Some eye candy to start your week: our friend and ArtDock collaborator Alex Cheparev has just posted a video demonstrating the performance of the 3d applications Autodesk Maya 2015, Autodesk Mudbox 2015 and Pixologic Zbrush 4r6 on a top of the line Surface Pro 3 with i7 processor, 8GB ram, 256gb ssd, and Intel HD 5000 video card.
Enjoy!
Although the GT-220 shipped directly from China, it only took two days to reach me in Los Angeles.
Huion’s new 21.5-inch Interactive IPS Pen Display, the GT-220, is close to a dream come true.
This is the third pen display I’ve tested after Yiynova’s MVP-22U (v2) and Monoprice’s Interactive Pen Display (which is functionally the same as Huion’s earlier model, the GT-190).
My issues with the Monoprice are well documented but mainly had to do with its inferior TFT display. The Yiynova is a much better device, but aesthetic and build quality issues leave a lot to be desired.
The GT-220 is attractive, thin, very well constructed, has excellent viewing angles and most importantly a fantastic 2048 level pressure range. In fact, I was so giddy after unboxing my GT-220, hooking it up, installing drivers and testing with Manga Studio that I was tempted to post my review immediately.
If all you use is Manga Studio or Clip Studio Paint, you can stop reading right here and just break out your credit card. (See the convenient Amazon link below. Seriously, this blog needs your support).
But I know you read my reviews for my blunt assessments of the products I test. And as much as I love the GT-220, it’s definitely not without its flaws.
Counter-clockwise from upper left, the Huion GT-220 ships with an HDMI cable, two USB pen charging cables, an HDMI to VGA adapter, a USB cable, two rechargeable pens with cradle, installation discs with instructions for Mac and PC, power supply, power cord and VGA cable. I would trade one pen and USB charging cable for a DVI cable.
Eight replacement nibs and an extractor ring are tucked inside the pen stand. The pens have a nice rubberized finish and two buttons.
Connections are located on the underside of the GT-220. From left: VGA, DVI and HDMI outputs, the power connector and the USB port.
Because of their unfortunate placement, the cabling is easily tangled with the VESA stand. As the monitor angle is adjusted, you have to be careful to clear the cables so the stand can lie flat on your work surface.
Also located along the lower right edge are the monitor adjustment and power buttons.
You'll have to hold your hand flat against your desktop to access the buttons. It's unfortunate they weren't moved to another edge. Of course, except for power, you won't need to access the display settings very often.
With its slim design, the lower edge of the GT-220 screen is only 1.5-inches from the bottom of the monitor. This means you'll have to either place the monitor right at the edge of your desk or prop your palm against desk edge in order to draw along the bottom of the frame.
The GT-220 comes with a very welcome screen protector that dramatically improves the drawing experience while also reducing glare and fingerprints. The protector can be easily removed or adjusted, but it's only held in place by four pieces of double-sided tape. It's an unsightly and low-tech solution. It will be interesting to see if the adhesive loses its tack over time.
The specs say the GT-220 tilts 70-degrees from almost fully upright to nearly flat. But my unit (above) seemed to have nearly 85-degrees of movement. It's very difficult to adjust the angle without first jiggling cables out of the way. Otherwise, the monitor stand will wobble as you apply pressure on the screen.
Having already experienced the setup of the Monoprice and Huion W58 pen tablet, I was prepared for what to expect from the installation experience. But even so, it didn't go 100% smoothly.
It's essential when installing Huion drivers to install them before connecting the monitor via USB. In my case, since I already had the GT-190 version installed, I decided to give them a whirl just to see what would happen.
When I plugged in the USB, the pen was immediately recognized and I could run the driver's control panel and even calibrate. But when I tried using Manga Studio, the pen was off by several inches. I guess that the GT-190 driver is tuned to its 1440x900 resolution and doesn't understand the 1920x1080 GT-220.
I uninstalled the older driver and rather than use the installation discs, headed for the Huion website and downloaded the latest version I could find there.
Once installed, the driver creates a desktop icon called Pen Display and a system tray item. When the USB is plugged in, double clicking the system tray icon opens the driver's control panel.
The PenDisplay control panel looks just like the panel from other recent Huion devices. Require Admin must be selected first in order to calibrate the GT-220.
The calibration tool only has five points, concentrated in the center of the display. This hasn't been an issue on either the Monoprice or Yiynova, but on the GT-220, I'm noticing more edge parallax than I'm accustomed. Hopefully future driver updates will increase the calibration points which would help reduce the cursor drift from the display center to the upper left corner.
But after all is said and done, the pressure range in Manga Studio is phenomenal. It's hard to make out in this image, but my lightest strokes begin in the very upper left corner of the canvas.
After running the calibration tool and adjusting pen sensitivity, drawing is wonderful. The screen protector has a satiny finish much better suited to the pen's hard plastic nibs than bare glass.
Edge parallax is a bit of a problem, especially in the upper left corner of the display. In Manga Studio, I found myself relying on the Display Application Menu icon located just above the New Canvas tab rather than going up to the file menu. The cursor and the pen tip are perfectly aligned just below the command bar, but at the menu bar, there's about a quarter-inch offset. I can deal with it, but it does require a pause to concentrate to target the menu items.
UPDATE 8/25/14 After working with the GT-220 for several more days, I've become more aware of the device's parallax issues. Besides the cursor drift problems I cite above, the pen display also has a significant gap between the glass and the screen. This separation is more pronounced as you view your work from an angle. In Manga Studio, there is never less than an 1/8-inch gap between the cursor and the pen tip, so inking precisely requires more concentration than I'm accustomed to on Windows tablets. Huion tells me that they're working on improving this via a driver update.
Moving on to Photoshop CC 2014, it took some Googling to learn that the software now requires a PSUserConfig.txt file entry in order to work with any Wintab tablet.
Create a text file named PSUserConfig.txt and place it in the Users/UserName/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop CC 2014/Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 Settings. The contents of the text file should read:
# Use WinTab UseSystemStylus 0
I still couldn't get pen pressure to work until I discovered that Huion just published an updated driver here: http://huion-tablet.tumblr.com/post/95172457923/huion-new-driver-updated-20140818-pressure
No matter what I tried I couldn't get pressure sensitivity in Sketchbook Pro 7. This experience bodes ill for all tablet users as software migrates to RealTimeStylus or Microsoft's INK API. Device manufacturers are going to probably need to issue new drivers for older devices or software developers are going to need to come up with better backward compatibility.
I also tested with Krita Desktop and Paint Tool SAI 1.2 and both worked fine. Corel Painter 2015 recognized pen pressure, but as on other tablets I've tried (including the Surface Pro 3), some brushes have their initial activation pressure set so high many strokes are not recognized.
