GUEST POST

Yes, I'm opening this review with a "cord" pun, because let's face it, that's the most conspicuous feature of the ASUS PT201Q...that tethered stylus. Given the forgettable Lexus sedan-style name, it's also the one thing you'll most certainly remember about it.

Let's get the big stuff out of the way first. This is a product from a company not known for this type of hardware, it's got a proprietary tethered stylus, and a name only the US Military could love.

You should just stop reading now and ignore this hopeless imposter, right?

Not so fast.

This unit from ASUS is different, yes. It has some quirks, definitely. It is, however, worth a closer look, because for some of you, this might be all you need and quite a bit more than you'd expect.

Depending on the price at which you purchase it, the needs you have for your art, and your willingness to try a few small tweaks on the pen, I think this is more than just a base hit, it could be a home run.

Check out the video review for what I hope is a fairly comprehensive overview of its virtues and vices.

Bucktoothstudios.com video review of ASUS PT201Q tablet monitor pen display. This is part 1 of 2 which focuses on the hardware itself and setup. Part 2 covers the pen and drawing tests as well.

bucktoothstudios.com video review of ASUS PT201Q tablet monitor pen display. In part 2 I look at the pen itself and how it performs in areas like pressure sensitivity, hover distance, and stability.

PostedJune 9, 2015

AuthorRick Rodriguez

Categoriesreviews

TagsAsus, PT201Q, pen display

17 CommentsPost a comment

A powerful case of Wacom Cintiq pen display envy is what gave rise to this site.

I don't recall the specific year, but it must have been in the early 2000's when I first saw a Cintiq demonstrated at SIGGRAPH. Although I've been using computers for graphics since the release of the Amiga 1000, I was never much of a drawing tablet user. I bought a couple of low- and mid-range Wacom Intuos or Bamboo tablets, but they'd usually end up taking up space and collecting dust on my desktop.

But with the Cintiq here was a device that could let me draw--on the screen!--and didn't require me to develop a new level of hand-eye coordination. Of course, it was really expensive at the time and I just couldn't justify the cost when I spent most of my graphics time modeling in 3d applications. (That software was a lot more expensive then too).

When the iPad was first introduced five years ago, it was partly my on-going Cintiq lust that led me to chase down every new capacitive stylus that came on the market (I was pretty clueless then), hoping for something that would provide a reasonable drawing experience.

Shortly after this, smaller Cintiqs had become more affordable, but they didn't have touch, which the iPhone and iPad had proven (to me at least) was invaluable.

So when Microsoft announced the first generation Surface Pro--with Wacom pen!--I was primed and ready. So you could say that the resulting explosion of tablet PC purchases I've made for this site in the last two years is really the result of a decade of pent-up frustration. And ironically, while I once felt I couldn't afford a Cintiq, I could have purchased MANY of them with all the money I've spent chasing down lower cost alternatives since 2013.

It still amazes me that I managed to skip the first generation Companion released in the fall of 2013. Not having one to review definitely left a nagging hole in my coverage since then and always left me wondering how much greener the grass was on that other side.

But the Companion 1's limitations were so shockingly self-evident. I could have put up with the price and last gen processor, but not being able to work in Cintiq mode like its Android Hybrid sibling just seemed like a cruel marketing ploy. So I held out and was relieved as users began complaining about the stand and troublesome power connector that failed on far too many units.

Nevertheless, by the time the Cintiq Companion 2 was finally announced this January, I was ready to dive in head-first.

Wacom made the decision easier by offering a broad range of competitive pricing. With as many tablet PCs and pen displays as I have on hand, I don't need the Companion 2 and I was very tempted to buy the bargain basement i3 model for testing. I opted instead for the DTHW1310L model, with core i5 processor, 128 GB SSD and 8 GB of RAM for $1600. It's impossible to compare this price directly to a Surface Pro 3 because Microsoft doesn't offer this combination of storage and RAM, but it's close enough to the configuration and the price difference of about $400 seems reasonable for the slightly higher clock speed and a premium professional grade product. At $1300, the i3 model of the Companion 2 not only offers less RAM and storage (4 GB/64 GB, respectively), it doesn't even come with a stand or soft case.

Whether you go with the i3 or i5, it's easier to rationalize purchasing the lower end models of the Companion 2 because unlike any other tablet pcs, the device's Cintiq pen display features should be useful for many years after its processor and other features become obsolete. But if you insist on purchasing the i7 models, those will set you back from $2000 to $2500. (All except the i3 model are currently out of stock in the US Wacom store).

When I ordered my Companion 2, I half seriously (hopefully?) tweeted that this might be my final tablet pc purchase. Now, after owning it for a few weeks, I can say that while I love the device, it's far from perfect and may not be the right solution for everyone. It may still be the last tablet I buy for a while, but it's not the fabled unicorn we've all been waiting for.

I've unboxed a lot of tablet pcs with plain brown paper wrapper packaging, but the Wacom packaging (above right) is far from that.

Upon opening the well designed box, you're greeted with equally well conceived compartments containing the tablet and accessories (right). Clockwise from top, these are the adjustable stand, soft case, Cintiq Connect cable, Pro Pen and case with 9 replacement nibs and nib removal tool, Quick Start Guide and power adapter.

With the notable exception of the Surface Pro 3 and Toshiba Encore 2 Write, most Windows tablet PCs give me a strong sense of deja vu: you've seen one, you've seen them all. Not so the Companion 2.

