Surface app enables pen cap button assignment...to some*

The Windows Store app simply known as Surface was updated Wednesday to enable users to customize the Surface Pen's cap button.

Up to now, single clicking the pen button automatically only launched with Modern version of OneNote, a nice feature for anyone who uses that software. For the rest of us, it was at best a novelty. Now any app or desktop application is a simple button click away. In the screenshot below, I set the single click to launch Clip Studio Paint.

Unfortunately, this new functionality is limited to the new Surface Pen and the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book. Even when using the new Surface Pen on the Surface Pro 3, Button Customization is not listed as an option.

*INSTANT UPDATE: Brennan McCullar on Twitter advised me of the following Reddit thread that describes how to bring the functionality to your older devices. It's a little complicated and subject to being overwritten every time a Windows Update is released (in my experience, the OS will want to revert to official drivers whenever you install something not expressly created for your device). If you decide to give this a try, let me know if you have any luck: https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3x8xzd/microsoft_now_offers_full_surface_pen_button/

The app allows you to customize the single-click, double-click and press-and-hold actions (below, left). The latter is configured to launch Cortana by default (below, right) but can also call up Cortana Ink Reminders if you like to jot yourself the occasional digital Post-It.

Adobe Releases Major Creative Cloud Updates

PRESS RELEASE

At MAX 2015 Adobe announced a slew of Creative Cloud news:

• We unveiled loads of new desktop app features, including precise Dehaze in Lightroom CC, which has been available since MAX, expanded support for UltraHD in Premiere Pro, the new Shaper tool in Illustrator, and the ability to create realistic 3D models in the brand new Adobe Fuse CC (Preview) and easily import and work on them in Photoshop CC.
• We talked about Adobe Stock getting more deeply integrated into the Creative Cloud apps – giving you Stock search within apps – and how we are adding video to Adobe Stock.
• We showed advanced support for touch-enabled hardware in our most popular desktop apps, Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, Lightroom CC, Premiere Pro CC and After Effects CC.
• We made new free mobile apps available, such as Photoshop Fix and Capture CC, which let you edit images and design on the go, and automatically connect your work back to the desktop apps you use everyday.
• And we showed how all of this is connected with CreativeSync, which lets you start your creative work on any device and seamlessly pick it up on another. From initial idea to finished work, CreativeSync ensures that your files, photos, vector graphics, brushes, colors, settings, metadata, stock images from Adobe Stock and fonts and type from Typekit, instantly appear in your workflow right where you need them.

Download Now

Today, the major updates to our Creative Cloud desktop apps are now available for the millions of Creative Cloud members worldwide. Scroll below for more information on the top new features, and links to the teams’ blogs and product pages, which provide greater details about the individual apps. Additionally, you can watch features in action in the videos on our What’s New page.

When you update Photoshop CC, Ilustrator CC, InDesign CC, Premiere Pro CC and After Effects CC, and launch the apps, you will see a new screen to help you get going with your work – we call it Start. The Start experience puts your work front and center, with support for big previews so you can jump right back into your current projects quickly. The Start workspace loads instantly. You can drag files in from the desktop and use all your favorite keyboard shortcuts in the workspace as well. Plus, there are templates to create new projects faster, and a simplified stream of helpful content. Read more about Start from our Experience Design team.

Top New Updates in Creative Cloud 2015

If you aren’t using Adobe Stock in your work, now is a great time to start. You can now download and purchase video content, adding to its collection of photos and graphics with over 1 million HD video files and 45 million assets. What’s unique about Adobe Stock is that you can search for and browse assets directly from Creative Cloud Libraries, including new support foStockBryanr accessing stock within Dreamweaver CC (and coming to Muse CC and Animate CC in early 2016). Adobe Stock is already integrated into Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, Premiere Pro CC and After Effects CC (including Character Animator). Plus Adobe Stock is available for enterprise use, with additional support for license management, reporting tools, and unlimited usage in large print runs. Read all the latest Adobe Stock details here.