As of this writing I haven't tried hooking the GT-220 up to a Surface Pro. I'm reluctant to do so with the Surface Pro 3 because I have too much software on it that requires the N-Trig Wintab driver. Installing the Huion drivers will overwrite any Wintab driver on the system. So if you want to use the pen display with a tablet pc, software has to have an easy way to switch between RealTimeStylus (TabletPC) and Wintab. Very few applications handle this as elegantly as Manga Studio/Clip Studio Paint.
As I wrote at the outset, the Huion GT-220 isn't perfect and depending on your software preference may not be useable at the moment. But if you're a Manga Studio/Clip Studio Paint user, it's a great asset despite its few kinks.
I know I'll certainly be very happy with it until someone comes along with a multi-touch capable pen display, a combination only available currently in the highest end Wacom Cintiqs, the 22HD Touch and the 24HD Touch, which retail for $2499 and $2999 respectively. (For a minimum $1600 savings, I can live without mult-touch gestures.)
At the dawn of Windows 8, before I started the quest for knowledge that led to the creation of this blog, I dreamed of finding a penabled all-in-one from one of the major OEMs like Dell or HP. I still can't understand why that hasn't happened.
Perhaps it will be up to Microsoft to make this dream device. I can't help but fantasize about a 22+-inch Surface Pro all-in-one with a Huion digitizer. Now that would be real dream machine.
In the meantime, the $899 Huion Interactive IPS Pen Display GT-220 will turn any pc into the next best thing.
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It was a bad week in the SurfaceProArtist labs aka Casa Rodriguez.
I had some serious spreadsheet work to do and opted to use the Thinkpad Yoga instead of the Surface Pro 3 just because of the Lenovo's better keyboard. A couple of hours in, the screen began displaying digital artifacts and jittering. The laptop was totally unresponsive. I shut it down and then it refused to power up. Fans would try to whir up four times and then stop. I Googled around and found others who've had similar problems and the only fix was a board swap. Called tech support, the Yoga is still under warranty, but it will be at least a week before I get it back.
After completing my work on the desktop, I visited the TabletPCReviews forum, one of my favorite haunts. There was a new thread about the Fujitsu T904 convertible ultrabook being on sale at Newegg.com.
I've made an effort to be as well-versed as my budget will allow in all brands of penabled devices, but I'd never tested a Fujitsu. The brand is very expensive and its products aren't readily available at any retail stores I visit. So every time someone mentions Fujitsu, I'm forced to plead ignorance.
This particular model typically retails for $1999, but is on sale for $1599: still somewhat pricey but reasonable for a 13.3-inch, 2,560 x 1,440 pixel display, Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, 500GB HDD with 16GB SSD, and Intel HD Graphics 4400. Most importantly, the Fujitsu has a Wacom digitizer and several artists at TabletPCReviews rave about it for drawing.
So before my common sense could kick in, I placed my order.
I visited the forums again to say how I was looking forward to testing the full-powered CPU in the T904, since that was one of the items that folks there rave about. That's when I got my first of many disappointments to come: the full-powered CPU is in the T902 model. I should have canceled the order then and there, but I was still curious about the drawing experience.
Newegg is located nearby, so the T904 arrived the following day (yesterday).
I've been spoiled by recent unboxings of Windows devices, like the bargain basement Asus VivoTab TF810C which borrows a lot of its aesthetic from Apple. The Newegg site says the T904's packaging is "commercial," so maybe retail boxes are different. Business customers may not want fancy boxes. But I think first impressions and out of the box experiences are critical, especially as I try to write for less tech savvy readers. I may unbox a product every month, but for most this will be their only computer/tablet for several years.
Because the Fujitsu is a premium product, I was expecting a premium experience and was looking forward to showing off my premium device in these images.
But instead, I was dismayed to find that Fujitsu's packaging is utilitarian at best. The only "extra" was a thin lanyard meant to string up the pen.
Especially disappointing is the pen, which is the size of a stylus, not even as big as the smallish Fujitsu T5000. Typically, pens are this size because they fit in a silo, but if that's the case with the T904, I never found it.
In laptop mode, the T904 is pretty standard Windows fare. The screen is highly reflective.
I'm not a fan of all the sharp edges and angles. Notice the indentation along the bottom edge or the way the directional keys force an odd shaped cutout for the keyboard. I do appreciate the large trackpad surface.
Along the lower left is the typical mess of manufacturer labels ruining the brush metal finish. Do Intel and others actually pay to advertise themselves in this garish manner?
The T904 ships with Windows 7 installed. This might make sense for typical business laptops, but why in the world would any IT person (besides an absolute Luddite) cripple an expensive multitouch and pen capable device with an OS that doesn't support those features?
The box includes a flyer pointing to a support site you're supposed to visit before upgrading to Windows 8.1. It doesn't say what you'll find at the site. I dutifully followed the instruction, assuming I was supposed to install some firmware or drivers beforehand. I'll credit Fujitsu: they do an excellent job posting all the drivers you'll ever need for the device. BUT there is no explicit set of directions for updating from a Windows 7 device all the way to Win 8.1.
The enclosed DVDs are not standard installation discs. They're labeled as recovery discs for 8.1.
After hunting around in vain for some guidance, I decided to pop in the bootable CD, close my eyes, say a prayer and start a complete HD wipe and install of Windows 8.1. (Fortunately I have an external USB DVD drive).
The factory image restoration goes ok and about an hour later, I'm in Windows 8.1 but now I have a "Secure boot not installed correctly" message on my start screen and touch doesn't work. Only pen.
There's a white line down the right side of the display. I reboot. Doesn't seem to be a display issue because the line disappears during startup, but there it is again on the Start Menu. Still no touch.
I disabled and enabled the touch HID in Device Manager. Still nothing. Moving on, I started about 1GB of updates to Windows 8.1. The screen blanked at some point and now touch is working. The text on the update screen is occasionally disappearing. Over the next several hours of use, touch would randomly turn itself off and on again.
After all the Windows updates were installed, I visited the Fujitsu support site to begin downloading driver updates.
There are a lot of them. It's very unclear to me how many I actually need to install now that I've restored a factory image. There's a download manager, but does it help with installation?
I download the manager and find it's in 7-zip format. Why not in a format that Windows can read natively? I download and install 7-zip and the Download Manager downloads and decompresses all the available updates for my machine.
But it doesn't install them. Instead, there's a readme file that lists them in the order they're supposed to be installed. Each is within a cryptically named folder and the drivers each have equally cryptic installers.