First off, the thing is huge and solid, a true slate. According to the Wacom site, the device is 14.7 x 9.8 x 0.6 inches and weighs a solid 3.75 lbs. The Wacom frame which contains the Expresskeys (right) and speaker grilles encases what would be the entirety of most other 12- to 13-inch tablets.

The back of the Companion 2 is equally distinctive, with four rubber feet in the corners and copious amounts of air vents along one side, and both the top and bottom. Two large slots are for the adjustable stand. On the side directly behind the Expresskeys is a large matte plastic region that is comfortable for supporting the tablet's weight (for short periods of time). The rear camera's offset placement is a little odd, though I'll never use it.

Every complaint you've heard about the Cintiq Adjustable Stand is well-founded. Although it provides three solid, stable drawing angles, the stand is just not well-engineered.

Each inset in the stand (above) corresponds to different support angle (above, right).

The challenge when using the stand is that its tabs (above) have to be inserted just-so into the slots in the back of the Companion. It's impossible to do this with one hand and the base tab is particularly difficult. Once inserted, it requires a firm yank to pull the tab out of its slot. The angle insets are wobbly and finicky, so you will probably settle on a preferred angle and think twice before adjusting them again. It's almost preferable to drag the stand along rather than consider pulling the Companion out of it.

The collapsed stand and tablet will fit in the soft case, but the pockets in the sleeve were too tight to fit the pen case, power adapter and Cintiq Connect cable.

As a professional device ready for power users, the Companion 2 includes a healthy amount of ports. On one side (above, left to right), you'll find a headphone jack, three USB 3.0 connectors, SD Port, MiniDisplay port, the 2-in-1 connector, power status LED, DC jack and Micro SD port.

On the other side, you'll find (above, left to right) volume up and down buttons, the power button, two microphones, the auto-rotate switch and a Kensington security lock.

The tapered Pro Pen comes in its own case with 9 additional nibs and an extractor ring.

Although the Pro Pen is very similar in length to the Axiotron Studio Pen (above top), it feels slightly more solid, although it's lighter than the Wacom Bamboo Feel Stylus Carbon (above, bottom). In addition to 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity, the Pro Pen is also tilt sensitive unlike all other tablet pc pens.

The Cintiq Companion 2 features a 13.3’’ 2,560 x 1,440 QHD display with wide viewing angle, 72 % NTSC and 16.7 million colors. It has a matte finish, anti-glare screen protector which resists finger prints and offers a satiny resistance to the pen nib.

The 3:2 12" Surface Pro 3 (above, top) vs. the 16:9 13.3" Cintiq Companion 2: a lot of tablet for a 1.3" display size increase.

The Companion 2 (above, top) vs. the recently reviewed HP Pro x2 612 G1. The 12.5" HP is significantly more portable at 2.22 lbs.

The 11.6" Lenovo Thinkpad Helix 2 (above, bottom) looks almost tiny compared to the Companion 2. It's also two pounds lighter at 1.75 lbs.

The discontinued Sony VAIO Flip 15A (above, bottom) occupies almost the same physical dimensions as the Companion 2. The 15.6" Flip is just 0.2" thicker and weighs 5 lbs with keyboard.

The images above represent just a few of the dozen or so Windows tablet PCs I've tested over the last two years and the Wacom Cintiq Companion 2 is the first such device I felt I had to study in order to use.

Although the device will work out of the box, there are a ton of settings that can be adjusted to one's liking. Also, unlike other tablet PCs, the Wacom Tablet Properties can be customized per application.

The Windows Desktop Center is pre-installed and acts as the software hub for the device. The center will notify you of pending updates, which is handy. You'll notice in the screenshot above that the text inside the Windows prompt doesn't display properly. The is due to the UHD display and the default 200% UI scaling. Shame on Microsoft for Windows' ongoing issues with scalability. However it's one of the first places that you'll begin to question Wacom's decision to make the Companion 2 such a high resolution device.

If you run the desktop without scaling, touch targets are nearly unusable. And applications like Photoshop still don't offer sufficient UI scaling flexibility. I also noticed that the high resolution exacts a performance penalty on the integrated Intel Iris Graphics 5100 processor. For example, when the tiles first appear on the Start Screen, they have a visible stutter. Lowering screen resolution to 1920x1080 corrects the problem.

The Windows Desktop Center app also offers handy links to the tablet's documentation. Unfortunately, opening the manual requires installation of Java.

You set your tablet to right- or left-handedness here and can also disable touch operations. I don't know why anyone would do that. If touch really bothers you that much, either get a Cintiq 13HD or use a drawing glove.

You also access the pen and button settings here. I won't attempt to describe all of the tablet properties in this space, but as you can see by the ten screenshots below, the settings are exhaustive! Note to any experienced Wacom users looking to help out the community, it would be great for you to share your Expresskey and Pro Pen settings for novice users.

A preset feature that I find disconcerting is in the Rocker Ring settings (above right). The left rocker is set to Photoshop Colorist and the lower rocker is set to Brush Touch Strips. Both of these call up on screen menus which are very distracting when you've just started playing with the device. I frankly don't even know what either set of controls handles. I believe they're set in the On-Screen Controls panel (below, right) but I haven't played with them yet. Once again, experienced users feel free to let me know your thoughts about the on-screen controls.

One customization I did make right away was to map the right rocker to call up the On Screen Keyboard. This is a fantastic way to work on desktop apps without a physical keyboard nearby. I really wish other tablet PC makers found a way to dedicate a physical button to turning the keyboard on and off.