 Needless to say, the web is growing (the number of websites grew 44% just last year). Thankfully, web designers can design and develop responsive websites for any browser or device with Dreamweaver CC. And with CreativeSync, integrate design elements and styles from other Creative Cloud apps, or high-quality images and graphics from Adobe Stock — all directly within Dreamweaver. At Adobe MAX 2015 we showed responsive design features in Muse CC as well, and these are coming in the Muse CC update in early 2016.

#DidyouKnow one of the most in-demand skills for designers is 3D design? Today we release Adobe Fuse CC (Preview) a new product with an integrated workflow into Photoshop CC that unlocks the power of 3D design. With Adobe Fuse CC (Preview) artists and designers with no previous 3D experience can quickly assemble characters with unique combinations of body parts, clothing items and endless texturing options. Cool stuff. Read more on the Photoshop blog.

See some of the exciting new features and enhancements in the latest update to Photoshop CC 2015. See improvements to Creative Cloud Libraries, Artboards, Design Space (Preview), Adobe Camera Raw and more along with new capabilities like being able to add 3D characters to your compositions with Adobe Fuse CC (Preview).

Speaking of Photoshop CC, if you do any UI, web or UX design, check out the new Design Space (Preview), which is based on deep customer research and built for designers by designers to make your many tasks faster and with less clicks. Also, now you can better customize Artboards. But perhaps the most requested feature for many years: you can now customize your Photoshop CC toolbar. Add to this a new modern UI that delivers a clean and consistent look and improvements in Creative Cloud Libraries, and you have a must-update Photoshop CC.

Adobe Illustrator's new Shaper Tool allows you to create complex shapes from simple ones.

Designers have even more to look forward to with updates in Illustrator CC & InDesign CC. The new Shaper Tool in Illustrator CC lets you draw with loose, natural gestures that magically transform into perfect geometric shapes. Additionally, there are new Live Shapes: Ellipses, Polygons and Lines, which are interactive and dynamically adjustable, so you can quickly craft vector shapes without having to apply effects or use other tools or panels. The latest release of InDesign CC helps you create and distribute layouts faster than ever, from designing in the intuitive Touch workspace to easily publishing documents online. With Publish Online (Preview) you can take your documents online. With a single click, your print layout is automatically converted to an online document that can be easily shared on Facebook and Twitter, in email, and more.

For those of you who create and edit video and audio, your world just got a whole lot more interesting. The features and functionality we previewed at IBC are now ready for download. Premiere Pro CC ushers in the new era of UltraHD via comprehensive native format support for editing beautiful 4K-to-8k footage, optical flow time remapping and advances color, with improvements to the Lumetri color panel and support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) workflows in Premiere Pro CC. After Effects CC now has the powerful and accessible color tools and color fidelity that Premiere Pro has. Audition CC introduces Remix, a new audio feature that automatically rearranges music to any duration while maintaining the aural integrity and structure of the piece. And Adobe Media Encoder adds Facebook to its Destination Publishing support, building upon existing support for YouTube and vimeo, to allow you to quickly and easily showcase your work to your social community.

Publish animations to multiple platforms - including Flash/AIR, HTML5 Canvas, WebGL or even custom platforms - and reach viewers on virtually any desktop or mobile device. Animate CC will be available in early 2016: www.adobe.com/go/flash-now-animate

Welcome Adobe Animate CC

We are renaming Flash Professional CC to “Adobe Animate CC“.

Why the change? The use of open web standards and HTML5 has become the dominant standard on the web. Over the past few years, the Flash Professional CC product team has embraced this movement by rewriting the tool from the ground up, adding native support for HTML5 Canvas and WebGL as well as output to any format (such as SVG) with an extensible architecture. This flexibility has been a huge hit with Adobe customers. Today, over a third of all content produced in Flash Professional CC is HTML5-based, reaching over 1 billion devices worldwide. In order to more clearly reflect its role as the premier animation tool for the open web and beyond, we updated the name.