After installing a BIOS update which offers no visual feedback and a couple of other drivers, I stop once I've run the display and audio driver updates.
I don't know if I skipped a critical Fujitsu update, but enough time has elapsed. I'm dying to test the drawing experience.
I installed Sketchbook Pro 7 and the Clip Studio Paint 1.31 demo. The drawing is indeed very silky. There's a full range of pressure in Sketchbook Pro that I'm unable to reproduce on the Surface Pro 3. Maybe this will be worth the trouble, I think to myself.
I'm very surprised how bad multitouch response is in Clip Studio Paint. Zoom is terrible, jumping from 100 to 50% with nothing in between.
I'm also disturbed to find viewing angles are so shallow. I've got to hold the tablet just right to see the full brightness and color gamut. I could swear I'm looking at a TFT display sometimes.
Time to test with Wacom's Feel driver. When I ran the 25 pt calibration in landscape mode, I had no trouble hitting every single bullseye. This may be the most accurate Wacom device I've owned since my original Surface Pro 1.
But running Clip Studio Paint in Wintab mode doesn't really help multitouch zoom too much. I later discovered that changing the default 200% UI magnification to 125% improved the zoom, but it's still not silky. Perhaps the high resolution pixel count is too much for the 4400 gpu?
In addition to poor viewing angles, my device has significant light leaks along the bottom edge.
Had I not taken advantage of the Newegg sale, this would be the most expensive laptop I own. As it is it's twice the price of the Acer Aspire R7-572. What the heck?
If you've read enough of my posts, you know I'm reluctant to return any products. Even when they fail, I try to find a solution before letting it leave my hands. But this morning, I decided to draw with the T904 on my tabletop instead of it sitting in my lap. I found I couldn't see the screen without significant dimming and color shifting at that angle. I had to move my head over the display for it to be visible.
The T904 doesn't offer any way to prop it up at another drawing angle and it's too thick to sit in my iKlip Studio stand. So it's basically unusable laying flat.
I'd had enough. I decided to send it back even if I'd have to eat the 15% restocking fee. Fortunately, when I ordered, I signed up for a trial Newegg Premier membership which normally costs $50 but was free for the first 30 days. It saved me $10 on shipping. And Premier members are exempted from restocking fees. Dodged a bullet.
So I'm only out $11 return shipping and two days of installation and testing lost.
The moral of the story? Don't give in to impulse buys, I guess. Do a modest amount of research (The TabletPCReviews forums have hundreds of messages on the T904). And whether a limitation is a deal-breaker or not is entirely in the eyes of the user. Please don't ever judge a product entirely by my positive or negative experience.
To that end, I've included ATIVQ's post from the TPCR forums. He did a great job anticipating my review, although I didn't mind (or even notice) the parallax issues he complains about. He likes his T904 while acknowledging its shortcomings:
Bracing myself for an ultra-negative review by SurfaceProArtist. Let me get it started:
Big issues:
• The price is a few hundred dollars higher than an equivalent Surface Pro 3. The SP3 is much thinner and lighter, too, and apparently faster even though the specs favor the T904.
• The speakers are a joke. They barely produce comprehensible spoken words.
• The Wacom parallax... different sitting positions require recalibrating the pen. The calibration is different for different screen rotations, so if you draw from one position per screen rotation you could manage avoiding recalibration.
• The display bezel is huge.
Medium issues:
• The viewing angles on the display are almost, but not quite, as bad as TN displays. The color gamut is smaller than the color gamut of the SP3.
• There is no included documentation for the Windows 8.1 upgrade, you have to fish for them on the Fujitsu website. My device came preinstalled with 8.1 so I didn't have to perform this step. If you want to create a clean install USB drive, you can download the latest official Windows 8.1 installation ISO on Softicle.
• Some preinstalled software (Display Manager, Power Saving Utility, Plugfree Network) interferes with proper operation of the device and should be uninstalled.
• The "international warranty" is not international. It only applies in the country you bought the device. I bought mine from Fujitsu Germany, so I have to service it in Germany, which is a shame since there are official Fujitsu service centers around the world and there's no reason I couldn't get my device serviced in any of them.
Small issues:
• End-user customer service is not near as good as Apple or Microsoft. Fujitsu is geared towards large businesses with IT departments, it seems only Fujitsu Germany is responsive to the plights of the masses, like complaints about noisy cooling fans which was fixed only after being raised on the Fujitsu Germany forum.
• The keyboard backlight LEDs are visible from around the keys.
• The hotkey arrangement is a bit cumbersome. "Flight mode" is right next to "display brightness", forcing you to look before you press.
• There's an exposed docking port at the bottom of the device. Would a cover be too much to ask for?
Had I kept the T904, I would have spent more of the review comparing it to the Surface Pro 3 as ATIVQ continues below. But these two images compare their sizes.
Even with the type cover attached, the Surface Pro 3 is considerably thinner and lighter than the T904. But the sketching experience is superior on the Fujitsu (based on my very limited testing).
Are there any benefits for a T904 over a Surface Pro 3? Well...
• User-replaceable battery
• User-upgradeable internal parts like wireless card, SSD, 3G/LTE module
• The availability of an internal 3G/LTE module in the first place
• Built-in Ethernet port
• Full-sized SD card reader
• SmartCard reader
• An extra USB 3 port
• 18% more screen real-estate
And as a matter of personal preference:
• Wacom vs N-trig
• Notebook vs tablet form factor
All in all the T904 tries to be a high-end device but falls flat in certain areas. If you can live with the price, the Wacom parallax, and the terrible speakers, and you prefer a notebook form factor over a tablet one, the T904 could be considered superior to the SP3 for that use case. For me, the 3G/LTE module and Ethernet port are indispensable, and I prefer the notebook form factor. Still, for the price, I would expect the T904 to be a cut above the SP3 in all aspects.
I'll wait for my refund to show up on my credit card before considering another purchase. I'm tempted to try the T902 which has that full-powered CPU and supposedly has a great display despite its lower resolution. Or maybe I'll wait to see if Wacom announces a Companion update at Siggraph. Every time the Companion is mentioned, I have to plead ignorance...
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Artrage painting of Heidi Lavon by Deviantartist RothDog, based on photo by FotoDoor. UPDATE: See below for a timelapse video on the creation of this image.
Ambient Design’s ArtRage 4 carves out a unique slot for itself in the spectrum of Windows paint programs.
It’s fuller-featured than Modern UI programs like Fresh Paint. But despite being a desktop application, those features are contained in a tablet-friendly interface with large, easy-to-hit targets. It offers many distinct features vs. other low-cost options like Manga Studio or Sketchbook Pro. And it’s far less expensive than Corel Painter.
