solution.

Posted
AuthorRick Rodriguez
Categoriesreviews, Windows tablet
TagsAcer, Aspire R7, Sony, VAIO Flip
12 CommentsPost a comment

Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga active digitizer caught on video

MobileTechReview's Lisa Gade is back with a second Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga video review. Here's a link to her earlier look at the device.

This time, she specifically covers the performance of the pen and active digitizer, which looks very good. Are you sold?

I've seen a lot of mention of Wacom edge tracking issues recently and Lisa addresses the issue by drawing an edge all the way around the screen.  But except in those cases where the tracking is so bad that you can't access the file menu or other items in the interface, I believe the importance is somewhat overblown. Since the canvas is not fixed in any graphics application, it's a simple matter to slide a problem corner or other hard to reach spot into the center of the screen if necessary to paint into it.

I also rarely draw or work in a 1:1, menu-free set-up like she appears to be doing with Fresh Paint below. Do you?

Let me know if I'm out to lunch in the comments section below.

Posted
AuthorRick Rodriguez
Categoriesreviews, Windows tablet
TagsLenovo, Thinkpad Yoga, Wacom, penabled, active digitizer
CommentPost a comment