In addition, Adobe Animate CC will continue to support Flash (SWF) and AIR formats as first-class citizens, as well as other formats like broadcast-quality video. We will continue improving Animate CC’s HTML5 capabilities over time, while optimizing its core animation and authoring feature set. For more details, watch our Twitch Channel to see sneak peeks of what’s coming in Adobe Animate, and read the latest product team’s blog post.

Adobe Animate will be available in early 2016.

Lenovo Unveils Thinkpad P40 Yoga

PRESS RELEASE

LAS VEGAS – Dec. 1, 2015: Today, at Autodesk University 2015, Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) unveiled the ThinkPad P40 Yoga, a high-performing mobile workstation that helps unleash the full power of professional creativity. The Lenovo ThinkPad P40 Yoga delivers a first-class digital sketching experience with the ultimate in mobile workstation performance and reliability.
 
From digital artists storyboarding the latest Hollywood blockbuster to engineers designing the next hot new car, creative professionals need to both sketch their designs and bring those designs to life. To do this, users typically to purchased two systems – a tablet to deliver the sensitivity and accuracy of a premium sketching experience and a mobile workstation to render designs in powerful applications.

Designing with Power
 
As the first-ever multimode mobile workstation, the ThinkPad P40 Yoga offers the versatility to work across four modes—laptop, stand, tent and tablet—giving professionals the flexibility to do more no matter the use. The system provides the utmost in sketching precision through a highly responsive pen and touchscreen powered by the Wacom® Active ES technology, offering a full, 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity on a high-res (2560 x 1440) IPS display. Professional artists and designers have been clear with the need for absolute precision and accuracy. Working with Wacom®, Lenovo developed a unique driver to get closer than ever to the ‘pen to paper’ experience. For a comfortable and realistic sketching experience, the rechargeable ThinkPad Pen Pro is included, along with additional pen tips providing varied levels of tactile feedback for the professional community.
 
“Sketching is the foundation of everything we do,” said Kyle Runciman, industrial designer and strategic content manager, Autodesk. “Designers can sketch for months to hone their ideas, and when they do get them to a point where they feel they’re ready for prime time, they can benefit from a separate, ISV-certified mobile workstation to visualize the designs. The ability to perform all of these capabilities on a single machine is huge for our industry.”
 
Along with its premium sketching capabilities, Lenovo ThinkPad P40 Yoga offers mobile workstation performance without compromise. Powered by an NVIDIA® Quadro® M500M GPU with 2GB VRAM, the ThinkPad P40 Yoga is certified to run a full range of professional applications without compromise. Moreover, the system also features an Intel® 6th Generation Core™ i7 CPU and up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD storage for ultrafast processing.
 
And for the first time in a mobile workstation, the Lenovo ThinkPad P40 Yoga features Lenovo’s innovative Lift ‘n Lock keyboard with a frame that automatically rises around the keys when the Yoga device switches into tablet mode, giving users the ability to work in a more comfortable and efficient manner. The machine features tried-and-true ThinkPad reliability for maximum uptime in or out of the office, with long battery life, Mil-SPEC tested construction to ensure uptime under the toughest conditions, and a lightweight design using advanced materials. 

Value-added Options
 
The Lenovo ThinkPad P40 Yoga can be purchased with the optional battery-powered ThinkPad Pen Pro Lenovo’s advanced stylus that uses industry-leading Wacom® technology for enhanced precision and comfort. Additionally, the ThinkPad P40 Yoga supports Lenovo OneLink+, the next generation cable docking solution enabling all docking functions and power delivery in a single connection, making it the ideal solution for users leveraging multiple devices to save time and do more. The Lenovo ThinkPad P50s can be purchased with the optional ThinkPad Ultra Dock, a new dock featuring more horsepower to drive mobile workstations and more versatile docking connectors.
 