Whether you’re a pro or absolute beginner, you’ll find something to like in ArtRage 4.
I recently had the chance to test a beta version of the upcoming 4.5 release and it adds a lot of interesting new features. Although I don’t paint, I found most of the new features useful for line work.
The program is now available in a 64-bit version so it will allow you to take advantage of additional system RAM.
This shot from the ArtRage 4.5 interface highlights the new grid tool.
ArtRage features handy palettes for displaying reference images.
The new grid tool, including snap to grid, improves the software’s precision drawing capabilities and is very helpful for aligning elements or drawing straight lines or squares. The grid can also be added to reference images, a very useful addition. Combined with auto-smoothing in the ink pen or pencil tools, you can use a grid to create evenly-spaced wave patterns too.
Applying auto-smooth to lines drawn with snap to grid on results in a regular wave pattern: an unexpectedly useful precision drawing feature nestled in a paint program.
All tools have a settings panel like this one for the pencil.
If your tablet supports it, the pencil tool will allow live tilt as you draw. Make sure to untick the precise checkbox.
You can now collect your most used swatches and toolbox objects and reposition them in both pinboard and pod views.
The font picker panel.
The font picker now previews your selected font and you can change all text in a selected layer (without selecting the text) or mix and match fonts and formatting options within a single text block.
Depending on your screen size and resolution, the default interface can take up a lot of room. Double tapping the hubs on lower left and right corners of the inteface minimizes quarter-circle palettes. Any of the pods illustrated here can be expanded to panels with a double tap.
Although it’s clean and uncluttered, the ArtRage interface will take some getting accustomed to by experienced Windows artists. Instead of a toolbox, the tools and palettes are contained in two quarter-circles on the left and right lower corners of the screen.
By default, these can take up a lot of room on lower resolution tablets, but double tapping the corners of the palettes will minimize them.
The minimal Workbench interface is ideal for tablets but doesn't make it impossible to find desired controls.
The program also offers a compact workbench mode that is very efficient and easy to navigate. It’s also possible to scale the UI elements inside the ArtRage/Preferences/Panels settings.
The ArtRage UI defaults to a somewhat ugly lime green, but switching to a less nauseating shade is as simple as entering Preferences/Interface and choosing something more eye-pleasing.
ArtRage supports multi-touch gestures. In preferences, got to Input Devices and make sure Use Realtime Stylus and Use Touch Input are ticked and untick Use Wintab.
The biggest drawback in using ArtRage on any Surface Pro or other Windows tablet pc is that it doesn’t handle palm rejection well. It’s next to impossible for me to avoid leaving stray marks as I draw. So you’ll need to use an artist’s glove while you work to avoid needless frustration.
The tool picker with water color brush selected, sized to 66%. Tapping and dragging in the white area allows you to change the brush size. Double tapping brings up a numeric input.
Each tool (oil brush, watercolor, palette knife, airbrush, ink pen, pencil, paint roller, felt pen, gloop pen, sticker spray, pastel, paint tube and glitter tube) loads its own paint presets. It’s fascinating to see how the tools interact with one another and the canvas. It’s very easy to get lost experimenting and playing with the settings.
Because it supports smoothing, Surface Pro 3 and other N-Trig device owners should have no problem with jittery slow strokes.
Sizing a brush is also a little odd: tapping and dragging in the tool size area scales the brush up and down. Double tapping allows numeric entry. Brush size values are expressed as a percentage rather than a precise pixel size.
The color picker consists of three arcs. The outer arc sets the hue, the large middle arc sets brightness and saturation and the metallic arc adds specular and reflective effects.
Picking a precise color begins with clicking the appropriate hue, then tapping and dragging to select the brightness and saturation. The color palette also has a metallic setting which adds some specular highlights and reflections to your strokes.
ArtRage 4.5 will be available in mid-August as a free upgrade for registered ArtRage 4 owners. The software retails for only $50, so it should be within the reach of most users. A demo version is available for download here: http://www.artrage.com/demos/
If you’re looking for robust paint capabilities that won’t break the bank and don’t mind using a glove as you draw, ArtRage is definitely a worthwhile addition to any Windows tablet artist’s toolkit.
UPDATE: RothDog, whose image graces the top of this review has posted a time lapse video of the painting of the image. It condences the 24 hour painting into under five minutes but is well worth a look if you're interested in his technique.
Artrage 4 for Mac painting of Heidi Lavon About 24 hours work Based on photo courtesy of www.fotodoor.com
It began, as these things often do, innocently enough.
Perusing the TabletPCReviews forums, I spotted a post that said the Lenovo Thinkpad 10 tablet was finally available for sale in the U.S.
When that Wacom-equipped tablet was first announced, it was expected to be priced around $600, so I followed the link to see where the final price had ended up. I was shocked to see that Lenovo had settled on $729 for the Atom-powered, 10.1-inch, 2GB RAM, 64GB storage device. Even with a 1920x1200 display, that price seems totally unrealistic.
I tweeted as much and someone on my feed inquired about the Atom processor.
I had ignored all Atom-based devices when Windows 8 tablets first began appearing. Their reputation as slow, netbook class processors convinced me to look elsewhere back around the time the Surface Pro 1 was first released.
But the question gnawed at me: is an Atom-powered device with only 2GB of RAM sufficient to run a graphics application without unacceptable lag?
I began googling around for reviews of prior Atom tablets when Google or Amazon, in their algorithmic wisdom, served up an ad for the Asus VivoTab TF810C for only $299. When it was first released in late 2012, the 810C listed for just under $800.
And the specs compared very favorably with the Thinkpad 10: 11.6-inch screen, 1366x768, 2GB RAM, 64GB storage, Wacom digitizer, Atom processor. Yes, this Atom is a dual-core Z2760 running at 1.8 GHz vs. the Thinkpad 10's Z3795 quad-core, but we're talking a $500 difference here!
My curiosity was piqued, but I was able to resist the temptation and went about my business. Later that day or the following, Asus released its new Wacom drivers for the VivoTab Note 8.
I'm no fan of 8-inch Windows 8 tablets because running desktop applications on such small screens can be an eye-straining exercise in frustration. The AVTN8 was also hurt by a very poorly calibrated digitizer, with very inaccurate corners and other dead spots.
But once I ran the new 81-point calibration found in that driver, my opinion of the device significantly improved. Yes, you'll still go blind trying to run crowded desktop UIs, but with cleaner designed apps like Sketchbook Pro, the AVTN8 is now a lot of fun to use.
Another Twitter follower wondered whether the new drivers would work on the old TF810C and I was a goner. Now I simply had to purchase one of these bargains to find out for myself.