The pen settings (above) will be familiar to users of Wacom-equipped tablet PCs like the Surface Pro 1 and 2. I played briefly with Tilt Sensitivity, but didn't see a use for the way that I sketch. The other major difference in these control panels is that settings can be applied to all applications or to a specific program. This will come in very handy as I spend more time with the tablet.

PERFORMANCE

So does the Companion 2 live up to expectations? From a drawing perspective, absolutely. I tested the tablet with Clip Studio Paint, Sketchbook Pro, Photoshop CC 2014, Mischief, Sketchable, ArtRage, ZBrush 4R7, Autodesk Softimage, Maya, 3DS Max and Mudbox. Except for limited touch support in the 3d programs, I've encountered no problems whatsoever.

Drawing in Clip Studio Paint in particular is a joy to use.

But here's an important point for all of you artists on a budget: the difference between drawing on other Wacom tablet PCs and the Cintiq Companion 2 is not that great. As I wrote in my HP Pro x2 612 G1 review, even that low-end tablet delivers an excellent drawing experience once you add the right screen protector and pen-nib combination.

So if like me, you've spent all these months wondering how the other half lives, you can rest easy. Your tablet PC is at least 75-percent of the way there and it likely is a better-suited device for taking on the road and daily productivity use than the Companion 2.

Battery life of the Companion 2 is pretty feeble. Wacom claims up to 4.5 hours, but mine drains in about half the time.

Besides its size, the biggest drawback to the Companion 2 is its very loud fans. The unit appears to have three fan speed settings. Though it's never 100% silent, the lowest speed is very acceptable. Unfortunately, nearly any activity will cause the fans to switch gears. The second speed is noticeably loud but the third is accompanied by a high pitched whine that can get downright annoying. Sometimes, the fans will throttle back to second gear but the whine will remain. If you work in a noisy environment or can use headphones, this won't be an issue. But if you expect to sit on the couch working next to your significant other, expect to be asked to leave the room.

Wacom has been silent on the fan issue, but enough early adopters are complaining about it that we can only hope that the company issues a software fix if that's even possible. You can hear the loud fans for yourself in the two videos below.

The fans on the new Wacom Cintiq Companion 2 will kick in very frequently and loudly. In this video, during the installation of Autodesk Creative Suite.

The fans on the new Wacom Cintiq Companion 2 really kick in while running benchmarks like the 3dMark. Listen how they change to an even higher gear at about the :30 mark.

In the 3dMark benchmark results below, the Companion 2 clearly outdoes the Surface Pro 3.

But in real world day to day use, I can't say that I notice a big performance gap between the two devices.

In my next review, I'll discuss the use of the Companion 2 as a Cintiq. But judging the device as a pure Windows tablet PC yields a mixed verdict.

As an art creation device, the Companion 2 is unrivaled among tablet PCs. But it has sufficient limitations in size, battery life and fan noise that it should give all potential buyers some pause. It is not the fabled portable art creation unicorn we've been searching for and will, budget permitting, not be my final tablet purchase.

If you will mostly use the Companion 2 in your office, near a power source and only occasionally take it out for a spin, you should be fine. But if you want to work on an airplane, or in a cafe or any other location where space and power are at a premium, you may be better off with a Surface Pro or other Windows tablet.

PostedMarch 8, 2015

AuthorRick Rodriguez

Categoriesreviews, Windows tablet

TagsWacom, Cintiq Companion 2

62 CommentsPost a comment

EDITOR'S NOTE: I've been hopelessly behind on my product reviews since January. It's been my plan to follow up my review of the HP Pro x2 612 G1 with a review of Toshiba's 10" Encore 2 Write. But then the Wacom Companion 2 was released and testing that device has been taking up all of my limited free time. Fortunately, Twitter friend and artist Eric Merced stepped into the fray and purchased and quickly reviewed his Toshiba tablet last week. With his kind permission, I reprint his findings here. Enjoy!

By ERIC MERCED

I tried my best to write a short thorough review of the Toshiba Encore Write 2 tablet that was not just open and honest, but informative for anyone who is in the market for either a Surface Pro 3 or the less expensive Write 2 tablet.

As an artist, my review is technically geared towards Artists looking for a portable drawing solution. However, that does not exclude anyone looking for a solid pen-based tablet.

With that in mind, I do have to say, that if you’re a heavy Photoshop, Corel Painter or Manga Studio user, you may be better suited with the more expensive and higher spec Surface Pro 3 due to the lower specs of the Write 2. And by heavy user, I mean, if you’re a painter who requires lots of memory and processor power, then the Write 2 may under perform for you.

I broke this review in two simple sections targeting the Write 2 and comparing it to the Surface Pro 3. Hopefully, this will help you decide which device is better suited for your needs.

THE GOOD STUFF
Small and lightweight. The Write 2 basically feels like an iPad in your hands. It’s lighter than the Surface Pro 3 and feels much more solid than an iPad. I always got the feeling that if I dropped an iPad or the Surface Pro, it would be game over. While I’m not looking towards dropping the Write 2 anytime soon, I feel that it may be capable of taking a tumble or 2 much better than the iPad or SP. Also, the Write 2 feels way more portable than the SP. Again, just like an iPad, I feel better carrying this thing around versus the SP3 which, even though it’s supposed to be a tablet, is more in line with a laptop.