Availability and Pricing

The new ThinkPad P40 Yoga, ThinkPad P50s and ThinkStation P310 will be available starting in Q1 2016 through Lenovo business partners and on www.lenovo.com. Pricing for the ThinkPad P40 Yoga begins at $1399, while the ThinkPad P50s begins at $1299. The Lenovo ThinkStation P310 begins at $729. More information about the ThinkPad P Series, including an interactive tour of the ThinkPad P40 Yoga, can be found at www.thinkworkstations.com. For the latest Lenovo news, subscribe to Lenovo RSS feeds or follow Lenovo on Twitter and Facebook.
 
Quotes 
 
“Intel’s 6th generation Core i7 microprocessor powers some of the most innovative mobile computers on the market, and we are excited to see that power harnessed in Lenovo’s 2 in 1 mobile workstation,” said Navin Shenoy, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Mobility Client Platforms Group, Intel. “The Lenovo ThinkPad P40 Yoga showcases amazing innovation and the power of Intel technology for creative professionals.”
 
“To bring their creations to life, media and entertainment, design, and engineering professionals require the most advanced graphics technology,” said Greg Estes, vice president of Enterprise Marketing, NVIDIA. Our new high-performance Quadro M500M GPU provides the horsepower to run demanding pro applications, yet it’s very power efficient – perfect for the ThinkPad P40 Yoga."
 
“Sketching is essential to the creative process, and our Wacom® stylus technology has led the way in enabling digital sketching on mobile devices,” said Masahiko Yamada, president and CEO of Wacom. “The functionality built into the Lenovo ThinkPad P40 Yoga, including our Wacom Active ES pen technology, enables artists and other creative professionals to use this system to its full potential, with display and touch capabilities that are unmatched in the marketplace.”
 
“Autodesk delivers advanced 3D tools that allow creative professionals to bring the most realistic characters to life and visualize amazing worlds for film, TV and games,” said Marc Hamaker, Media & Entertainment Marketing, Autodesk. “An artist’s creative potential is unleashed and limitless when coupled with the right software and hardware, like Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk Mudbox, and Lenovo workstations.”

“Designers know that mobility is critical,” said Tim Geurtjens, Co-Founder, MX3D. “Previously, this meant that we needed to use a tablet for sketching and a mobile workstation to render our designs. With the Lenovo ThinkPad P40 Yoga, Lenovo has changed the game for professionals in our industry, offering us everything we need in a single device.”
 
About Lenovo
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is a $46 billion global Fortune 500 company and a leader in providing innovative consumer, commercial and enterprise technology. Our portfolio of high-quality, secure products and services covers PCs (including the legendary Think and multimode Yoga brands), workstations, servers, storage, smart TVs and a family of mobile products like smartphones (including the Motorola brand), tablets and apps. Join us on LinkedIn, follow us on Facebook or Twitter (@Lenovo) or visit us at www.lenovo.com.
 
Autodesk, 3ds Max, Maya, Mudbox, and the Autodesk Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates, in the USA and/or other countries. All other brands names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

1 Based on MobileMark 2014 3-cell + 6-cell battery 

Slow-mo video: capturing real world lag

UPDATED 11/13/15 with real-time videos. See below.

Thanks to Mashable and Lance Ulanoff's review of the iPad Pro this morning, I discovered this very easy way to capture lag, using my iPhone 6's Slo-Mo feature.

In all four of the applications below, lag is nearly imperceptible in real time. And in each, once captured at 240 fps, the delay is nearly identical while I draw at my typical light pressure. The earlier video I posted showed how bad lag can be in Photoshop if a lot of pressure is applied.

In Ulanoff's test video, the Apple Pencil and iPad Pro delivered slightly less delay, but his Surface Pro 4 strokes were broken up and inconsistent. I have no idea what software he was using on his SP4. To reiterate, in real time at the speed at which I'm drawing these loops, the lag is imperceptible to me.