The Asus VivoTab TF810C packaging is very professional: nothing bargain basement or closeout about it.
The 810C arrived last weekend and quickly consumed a large portion of the time I wasn't supposed to be spending on tech.
Beneath the tablet is more elegant, well-designed packaging.
Unboxing the device was one of the most pleasant experiences I've had recently (and you know I've unboxed a lot of gear). Spare nibs? Cleaning cloth? How thoughtful.
The Asus VivoTab TF810C pen is about the size of the Fujitsu T5000. It comes with five spare nibs and an extractor. There is also a cleaning cloth. The USB dock/power connector on the tablet is non-standard so it requires a USB dongle to connect peripherals.
The tablet even ships with a very nice faux leather sleeve that can be configured as a stand! I was convinced that I'd uncovered the biggest bargain ever.
The sleeve will definitely keep your tablet out of harm's way. It includes a pen holder too.
The tablet is slightly thinner and lighter than the Surface Pro 3 and almost half the thickness of the Surface Pro 2.
The tablet has two openings along the bottom edge for the discontinued dockable keyboard. The rightmost slot is the USB connector which requires a non-standard multi-pin connector similar to those on older iPhones. To attach peripherals, a USB adapter dongle is included.
The back of the tablet has a nice brushed finish that is only marred by the unsightly stickers manufacturers insist on placing on their devices.
The TF810C ships with Windows 8, so I knew I was in for a long stretch of updates before I could test the tablet. But I never imagined it would take as long as it did. This process is so painful, in fact, that it's almost enough to recommend that you forget about this or any other older device. My Twitter followers read every sordid, excruciating detail in real time as I haltingly brought the TF810C up to date.
Windows lies when it tells you the updates it needs to install.
There were at least 150 updates to install before I could think of updating to Windows 8.1. By default the operating system will download and install these updates in the background, but that process could take days and severely cripple performance. Instead, I forced the tablet to download and install the updates, which took more than 12 hours.
I then tried to install Windows 8.1 but I kept getting a message that the tablet was incompatible with that software. I found a driver package on the Asus site which apparently solved the compatibility issue and I then installed Windows 8.1. After that, of course, there were dozens more 8.1 updates to install before the tablet was fully up to speed.
All told, this rabbit hole had already taken 24 hours to traverse and I still didn't know whether the tablet was adequate for sketching.
Then I committed a fatal (no exaggeration) mistake: I installed and ran the AVTN8 pen drivers and proceeded to kill my pen sensor. No matter what I tried, I could not get the digitizer to register within five inches of the pen. Desperate, I even refreshed the tablet all the way back to Windows 8, undoing a full day's work. No difference. The pen was unusable.
Fortunately, I bought my tablet from Amazon, so getting a replacement for a defective device is as easy as pie. (I didn't know at the time that the driver installation was the culprit. I just assumed the digitizer was bad out of the box. Should I feel guilty?)
The replacement arrived Tuesday and I started the update process again. Still slow, but amazing how much faster things can go once you know the missteps to avoid.
I turned off automatic Windows updates immediately. No sense tying up the wifi.
Next, I patched the tablet's BIOS with the Asus Live Updater.
Then I ran Windows Update from the desktop control panel.
At least 50% of the updates are security fixes, so I decided to do the installation manually, deselecting all the security related items. I know this sounds crazy but it was better to start downloading and installing one update at a time, often waiting for the tablet to reboot in between updates, than to watch the endlessly cycling progress bar, not knowing if anything was actually happening. I gradually started doing five updates at a time and ended up with the last ten at once. All told, the process took under 8 hours.
Next, I installed the Asus driver pack and then installed Windows 8.1.
I let Windows update itself the following morning and finally installed the official Wacom enhanced tablet pc driver sometime that afternoon.
Calibration was interesting to say the least. Unlike the AVTN8, the TF810C has definite problem zones that can't be adequately addressed by the 25-point calibration. The upper left corner in particular was almost impossible to reach. I had to tap repeatedly all the way out to the second ring of the bullseye before a tap was registered. There were several other problem spots around the edges.
Fortunately, the end result is adequate and not too much of an issue for me as I don't work in the absolute corners. The cursor is accurate enough that it isn't a problem to trigger menu items in the upper left or unhide the taskbar at the bottom of the screen.
A Facebook follower reported that she has been unable to run the advanced edge calibration on her 810C because no matter what she does it will not respond to any taps in that upper left corner.
Sketching in Clip Studio Paint. Not pushing the hardware too hard, the drawing experience feels comparable to any other Wacom tablet pc.
So far I've tested the tablet with Clip Studio Paint, ArtRage 4, Sketchtime, Sketchable, and Bamboo Paper. In all cases, I've been pleasantly surprised by the drawing and writing experience. I won't bother installing Photoshop or others because I already know that they will run but easily bog down.
With its low RAM, working at high resolutions or with many layers will quickly slow down the device. The slow processor, low memory or slow SSD all make installations seem much longer than usual.
But at the end of the day, the TF810C offers a very acceptable sketching experience. Those of you who are especially cash starved may want to consider adding one to your arsenal or gifting one to a kid.
Be aware that the dockable keyboard is no longer available, so you'll need to find a suitable bluetooth alternative or use it 100% of the time in tablet mode, which is never easy with Windows tablets, given the quirky behavior of the on-screen keyboard.
If you have patience and don't expect to work in 600dpi with a huge number of layers, the TF810C might be a bargain after all.
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I'll admit up front that I'm a little out of my depth reviewing pen tablets. I've owned a couple of entry level Wacom Bamboo tablets over the years and the only professional grade tablet I've ever owned, the Wacom Intuos 3 6x8, was quickly appropriated by my acquisitive daughter, never to be seen near my desktop again.
The Bamboos are okay for a quick dirt map on a 3d model, but I found the drawing surfaces of those to be too small to be useful for me. And I also don't like the plastic-on-plastic feel of the Bamboo's nibs on its drawing surface.
Therefore, I never really developed the hand-eye coordination to work successfully on a pen tablet, which ultimately made me the prime candidate for pen displays and Tablet PCs like the Surface Pro. And the rest is history.
Following my recent review of the Monoprice Interactive Pen Display, the manufacturers of its digitizer technology Huion, approached me about reviewing the W58, an 8x5-inch wireless tablet sold in the US for under $90.
Out of the W58 box, you'll find the tablet, pen, USB cable, wall charger and pen holder. Other critical components are in hidden compartments.