Windows 8 Desktop Apps in a true portable experience. The allure of the SP3 and the Write 2 is the fact that you can have Windows 8 desktop apps in a portable device. And I’m not talking about desktop equivalent apps here, I’m talking about the actual desktop apps, like Photoshop, on a tablet. With the Surface Pro 3, it’s almost not much of a big deal because, like I mentioned beforehand, the SP3 is like a smaller laptop more than it is a tablet. With the Write 2, you really get the impact of running full Photoshop or Manga Studio in a tablet (as a matter of fact, Microsoft compares it against the Apple Macbook Air and not the iPad). To be honest, there’s more of a wow factor with the Write 2 than there was with the SP. And again, that has to do with the fact that this feels like an iPad. A real tablet. I think every iPad owner that’s a digital Artist really dreams of an Apple solution to the SP and now, the Write 2. As a Mac OSX user myself, I wish Apple would get with the program and create a true portable OSX experience like Microsoft has done with the SP and now, their partners like Toshiba, with the Write 2. I can’t express how awesome it feels to have Photoshop or Manga Studio in such a small device without much compromise. I can truly start something on my desktop, sync via Dropbox, and continue on my Write 2 on the go, or vice versa.

Good battery life. The Write has really good battery life. I can go almost a full day using it without the need of plugging it in. However, there’s a downside which I’ll touch on in the 2nd portion of the review below.

The pen (Stylus). The Write 2’s pen is such an improvement over the SP3’s pen by leaps and bounds. First of all, when you first set up a SP3, you need to hold down the SP3 pens top “eraser” button until the SP recognizes the pen via Bluetooth and automatically pairs with it. It takes a few seconds to do this and you get a prompt on screen that it will take as much to set up. The problem with the SP3’s pen is Bluetooth. It’s not a reliable connection and, at times, it will say that the pen is not connected yet you can still use it. (NOTE: It was pointed out to me by a reader that, as a matter of fact, the Surface Pro 3 pen does not need Bluetooth to function. The Bluetooth is there for the top button which activates Onenote. Thanks Sven!). It’s a wonky set up to say the least. With the Write 2, I can’t recall a set up process. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t. I honestly don’t remember. The fact is, it’s been a hands off and painless experience. The pen just works right out of the box and, I’ve had no connection issues. As a matter of fact, a quick look at the Bluetooth section of the PC Settings and you won’t find any choice for connecting or disconnecting the Write 2’s pen. (EDITOR'S NOTE: Neither the N-Trig pen on the Surface Pro 3 nor the Wacom ActiveES pen on the Encore 2 Write require pairing in order to work, except for the limited cap button functionality cited above.)

Tracking is on par with the SP3. You notice the cursor drag behind the pen if you move fast but this has no noticeable impact on drawing/writing that I’ve noticed. Yes, you do encounter lag at times with Photoshop or Manga Studio, but it depends on the brush you’re using. I use a lot of custom brushes in both apps and these brushes, at times, require some power to work. But for the most part, the lag is very minor. And as a reference point, I generally work in 8.5x11 or 11x17 at 300dpi’s. And yes, it does have pressure sensitivity which works great in both Photoshop and Manga Studio. Note: I did encounter a lot of frustrating lag when I installed the Wacom Feel Driver. I was told on Twitter that the latest version, as of this writing, did introduce some issues so keep that in mind.

Side slot to store your pen when not in use. This is so cool. The SP3 has a magnetic side where the pen clings on. You can’t use it when you’re charging the SP and, in both my experiences with the 2 units I tried, the magnet’s not even that’s strong. The Write 2’s solution comes via a clip on the side of the pen that you can insert into a slot on the side of the tablet. It works exceptionally well and diminishes any fears of it accidentally slipping out. I do wish it had the same in body slot the Samsung tablets have but, this works well. Also, the cap on the pen is a bonus. Not only does it protect the tip when not in use but, according to Toshiba, it helps with conserving battery life.

A full year of Office 360. Ok. I don’t know why I even added this as a good stuff. Or, yeah, ok. I did write this review on Word but, ok. Fine.

Affordable. The lower end Surface Pro 3 will run you $799 while this will run you $400.

THE BAD STUFF
Slow charging. Yes, it has good battery life but the downside is, in my experience, it takes looooong to charge up. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the Nexus 6’s fast charge up time.
Low resolution screen. The only reason I’m even adding this here is because others have brought the point up. Yes, the Surface Pro 3 has a beautiful 12” screen. The thing is just gorgeous and a delight to work on. But the low resolution screen on the Write 2 may not turn you off. At least it didn’t turn me off. As a matter of fact, it’s a non issue for me.

It’s not a powerhouse. In comparison to the Surface Pro 3’s lower end model (see spec comparison below), the Write 2 is no power house. If you’re a heavy Photoshop user who does some intricate paintings that require a lot of processor and memory power, you might want to look at the higher end SP3’s because the Write 2 will disappoint you. With that said, it’s suitable for the kind of work I do. You’re just going to have to take a look at your work and workflow and decide which machine is best for you.
The charger cable is too short. I’m used to charger’s with a good amount of length on the cable. But for whatever reason, the Write 2’s charger is a bit short which makes for an annoyance when, say, sitting on a sofa and needing to plug the charger in while you continue to work. I may actually look into an alternative charger if possible.

No alternate choices for pens. With the Surface Pro 2 I had the choice of using the horrible stock pen or, what quickly became my favorite, the Wacom Feel pen. With the SP3, I believe that changed and your choice was limited to the stock pen. The same is true for the Write 2. I do wish I had a choice of 3rd party pens. While I really do not dislike the stock Write 2 pen (I actually find it better than the SP2’s pen) I do wish I had options. But for now, it will do just fine.