Thanks to Mashable for posting a slow mo test, it reminded me I could do the same. Lag is nearly imperceptible in real time.

Applying light pressure, this 60 px brush keeps up well on a 3000 x 2000, 300 dpi canvas.

3000 x 2000 canvas at 300 dpi

1368 x 829 canvas at 100 dpi with 14B pencil

I may go back to other devices and see if the lag is better or worse. I'm definitely curious to know how much better or worse the Wacom EMR on my Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga 14 performs. What do you think?

UPDATE 11/13/15 Several of you requested real-time videos. The first one below is in Sketchook Pro and the second is in Clip Studio Paint.

No skipped strokes or problems keeping up. Video requested by reader Trista Tos.

"Creamy" results on a 3000 x 2000 canvas at 300 dpi. No dropped strokes, no major lag. Video requested by reader Richard Moreton.

m3 Surface Pro 4 videos: Did I blow it?

The Brad Colbow video review I embedded yesterday freaked me out. Brad's video depicts tremendous, unacceptable lag in Photoshop and worse, he identified a stroke tapering behavior that is impossible not to notice. Could I really have blown my m3 Surface Pro 4 evaluation so badly?

So I overcame my usual aversion to recording my scribbling tests and here's the verdict: guilty. The lag and tapering are definitely there, not only in Photoshop but in Clip Studio Paint as well.

The good news is that I think I can argue for a pardon, because as I demonstrate below, the problems manifest themselves in a drawing style that is foreign to me.

You have to use a lot of pressure to see the tapers. As you'll see in the videos below, I sketch very lightly and even the 60 pixel brushes that I'm using in both applications show up more like 12 px strokes. While the strokes are still tapered at that size, those tapers seem a lot more natural than they do at full size.

You'll note that as I'm scribbling very quickly, both applications have no trouble keeping up. It's only once I try to achieve maximum pressure that there's a discernible delay for Photoshop especially to complete the stroke.

In the first wobbly video (it's hard to draw while trying to frame the shot with the your free hand!), I adjust the pen pressure in the Surface app. Brad's video captured the problem with stroke tapers here as well. Despite my best efforts, I don't see them except for a couple of strokes in the video thumbnail.

This test of the m3 Surface Pro 4 attempts to show the stroke tapering issue identified by Brad Colbow in his video review. But try as I might I can't reproduce the tapering on most strokes. What's up with that?

The next test is in Clip Studio Paint Pro and demonstrates the speed and fluidity of that program on the m3 Surface Pro 4. Tapers are barely perceptible at the ends of thin strokes. It's only when I try to get 100% pen pressure that I get the little pinch at the end of the stroke.

Stroke tapering and lag are a lot less apparent in Clip Studio Paint than in Photoshop. This is a 3000 x 2000 canvas at 300 dpi. The SP4 has no trouble keeping up with my light, fast strokes. It's only when I press very hard that the stroke tapering becomes very apparent.

Hopefully the video below illustrates why I missed the lag in my written review. You hear an audible click every time I force the pen down with maximum pressure. It's a totally unnatural amount of force for me. It's also unclear how much of the lag is being contributed by Photoshop not being optimized for the new sixth generation M3 processor and its Intel HD Graphics 515 GPU.

Why my initial testing failed to spot the stroke tapering and lag: I tend to draw lightly and when I test, I'm seeing whether tablet can keep up with my light strokes. This is a 3000 x 2000 canvas at 300 dpi. The lag is evident when I press much harder than I normally do.

So from what you see here, is the tapering a deal breaker? It's definitely not ideal and may be something that can be corrected in a future update. I certainly can live with it and compensate for it. Let me know if you could do the same in the comments section below.

As for the Photoshop lag, it's harder to say whether this is a hardware, driver or software issue. The lag is present whether I turn gpu acceleration on or off. Once again, I can work around it. I don't use Photoshop for drawing anyway. But can you?