The W58 boasts a resolution of 5080 lines per inch, a report rate of 230 RPS, and 2048 pressure levels. The tablet works both in tethered (USB-powered) and wireless modes. The wireless connection is a 2.4GHz/EF with a range of up to 20 meters. The lithium ion battery is rated to provide up to 30 hours of continuous operation.
The two-button battery powered pen feels great in the hand. The pen unscrews just above the grip to reveal the AAA battery compartment. Four additional nibs and an extractor are tucked away in the base of the pen holder.
The W58 pen is battery powered with a standard AAA and can be clicked on and off with the pen end. The pen has a really nice size and weight partially due to its full-size battery. Some will find it heavy, but this may be the best feeling tablet pen I've ever held.
The fit and finish of the tablet itself is excellent. This doesn't look or feel like an inexpensive or knock-off device. It will look great on any desktop.
When I first opened the nondescript Huion box, I thought I might be missing items. The sketchy instructions didn't help either. I assumed I had been accidentally sent the non-wireless model (the $65 K58) and just plugged the tablet into my desktop to begin testing.
It wasn't until later that I discovered the wireless USB dongle is stored in the battery compartment on the bottom of the tablet.
The documentation explains nib replacement with an extraction ring, but I also thought I would have to make due without these until I discovered that they are neatly stored in the base of the pen stand.
The tablet arrived with a minimal charge so I plugged it in to the included USB wall charger to top it off. The tablet's led will flash red until fully charged, which took close to four hours.
I should have remembered my Monoprice tablet monitor experience when installing the W58 because it took a couple of false starts mostly due to the dated drivers included on the installation CD.
I was first getting very poor results with curves in all programs showing serious quantization errors (where curves are squared off). I couldn't draw a circle without it looking more like an octagon.
I went to the Huion site, downloaded the most recent drivers, configured the tablet via its control panel and the results were vastly improved. Important note: the W58's drivers don't create an icon in the Windows control panel. When they're running, you will find a tablet driver icon in your system tray.
The drawing experience with the W58 is very good. The pressure range is outstanding. I'm able to get ultra-fine lines and thick heavy strokes easily. I'd prefer a slightly softer nib. The contact with tablet surface feels a bit too scratchy for me. Ray Frenden tells me he likes the tablet's "tooth." To each his own.
The pen tip feels a little springy, though not a deal breaker. I didn't have to adjust tip sensitivity too much although it always helps to be able to adjust the pressure curve in the software.
On the backside of the tablet, the battery compartment opens to reveal the rechargeable lithium ion battery the USB wireless adapter to plug into your pc.
The big advantage of the W58 vs. other pen tablets is its wireless capability and I found it did make a huge difference not having to be tethered. As with my tablet pcs, I cradled the W58 as I drew and my lack of hand eye coordination wasn't nearly as bad as when the tablet sits on my desk by my right hand while the monitor is in front of me.
I was worried about lag as I drew, but I didn't really experience anything noticeable. Hover distance is very good on the tablet (one of my pet peeves with previous devices I've used), so navigating the interface with the pen was intuitive and didn't require stopping to find the pen cursor. I'm fairly certain I could train myself to draw well with this tablet within a few days.
I'd still recommend a low-cost tablet pc over a pen tablet any day, but as a traditional pc accessory, the W58 is an excellent value, especially compared to the comparably sized Intuos Pen and Touch Medium which retails for $199.
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Lenovo's Thinkpad Yoga side by side with its ThinkVision LT1423p USB 3 monitor. Too much of a good thing? If it works for Archie Andrews...
Manufacturers don't consciously make products intending to bury them, do they? It sounds crazy, given the intense competition, relentless pace of innovation and the cost of bringing a product to market.
Yet time and again, we've all stumbled across a brilliant product few have heard mentioned, barely listed on the manufacturer's website, and seemingly preordained to lapse into tech obscurity.
Such appears to be the case with USB 3.0-powered Lenovo ThinkVision LT1423p, a product originally unveiled at CES 2013 that didn't make it to market until late last year: a product I'd never heard of or had forgotten until last week when a Twitter follower shared a video of it in action.
But who could blame me for this oversight? Visiting the Lenovo online store as I write this review, I can't even find a link to any monitor products on their home page. Only by typing in the model number can I find a couple of pages on the product.
And it's a pity, too. Because the LT1423p is an amazing product that anyone in the market for a tablet monitor should consider.
For $449 for the wired model direct from Lenovo, the 13.3-inch IPS LED monitor features 10 point touch input and a Wacom digitizer, 1600 x 900 resolution, Gorilla glass panel, a cover stand for landscape and portrait usage, a built-in typing stand and USB 3.0 interface for both power and signal.
The ThinkVision USB monitor comes with the cover stand (top), USB 3.0 micro-B to USB 3.0 cable (right), a USB 3.0 Y cable (left) and the Lenovo pen, which can be siloed in the upper right corner of the monitor.
I set it up yesterday afternoon and it was love at first sight. The monitor is roomy, thin and light and extremely well built as you might expect from Lenovo.
The monitor is incredibly thin (.26 inches on the right), but it won't lay flat because of the built-in stand.
Although it's USB powered, a drawback of the monitor is that it requires two USB outputs from your laptop or desktop, so it's impossible to hook this up to the Surface Pro unless it's docked. UPDATE: This is not true, as I discovered below. See update for 6/13/14.
Your Windows pc won't immediately recognize the monitor. You'll need to install a setup program that's stored on the monitor's built-in U disk. This is an interesting way to install drivers, but since the product was released in 2013, the files are hopelessly dated.
Through no help from the flimsy instructions included with the device, I learned that the LT1423p requires the latest DisplayLink drivers and Wacom's Tablet PC feeldrivers.
It took some doing to get it all working correctly. I'm sure some of this is due to the fact that I only had touch enabled devices available to test the monitor. This naturally causes confusion with the pen driver.
The DisplayLink also doesn't seem to assume that you'll leave the monitor attached in a desktop configuration. This is obviously meant to be a portable device. As such, the monitor is often not recognized upon startup. Once the pc is powered on, plugging in the two USB cables initializes the driver.
A DisplayLink applet is available in the system tray to set resolution, orientation and power both the monitor and laptop display on and off.
Drawing on the LT1423p is silky smooth. The included Lenovo stylus is terrible as usual, but any Tablet PC pen is compatible. For the image drawn above, I used the Fujitsu T5000 pen. Unlike the Thinkpad Yoga, the ThinkVision doesn't have a screen coating, which I much prefer.
The LT1423p only has 256 levels of pressure, but I didn't notice much of a difference from my other Wacom equipped devices. The drawing experience is as good as any Tablet PC I've ever tested.