Surprisingly, that’s it for the bad stuff!

So in a nutshell,
Q. Is the Write 2 a suitable replacement for the Surface Pro 2 or 3?
That depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for the same power you get from the SP2 or 3, then you might want to look at the latest SP3 models. If you’re looking for a much more portable solution with OK processing power, then the Write 2 might be what you’re looking for. If you don’t mind a smaller screen, again, the Write 2 is what you’re looking for (I do suggest the 10” model over the 8”). However, if you crave for a slightly bigger screen than that of the Surface Pro 2, the Surface Pro 3 has a beautiful 12” screen that does not disappoint.

Q. Is the Write 2 a suitable replacement for the Cintiq?
No. Look, in all honesty, if you have the cash to get your hands on a Cintiq Companion, stop reading this. Go get that darn Cintiq Companion. To this date I have not found a tablet that has the feel of the Cintiq screen. The SP2 or 3 did not have it nor does the Write 2. Drawing on these machines is like drawing on glass while the Cintiq’s have a premium textured feel to it that truly feels like drawing on paper. Also, the Cintiq Companion is much more powerful than the Write 2 and as an added bonus, you can plug it into your computer to use when not on the go.

Q. Will it run Photoshop, Manga Studio and or Illustrator?
Yes. Yes and yes. The Toshiba Write 2 basically runs on Windows 8. The same OS you get on desktop, you get in this portable little tablet. It’s friggin awesome. But keep in mind, there’s some squinting to be had. Not every app is optimized for Windows 8 mobile. I think Manga Studio and Sketchbook Pro have the best mobile UI’s out there. And on the Write 2, please stay away from Adobe Photoshop’s experimental UI features for now. They were designed more with the Surface Pro’s screen in mind.

Q. Does the pen have replacement tips?
Yes. And no. It comes with one additional replacement tip but I have not looked online to see if I can order more so, for now, I’ll play it safe and say no.

Q. Is the Write 2 a suitable replacement for the iPad (as a digital portable sketchbook)?
Um, how do I say this politely…. HELL YEAH! Look, iOS has some really amazing apps. Among my favorites were Procreate and iDraw. Unfortunately, you can’t find those out of iOS. But where iPad fails as a digital sketchbook is in the pen department. Bluetooth and pressure sensitive pens are not the best of solutions at the moment. I’ve had plenty of frustrations when dealing with them. But, it’s getting better. Still, when you use an iPad and iOS you’re basically using mobile apps that are not as powerful as desktop apps. I don’t care what opinions you may have about Procreate, you can’t produce high resolution art on it the same way you can in Photoshop. So the iOS experience on the iPad is a very limited one at the moment (fingers crossed on those iPad Pro rumors going around). In the meantime, if you’re looking for an iPad replacement, I highly recommend the Write 2. Windows 8 is a different beast than iOS and it takes some getting used to, but the ability to run desktop apps on a tablet will diminish any gripes you may have with the OS.

SIDE BY SIDE SPECS COMPARISON
SURFACE PRO 3
Display: 12” (2160 X 1440)
Processor: 4th generation Intel Core
Memory: 4, 8GB options
Storage: 64, 128, 256, 512GB Options
Weight: 1.7lbs
OS: Windows 8.1

TOSHIBA ENCORE WRITE 2
Display: 8” (1280 X 800)- I’m not even going to consider the smaller version here because I’m highly recommending you go with the bigger model.
Processor: Intel Atom
Memory: 2GB
Storage: 64GB
Weight: 13.4 oz
OS: Windows 8.1

So there you have it. I hope this review has been informative and helps you decide what machine to get based on your needs. While I really would have settled for a Surface Pro 3, and would still own one if the first or second units I bought hadn’t turned out defective, I have absolutely no regrets from buying the Write 2. In the end, I saved a lot of money and got a slightly more portable machine that still gives me the abilities to do the things I would have on an SP3. While not as powerful as the SP3, it still works great for my workflow and style of art.

See more of my work at www.ericmerced.com

Toshiba Encore 2 Write WT10PE-A264 10.1-Inch 64 GB Tablet

$399.99

Toshiba

Buy on Amazon

PostedMarch 4, 2015

AuthorRick Rodriguez

CategoriesWindows tablet, reviews

TagsToshiba, Encore 2 Write, Wacom, Active ES

7 CommentsPost a comment

With the first tablet pcs with Wacom’s new Active ES digitizer now on the market, the task of selecting a penabled device has become significantly more nuanced.

PC manufacturers seem to love to hide the details of their pens from the buying public. And now instead of asking, “Does it have a pen and is it Wacom or something else?” we need to ask “Does it have a pen and is it Wacom EMR, Wacom Active ES or something else?”

I’ve been using and really enjoying the 10” Toshiba Encore 2 Write for a while now and I still owe readers a review of that AES-equipped product (artist Eric Merced has just published one that I will be reprinting shortly). But in the meantime, I'd like to focus on what may be among the last of a breed: a tablet pc with the Wacom EMR (Electro-Magnetic Resonance) tech we’ve known for over a decade.

The HP Pro x2 612 G1 may be one of the worst named products ever. It’s also very poorly marketed, seemingly available only as a business product through HP.com or other online retailers. But with a starting price of as low as $695 via one Amazon reseller, the tablet is definitely worth a closer look.

I received my unit in early January, and I’m glad that I held off on writing this review so that I can compare it not only to the low-cost Toshiba but also to the Wacom Cintiq Companion 2, which I’ve been testing for a little over a week.