New Surfaces arrive, quickly break the bank

Monday was a big day at the SurfaceProArtist.com labs as we received both the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4.

Most tech sites have already reviewed the devices, but we'll be diving in deeper to truly understand both new devices' strengths and limitations from an art perspective.

Please bear with me as I put them through their paces. Microsoft did not provide review units and so, as I have with nearly everything else I review on this blog, I plunked down cold, hard cash (err, plastic) in the interest of science.

Along with the VAIO Z Canvas and the Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga 14 I recently reviewed, the blog is running at a huge deficit for 2015. That shouldn't come as a surprise, as it's never been profitable. But I've never had to outlay as much money as quickly as I have the last month.

Please, if you have ever read anything here that is of value, if I've ever provided tech assistance here, on Twitter, Facebook, TabletPCReviews or SurfaceGeeks forums that you've found useful, please consider donating a minimal amount to the cause by clicking the button below.

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Thanks in advance for your help!

Video previews revamped UI, new features of Sketchable 3.0

UK-based illustrator and concept artist Lawrence Mann has a terrific YouTube channel called LawrenceCanDraw that regularly features work produced on the Surface Pro 3, Corel Painter and Photoshop.

But recently Mann has been experimenting with the indie Windows Store app Sketchable and he's already produced some enviable work.

In his latest video, Mann provides a sneak peek at the new UI and tools included in an alpha version of  Sketchable 3.0. I'm a big fan of Sketchable and its young developers Silicon Benders. Their program is without a doubt the most robust Windows Store painting app available. I can't wait to try these new features myself.

In this video you can watch me using the awesomely powerful Microsoft Surface Pro 3 to Alpha-test (Like Beta-test but an earlier stage of development) Sketchable 3.0. I'm giving the app' a good test run and really trying to make sure that I use a fair number of the tools here.

Winbeta.org went hands-on with SP4 and it was 'awesome'

The tech blog WinBeta.org sent artist Oliver Fuh to test a Surface Pro 4 and he wrote up an exhaustive post on his first impressions.

Rather than test with the default apps or Sketchable, Oliver was able to install the PaintTool SAI 2.0 beta. He captured the following video.

Check out http://WinBeta.org for more. Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/WinBetaDotOrg

The store staff also allowed him to test the new pen nibs and his findings are fascinating and somewhat disappointing.

2H – the thickest nib of the four, and it’s SUPER slick. The slipperiest drawing experience I’ve ever had on a digital display, and that says a lot, as most of them are pretty slippery. It also feels like the softest of the four. I’d love to use this for super fast sketching, or for drawing extremely long, flowing curves.

H – similar to 2H in slipperiness, but with a much thinner, even a bit harder tip. It feels much more conducive to precision drawing. It’s extremely faint, but I detect just a bit more resistance when drawing with this nib.

HB – I’m can’t exactly recall, but this might be the same as the standard nib that comes with the pen. I haven’t confirmed that for sure though. This feels very similar the standard pen nib, which has a strong, if even slightly rubbery, surface resistance. This, and the standard pen (if they’re not same thing) both feel great for standard note-taking and precision stroke drawing.

B – the most grippy of the four, but only slightly more so than HB/standard. Truth be told, I had a really hard time discerning the difference between this and HB .

You can find the full post over at WinBeta.org.

Hands on with the VAIO Z Canvas

Pity poor VAIO. For over a year, the Japanese startup that bought up the remains of Sony's computing division has been plotting a splashy debut on the world stage by targeting creative users with an expensive, but high-powered graphics behemoth.

The company's first entry into the U.S. market, the Z Canvas was even selected to be an exclusive Signature PC offering at Microsoft Stores. And Monday, that $2199 tablet PC with 12.3-inch WQXGA+ 2560 x 1704 IPS touchscreen, true quad core Intel Core i7-4770HQ processor, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD finally went on sale and held its launch event here in the Century City Microsoft Store. With those specs, the Z Canvas was without a doubt the most powerful Windows 10 tablet on the market.