UPDATE: When I first posted this earlier today, I neglected to mention calibration and digitizer accuracy. Once the driver understood which pen display was which, default settings worked reasonably well. Like most Wacom devices, the digitizer's accuracy tends to drift toward the edges. Having used the N-Trig on the Surface Pro 3 so frequently for the past couple of weeks, I'm struck by the difference in accuracy. It's easy to get back into the rhythm of making sure to align the cursor and not necessarily the pen tip, but it definitely requires adjustment when you switch back and forth between the two technologies.
Although I was worried by its relatively low resolution and 18-bit color depth, viewing angles are excellent and I think the image quality will satisfy all but the most demanding of users.
The monitor is only .26 inches thick, .5 with stand. This thing is light too, weighing 1.87 lbs with stand. It's the perfect companion to throw into a bag alongside your Ultrabook. (I of course tried to test this with a Macbook Pro, but while it works as a second monitor, the digitizer is hopelessly out of alignment and I couldn't find a Mac equivalent to Wacom's Tablet PC drivers to correct the issue).
The monitor features a built-in stand that extends to a 12-degree angle. Lenovo calls this typing mode. The ingenious cover stand offers nine other angles ranging from 28- to 70-degrees.
For its price, I simply can't recommend the Lenovo ThinkVision LT1423p highly enough. Unfortunately, the Lenovo site says the device has a five week shipping time. I hope this is due to high demand or ongoing hardware improvements and not a sign that they've given up on the concept.
Below I've included a link to an Amazon vendor that has the model in stock. Their price is a bit higher than Lenovo's, but I got mine in a week. This Amazon vendor is a bit less expensive and offers free shipping.
Lenovo also offers a wireless model, but reviews from users have been harsh. The wireless connection isn't well explained and is probably too laggy to be useful. Although the cables can be unseemly, buggy wireless connections are certainly not worth a premium.
UPDATE 6/12/14: When you test as many hardware/software configurations as I do, you can become accustomed to the extraordinary contortions one must sometimes perform to get something to work. Upon reflection, I am worried that my review may give the impression that the LT1423p is the perfect device for everyone. It isn't. It can be quite fidgety and the results may vary by hardware/software. For example, the pressure curve that feels fine on the Thinkpad Yoga is far from great on the docked Surface Pro 2. Before setting it up correctly, you can believe you're drawing on one screen and actually be moving icons or launching programs on the other. If you want a plug and play experience, look elsewhere. You've been warned!
UPDATE 6/13/14: Thanks to reader Arunkumar Mahadevan who rightly pointed out below that both of the cables on the LT1423p's USB Y cable are not equal. The thinner one only transmits power. So by attaching it to the Surface Pro 2's power adapter USB input and attaching the USB data cable to the SP2's USB 3 input, it is possible to use the tablet monitor without the docking station. It may be my imagination, but it also seems to work better too.
UPDATE 6/14/14: I've attached four images at the end of the post to illustrate the hookup to the Surface Pro 2 sans docking station.
The back of the monitor, with the built-in kickstand extended.
The kickstand "typing position" gives 12-degrees of incline.
For added flexibility and protection, Lenovo throws in the cover stand (right).
Here the cover stand is extended to 28 degrees.
The cover stand at 70 degrees. The monitor's USB cables can be a bit of a tangle and can only connect to devices with two free USB 3 inputs.
The DisplayLink Manager system tray menus.
By default, the LT1423p is set to Extend your desktop. You can also set it as the main monitor or mirror displays. Power for both the laptop and USB monitors can be controlled here.
The monitor normally extends to the right, but you reverse it or even set it to display above or below your desktop.
Although it's not the highest resolution display you'll ever use, the 1600x900 default is surprisingly crisp.
The LT1423p can also be rotated to work in portrait mode.
The USB 3.0 Micro B male connector attaches to the ThinkVision input.
The USB 3.0 male end attaches to the female end of the USB 3.0 Y cable (left). Notice that one of the cords on the Y cable is thinner.
The thin cable from the Y attaches to the USB input on the Surface Pro power adapter (left). This cord is only about 12 inches long and the SP's power plug cable is also very short. You'll probably need a power extension cord to use this set-up comfortably on your desktop.
The second cord from the USB 3.0 Y cable plugs into Surface Pro's USB input (right). You'll need to have the DisplayLink drivers loaded and the Surface Pro turned on before attaching this cable. Your DisplayLink driver will initialize and the monitor will turn on. You may also need to configure your monitors in the Wacom feel driver control panel. In my limited tests, this sometimes requires a couple of restarts and reinstalls of drivers to get working. This is definitely not recommended for the easily frustrated!
UPDATE 7/5/14 A confused reader prompted me to re-read this review and conclude, as he did, that I didn't do a very good job describing the steps to getting the ThinkVision and Surface Pro 2 to play along nicely.
Here are the steps I follow to get the tablet monitor working:
1. Boot Surface Pro to desktop.
2. Connect ThinkVision to power supply.
3. Connect to Surface Pro USB input.
4. If the DisplayLink driver is installed correctly, the monitor will turn on.
5. Open your Control Panel and open the Wacom feel driver.
6. Run the display configuration. (This is an essential step; otherwise you’ll be clicking and dragging objects on the Surface Pro while you think you’re drawing on the Lenovo).
You should be good to go until you disconnect the monitor or shut down the Surface Pro. Then you have to do it all over again.
Not difficult, but not exactly “set it and forget it.”
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An example of Ray Frenden's work created entirely on a Cintiq Companion.
There are few artist/bloggers whose opinion I value more than Ray Frenden.
I couldn't draw without his Manga Studio and Photoshop brushes and I love his distinctive biker art style. He's also a master calligrapher. So whether he's writing about pen tablets, display tablets or tablet pcs, the guy knows his stuff.
Ray recently got a review unit of the Surface Pro 3 and he's just posted his first impressions of the device, comparing it head to head with the Wacom Cintiq Companion. This is the one article I've been unable to write myself since I've only managed to spend a couple of minutes on a Companion at a trade show.
Generally speaking, Frenden gives the Surface Pro 3 high marks for its screen size, portability and battery life, while extolling the Companion's expresskeys and drawing surface.
It's a great, lengthy post: well worth your time. Here's a taste:
The Surface Pro 3 would be better with a Wacom digitizer, but, in practice, I didn’t find the Ntrig to be a terrible detriment. Its inclusion is not reason alone to dismiss the Surface.
The full article is found here: http://frenden.com/post/90779846937/microsofts-surface-pro-3-vs-wacoms-cintiq-companion
The Monoprice Interactive Pen Display: what a difference some driver tweaks make.