I decided to purchase the base model, with an Intel Core i3-4012y 1.5GHz processor, 4GB RAM and a 64GB HD. I paid $762.50 via Staples.com. The tablet has a 12.5" screen and offers a resolution of 1920 x 1080.
A Core i5-4302y model with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD and bundled power keyboard will set you back about $1320. Although I cheaped out and bought the lowest cost model, this higher end configuration is definitely the way to go for most users.

The included pen (above, middle) is a stick stylus even thinner than the one included with the Thinkpad Yoga (above, top). It’s nice that it can be stored away inside a silo for emergencies (see right), but I suspect I’ll never use it. For any prolonged creation or notetaking purposes, you’ll definitely have to buy your own tablet pc compatible pen. I tested a variety of options and found that my old standby the Wacom Bamboo Feel Carbon’s nib had the best grip on the extremely slippery display (more on that in a bit).

The low-end configuration doesn’t include a keyboard and I’m unsure whether HP sells one separately. I wasn't able to find it. Invoking the on-screen keyboard is a drag in Windows desktop, so you’ll definitely want to at least pair this tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard. The tablet also doesn't have a built-in kickstand, so if you don't buy it bundled with a keyboard, you'll also need a stand.

The bottom line is that this HP Pro x2 612 G1 is a very Spartan device. But I also like it a lot and think it compares very favorably to the entry level Surface Pro 3. In fact, an i5 version of the tablet feels like it could be a big brother of the Surface Pro 2 (see below). If you have any qualms about adopting N-Trig, the HP Pro is definitely worth considering.

The biggest issues I have with the tablet are aesthetic. The 2.2 lb. device is ½-inch thick, with contoured edges. I generally prefer that to squared-off corners. Unfortunately, the HP’s display isn’t flush with the matte plastic case and the resulting edge feels sharp and uncomfortable (right).

The bottom edge of the tablet is flat and where HP has placed all the ports. In addition to two keyboard alignment posts and a docking connector, there’s the pen silo, a micro SIM slot, a micro SD slot, a USB 3.0 port, headphone jack and power connector. I lament not having the bundled keyboard to understand how these ports are accessed once the keyboard is attached. I also can't say what angles the keyboard allows.

Unlike most tablets, the HP tablet uses an ungainly laptop power adapter which doesn’t fit snugly and hangs awkwardly during charging (right).

The physical Windows button (below) is concave and requires some effort to press. Some may like this because it probably reduces the likelihood of accidental jumps to the Start screen. But since I don’t experience that issue with my other Windows tablets, I don’t care for this cheap-feeling design.

On the positive side, I really like some of the choices HP made on the back of the tablet. The matte plastic finish is comfortable to the touch and remains cool even after several hours of running benchmarks. The vents are located at the top of the tablet, away from your lap.

And although the fans will blow regularly, the HP Pro x2 612 G1 is very quiet compared to the Surface Pro 3 or Companion 2.

There's a large slot for a smart card reader (which I'll never use but I assume works).

Below the volume rocker is the power switch, which you have to hold down for a couple of seconds in order to wake the device.

Above the volume controls is the rotation key, a handy physical rotation lock that all tablets should have.

The 12.5" display with Intel HD Graphics 4200 is bright and sharp and view angles are excellent with next to no color or brightness variation.

I assume the display is glass, but it appears to be coated with an additional layer of very slick material. This is the slipperiest display I have ever seen on a Windows tablet.

Although my initial impression for drawing on the bare surface was positive, as I tested more for this review, I discovered I couldn't get consistent strokes no matter which tablet pc pen and nib combination I tried.

Out of frustration, I decided to order a Photodon screen protector. What a difference! That company doesn't sell a version sized exactly for the HP Pro. The Thinkpad x220t screen protector I installed just barely covers the display. BUT, it makes the HP Pro a delight to draw on with my Wacom Bamboo Feel Stylus. Drawing now feels almost indistinguishable from sketching on the new Companion 2. Application of the screen protector was also surprisingly easy (first time ever with no bubbles for me) so I ordered additional sheets to test for the Surface Pro 2 and 3. (UPDATE: Thanks to reader Todd Kennedy who alerted me to the availability of pre-cut HP Pro x2 612 G1 Photodon screen protector. I just ordered one. Here's the link: http://www.photodon.com/p/6066-01.html )

It's hard to tell from the photo above (pardon my crappy lighting conditions in this new office), but it depicts the HP Pro x2 612 G1 sitting on top of the Companion 2. Although the HP's display is only 0.8 inches smaller, the Companion's bezel on bezel case is huge by comparison (pictured right). Despite its design flaws, the HP definitely wins for portability.

This HP Pro x2 612 G1 model is no speed demon. It scored 1738 on the PCMark Home Accelerated 3.0 benchmark vs. the i5 Companion 2's 2793. But so far I haven't noticed any appreciable lag while drawing in Clip Studio Paint, Sketchbook Pro, Sketchable and Photoshop. And most significantly, the fans are much less noisy than the Companion's, kicking on much less frequently as well.

Clearly, the HP Pro x2 612 G1 is not a dedicated art tablet like the Companion, but if you're on a budget, this entry level model probably comes close enough. Its biggest downside is the 64GB of storage. I actually ran out of disk space while writing this review and installing multiple GBs worth of benchmark software.

If you're not bothered by N-Trig, the entry level Surface Pro 3 is a better all-around choice. And for the truly budget conscious, the new Toshiba Encore 2 Write is hard to beat at $400.