Then, only 24 hours later, Microsoft announced its Surface Pro 4 and Surface Tablet lines. And 24-hours after that, rather than owning the premium shelf space to itself, VAIO sits right next to demonstration units of the new Microsoft products: a little bit more expensive, two generations of processor behind, no longer the only N-Trig tablet offering 1,024 levels of pressure.

So is the Z Canvas still worth considering, especially given its premium price-tag that balloons up to $3099 for the 16GB/1TB model? I decided to check it out for myself and I'm sorry to report I have decidedly mixed feelings.

It's so unfair to base an opinion on a few minutes of scribbling with inappropriate software, but having no other option, I'd say my reaction to the pen performance is lukewarm. It wasn't bad by any means; it just didn't feel special. In fact, it felt familiar, bearing many of the niggling problems of other current generation N-Trig devices.

First the positive: the hardware buttons located at the top of the tablet (pictured below) for disabling touch and calling up on-screen keyboard shortcuts are amazing. The latter especially is an indication that VAIO has worked with and clearly understands the needs of artists. Rather than having to rely on third party artdocks or other hacks, the Z Canvas lets users configure their own shortcut overlays, customizable for each individual program.

Although not as useful as the Surface Pro's variable angle kickstand, I like the attractive Z Canvas mechanism that lets you smoothly adjust its angle with only one hand.

And the flared, rubber pen grip is a huge improvement over the cold aluminum cylinders of most DuoSense2 pens. If the pen is sold separately, I might pick one up to replace my Sony Active Pen, which I purchased for the VAIO Flip 15A.

I'm not a fan of the flat detached keyboard. I like that it covers the closed tablet like a clamshell, but the flat orientation doesn't lend itself to long typing sessions. However, perhaps VAIO was focusing on artists who only need to tap on shortcut keys as they work. The tablet is Bluetooth and continues to work while detached. No need to purchase a standalone keyboard.

The demo units at this store don't have Clip Studio Paint installed, even though I think that software is bundled with each device. I'm not a OneNote guy and Fresh Paint doesn't do anything for me, so I was able to get the helpful Microsoft Store staff to install Sketchable. The free version only includes one brush, but it was good enough to test.

I created an A4, 300 dpi canvas and started scribbling away. Response is good, but the cursor didn't ever line up with the pen tip. It always was behind and to the right of the tip until I physically came in contact with the screen. It's possible that my pen was setup for a left-handed user, but I never dug into the pen control panel to see if I could set the orientation.

Diagonal jitter is present in slowly drawn strokes. I think we just have to accept that this is a fact of life with all N-Trig devices. Speed up your strokes or use brush stabilization.

More of an issue is that when I drew a bunch of half circles, random ones would end up quantized (with straight line segments instead of a smooth curve). In the image below, notice how the third curve from the right is segmented. Also notice the very thin end to that curve, which is a typical N-Trig artifact.

Could it be a problem with the Sketchable app? Perhaps. I contacted the developers and let them know. But until someone here can test with more software, my recommendation is to proceed with caution.

The biggest advantage of the VAIO Z Canvas is its quad core processor. Although it's a Haswell generation CPU, it should still beat the dual core Skylake processors in the new Surfaces. Running real world tests with more than sketching programs is the only way to determine whether the speed difference is noticeable.

With its serious venting along the top and back of the tablet, the Z Canvas is probably loud too. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell in the noisy mall setting of the Microsoft Store.

I don't know if I'll be able to do any further testing with the device. A couple of TabletPCReview members have purchased Canvases and I'll be scouring that site for their reviews. In the meantime, if any of you get hands on with the tablet, please leave your impressions below.

I want the new VAIO to succeed. They're clearly interested in catering almost exclusively to digital artists and that's worth a lot in a tech world where other OEMs don't even bother publicizing whether or not they are penabled.