The sub-$400 Monoprice Interactive Pen Display was probably one of the most anticipated releases of 2013 and the posts I wrote at the time continue to be among my most widely read ever. Everyone loves a bargain, especially starving artists.
In the event you haven’t read those posts, I concluded back in January that the budget 19-inch tablet monitor just wasn’t worth the investment due to terrible viewing angles and very inferior pen drivers.
A couple of months ago, Twitter follower @Drewvis let me know that Monoprice had posted new device drivers on its site. He also mentioned that attaching the pen display via DVI (rather than VGA) had yielded dramatically better viewing angles. Drewvis recently published his own review of the tablet monitor which you can find here: http://astrowagon.tumblr.com/post/89350457697/final-review-monoprice-19-interactive-pen-display.
MAKING THE RIGHT CONNECTION
Somewhat skeptically, I took the Monoprice out of mothballs and attached it to my desktop via DVI. At first I didn’t notice much improvement. In addition to its limited view angles, the pen display’s screen is highly reflective, so I had to be careful to angle it so that it didn’t reflect too much of my white ceilings. Next, I cranked up the brightness of the monitor to cut down on reflections. Reflections are a real problem during the day in my brightly lit office, so I also switched to white user interfaces rather than my preferred dark settings.
And lo and behold, the monitor is indeed more useable. Where once I could only find what seemed to be one angle to view the screen, I now had a wider field of view to work within.
This chart illustrating the viewing angles for the Monoprice Interactive Pen Display are far too generous, but with a DVI connection, the field of view is wider than I originally observed via VGA.
According to this graphic on the Monoprice site, the pen display has a 70-degree view horizontally and vertically. I think they’re being generous (perhaps it’s closer to 50), but anything is better than one degree!
Connected via DVI, it’s now possible to recline the monitor so that I can draw at a more comfortable angle. Previously, I had to stand it almost vertically (at its maximum 80-degrees) to be able to see my drawing clearly. The monitor will recline all the way to 10-degrees, but I’ve found that about a 60-degree incline is sufficient to rest my hand and preserve picture quality.
This is not a choice one should have to make, but you have to expect some sacrifices at this price point. And it certainly beats having to purchase a full-motion monitor desk mount.
SETTING UP THE PEN DRIVERS
I still am unhappy with the Windows drivers Monoprice has posted on its site (the most recent are dated April 29), so as I did the first time around, I checked whether Huion Tablet had published more recent drivers for its compatible GT-190 tablet monitor. Coincidentally, Huion just posted a new set on June 20 here: http://www.huiontablet.com/download/
Getting the drivers to work is not easy. I uninstalled the Monoprice driver and rebooted, also unplugging the USB cable that runs from the computer to the tablet monitor.
I installed the GT-190 drivers and rebooted again. Once I was back on my desktop, I plugged in the USB cable. The tablet driver should have already started up, but in case it hasn’t, the installation leaves an icon on your desktop. Once the driver is running, you’ll need to double click on the tablet driver icon in the system tray to load the control panel.
Beneath the pressure (tip) sensitivity slider in the pen control panel is a visual read-out that makes it much easier to determine how much pressure the pen is registering. I could slide the sensitivity all the way to the right to register my lightest strokes, but I opted to back off just a bit so I wouldn't have to press quite as hard to achieve maximum pressure.
At the top of the control panel, you can map your two pen buttons and set tip sensitivity. There is a nice visual display that displays how much of an impression you are making as you tap with your pen. This makes it much easier to visualize how lightly you can tap before your pen will register a mark. I could have set my pen pressure all the way to the right, but I didn’t want to have to press so hard to achieve 100% pressure.
In order to access the pen-monitor calibration tool, you'll first have to grant the control panel Administrative access.
To calibrate your monitor, you’ll first need to select the Require Admin button. Even if your pen is recognized, you will always need to start the calibration process with your mouse. The calibration tool has five points, all located toward the center of the display. This is unfortunate because parallax tends to increase as you get toward the edges of your screen.
It's unfortunate that pen calibration targets are all clustered near the center of the screen. In earlier, broken versions of the driver, Huion offered many more higher-resolution calibration options. As of now, I'm seeing significant parallax around the edges of the display which sometimes makes selecting menus and icons located there difficult.
The pen targets go from red to black as you tap them. When you tap the fifth target in the center of the display, the control panel exits.
As I wrote when I first tested the Monoprice, it’s a delight to finally draw with the pen configured properly. I can achieve a range of line widths in a single stroke that I’m unable to reproduce on either the Wacom Surface Pros or the N-Trig Surface Pro 3. Pressure levels may be a marketing ploy, but there’s a tangible difference in drawing with the two 2048-level devices I’ve used vs. 1024 or 256.
EXTENDING THE DESKTOP
The last reservation I had against recommending the Monoprice was its inability to work in dual monitor mode in Windows. This meant that you either had to connect it by itself or in mirror mode with your system monitor. Due to the pen display’s low resolution (1440x900 max), this probably meant you’d have to run your other monitor in a sub-optimal setting.
With the new driver, it’s now possible to run the pen display in extended mode at its own resolution. This is a huge improvement.
On my puny GeForce GT 630 display, the NVidia driver doesn’t offer 1440x900 as a display option, so I had to set the Monoprice to 1280x800. Not ideal, but this setting doesn’t distort text too badly.
To set up two monitors, I first disconnected my system monitor and ran all of the above set up with the pen display as my sole monitor. Once I was sure the display was calibrated and the pen was running well, I shut down the system and reattached the system monitor.
My NVidia graphics card doesn't recognize or support the Monoprice's 1440x900 resolution, so I'm forced to run it at 1280 x 800. The good news is that I can continue to run my system monitor at its full 1080p resolution.
Upon boot up, I ran the Screen Resolution control panel to extend the displays and set each monitor’s resolution.
CONCLUSION
So a little over six months after its release, the Monoprice Interactive Pen Display is now much more useable and I can recommend it to anyone willing to put up with its eccentricities in exchange for significant savings vs. competing products. If you’ve got just under $1000 to spend, I’d still recommend the Yiynova MVP22U(v2). Yiynova also sells the MSP19U+ for just over $600 (but I’ve never seen or tested it first hand). The latter’s display specs are very similar to the Monoprice (TFT, 1440x900), so it’s very difficult to justify an additional $200 investment.
The Monoprice certainly compares favorably to a large Intuos Pro Pen & Touch, which lists for $499. And for only $50 more than the Medium sized Intuos, the Interactive Pen Display is an excellent option.
As with all things tech, a better version is probably around the corner, but for the next few months at least, the Monoprice Interactive Pen Display has earned a spot on my crowded desktop.
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