But if you're looking to reproduce the traditional Wacom experience found in the Surface Pro 1 and 2 with a significantly larger display, the HP Pro x2 612 G1 is the cumbersome product name worth remembering.

FOOTNOTE: A reader asked and I felt I should clarify that this review and my assessments of the HP's "value" are relative to the $700 price tag of the entry level tablet. Clearly the i5 version competes very closely price-wise with the higher end Surface Pro 3 and mid-level Companion 2 as well as several other devices like the Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga. They all have their pluses and minuses as well-rounded tablet pcs, but there is no doubt that the Companion is the better choice for a professional artist.

Pro x2 612 G1 Tablet PC - 12.5" - In-plane Switching (IPS) Technology - Wireless LAN - Intel Core i5 i5-4302Y 1.60 GHz

$1,320.45

Buy on Amazon

Pro x2 612 G1 Tablet PC - 12.5" - In-plane Switching (IPS) Technology - Wireless LAN - Intel Core i3 i3-4012Y 1.50 GHz

$695.04

Buy on Amazon

PostedMarch 4, 2015

AuthorRick Rodriguez

Categoriesreviews, Windows tablet

TagsHP, Pro x2 612, Wacom

59 CommentsPost a comment

UPDATE: Lenovo has finally placed the Ultrabook Pro Keyboard on its website and the price is downright shocking. Yes, it's got a built-in battery that extends power for up to 12 hours, but for $399 more? No thanks Lenovo. Read it and weep.

ORIGINAL POST: Just in time for your holiday shopping consideration, Lenovo has released the Wacom-penabled Thinkpad Helix 2, the first Intel Core M device I've had the chance to test.

The Helix 2 comes in two flavors: a $1049 5Y10 model with 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB SSD and the $1499 5Y70 model with 8 GB and 256 GB storage. Both versions have an 11.6" FHD IPS LED display with a resolution of 1920x1080 and feature Intel HD Graphics 5300.

Although the last thing I need is another Windows tablet, I couldn't resist the temptation and decided to purchase the low end version to see how it compared with the Surface Pro 3 and other devices in the SurfaceProArtist labs.

The Helix 2 ships with the Ultrabook Keyboard, a cover that doubles as a stand but lacks a hinge mechanism. The typing experience on the keyboard is far superior to keyboard covers like the Surface Pro's, but the lack of a hinge, backlighting or Bluetooth severely limits the keyboard's functionality. The screen rests at only one angle that may be awkward to use in a cramped environment (see image above). And you have to be careful to dock and undock the screen just right to use the keyboard as a cover. You can't just fold and unfold it as you'd expect from any other keyboard.

An Ultrabook Pro Keyboard will be available early next year. Lenovo doesn't offer a way to purchase the tablet separately, which adds an unnecessary expense to an already pricey purchase.

REVIEW CONTINUES AFTER THE UNBOXING IMAGES BELOW

As unboxings go, the Lenovo Thinkpad Helix 2 unveiling is pretty unmemorable. The tablet ships in a plain cardboard box, with no attention paid to first impressions. Contents are very sparse: the tablet, keyboard, power adapter and cord. I almost threw away the packaging before discovering that the pen was packed loosely in the very bottom of the box.

The keyboard features a USB output (left). Also visible on the tablet is the power connector.

The top of the tablet has a power switch (right) and an auto-rotation lock.

The right side of the tablet includes (from right to left) a micro HDMI output, covered USB and SD ports, the volume button and headphone jacks. The opening in the keyboard is the pen silo.

Although its screen is only 11.6-inches vs. the Surface Pro 3's 12.5 (above, bottom and below, right), the physical dimensions of the Helix 2 are nearly identical.

The screen size of the Helix 2 is significantly roomier than the Surface Pro 2 (above), and it's also thinner and lighter (below).

I was expecting another Lenovo stylus like the one included with the Thinkpad Yoga (above top), but I was pleased to find that the Helix 2 includes a full-sized pen comparable to the Surface Pro 2 pen (third from top). The barrel is a bit narrower than I prefer, but it's very adequate for most uses. It ships with one Wacom flex nib, such as is found on the Fujitsu T-5000.

The digitizer on my Helix 2 works exceptionally well. I can draw all the way to the edges, I have no problem accessing the corner menus or the close gadgets and the pen-cursor alignment is uniform throughout the screen. This is the first Wacom Windows tablet I've owned that has worked so well out of the box. My Helix 2 shipped with driver version 7.1.3-9 installed and I've decided not to update it until offered the option directly by Lenovo (if that ever happens). The latest driver on the Wacom US site is 7.2.0-10, but if it's not broken, why fix it?

Drawing on the tablet is a wonderful experience. Unlike my Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga, the Helix 2 screen does not have a screen protector, but the pen's Flex nib offers all the grip that I need. Of course, the Helix 2 is compatible with all Wacom Tablet PC pens and I tested mine with the Bamboo Stylus Feel, Fujitsu T-5000 and many others with equally excellent results.

Pressure response is outstanding. (Sorry N-Trig/Microsoft, but there is still a recognizable improvement moving from a 256-level device to 1024 or beyond.)

I've tested the Helix 2 with the desktop applications Clip Studio Paint, Photoshop CC 2014 and Sketchbook Pro 7 and the apps Fresh Paint and Sketchable. The lower-end 5Y10 processor never broke a sweat. A major advantage of the Core M (formerly known as Broadwell) generation of chips is that they allow fanless designs. My Helix 2 has never heated up even while running graphics intensive benchmarks and the silent operation is welcome too.

If you've been waiting for a Wacom-equipped successor to the Surface Pro 2, the Helix 2 comes very close to being that device. It certainly offers more of a true tablet form factor than the SP2. It's significantly thinner and lighter and doesn't throw off heat.

On the other hand, there's something cheap-feeling about the Lenovo. The back is smooth and cool to the touch, but there are a few unsightly stickers and an unidentifiable protuberance by the SD slot that can be uncomfortable to hold. The hardware controls like the volume button are too close to the body and shallow, making them very difficult to distinguish from the USB and SD port covers. There is a sharp edge all around the tablet where the front panel comes in contact with the rest of the body that is less than ideal. The docking holes at the bottom of the display are also uncomfortable to the grip.

The docking mechanism itself is somewhat finicky. You have to align the tablet "just so" for it to send power to the keyboard. It's also very easy for the screen to detach from the keyboard if you attempt to carry the Helix 2 while in the laptop mode.

Lenovo should offer a standalone version of the Helix 2 priced around $800 to compete more directly with the Surface Pro 3 i3 model. Although the 11.6-inch, 16:9 HD display is not as nice as the SP3's 12.5-inch, 3:2 high-res display, it's close enough that Wacom aficionados would want to carefully consider the Helix 2.

But for now, the Helix 2 is simply over-priced. My advice is to wait until the new year when the Ultrabook Pro Keyboard is available and run the price/performance comparison again.

Of course by then, the Surface Pro 4 may be in the offing...

PostedFebruary 4, 2015

AuthorRick Rodriguez

Categoriesreviews, Windows tablet

TagsLenovo, Thinkpad Helix 2, Wacom

8 CommentsPost a comment

EDITOR'S NOTE: Finding the time to update this blog regularly has become increasingly difficult for me, so I am always happy to pass along the impressions of other knowledgeable Windows tablet pc users. Over the last couple of weeks, TabletPCReview forums user Precurve has published an amazingly detailed series of posts on the new 8-inch Toshiba Encore 2 Write, one of the first devices to feature Wacom's new Active ES pen technology. Because the thread is now many pages long, I got Precurve's permission to condense the majority of his observations into this very long post. I've cut all the questions and comments, but you can visit the thread (see the link below) if you'd like to read the entire conversation. Enjoy (and please don't hold my future reviews to this impossibly high bar). --Rick

Jan 21, 2015 - I took delivery of the 8" Encore 2 Write (with stylus) yesterday. I'm an experienced tabpc geek with a t904, Samsung Slate, and 21" Cintiq UX, & ipads. This thing gave me one of the best first experiences with a new piece of tech in a long time. I got it on a whim to have a super portable note and sketchpad. Really incredible for the price point. So far I've tried full versions of OneNote, Sketchbook Pro 6 and Powerpoint 2013 (I like it as a scrapbook/sketchboard) in addition to metro versions of FreshPaint, Sketchbook Express. Exceeding expectations. Wacom pen is nice.

Jan 21, 2015 - (RE: Hover Distance) I get a very crisp and reliable 0.2" (5mm) air gap on hovering (with cursor following tip), then it breaks connection immediately (eg: not intermittent)...

This picture (right) is taken in Manga Studio 5 with strokes from a 54 pixel Gpen done lightly to mid pressure in clockwise direction... Manga Studio allows you to adjust pen curves and I have mine set to require a bit of pressure to start the line.

Frankly this pen is as as clean as anything else I have and I have almost all the Wacom products including a Cintiq and 3 tablet PCs.

I'm happy to try other small tests for the curious, but I won't be installing Photoshop on this unit. I'm under a lot of deadline pressure right now and this is just a side show. So anything really complex might take me a while.

MS5 is really cool with small to medium canvas sizes. The processor starts to choke on really large brushes with gnarly textures moving fast. But for doodles and small renderings, it's very satisfying. The multitouch pan, zoom and rotate works great in MS5. Not so great in Sketchbook Pro6.

$349? I know we're a picky lot but this thing is way better than I expected for that price.

Jan 21, 2015 - I have noticed a few stray marks from sloppy palm rejection, nothing troubling or unusual though. But again, the totality of the experience is quite good so far. I usually try not to write reviews or declare judgments until I've had gear for a while, but my initial enthusiasm for this tablet is quite high. You are welcome to keep me honest!

PS. I'd never measured it before but my Fujitsu t904 hover distance is ~ 0.45" for those who are keeping score.

Jan 22, 2015 - Qualitative impression: The thing that seems to make styluses have the tic tic noise is the 1) hardness of the tip material, 2) looseness of the tip in the pen, and 3) hardness of glass or coating. Shown here is the Toshiba stylus (left) and two Fujitsu / Wacom pens (right), one with black fiber tip and one with white plastic tip (NOTE: These tabletPC pens don't work on the Toshiba - this is for comparison only). The black fiber tip is nearly silent, the white plastic tip is quite clicky. I don't like the sound or the feel of the white tips. The Toshiba tip is right in between - may be closer to the back tip in terms of both sound and feel. I like it. And as you can see, it is new but slightly fiberous/textured tip so my guess it is will get a little quieter with use (my black pen looks and feels like an old Sharpie marker). The tip is slightly looser but its not bugging me and I really hate that loose feel.

So in a perfectly quiet room the operator can hear some tic but I don't think it would bother anyone in an office, classroom, or home.

Jan 23, 2015 - NOTE:

All tests done after 2 Starbucks coffees. Some jitter may be operator error!
All tests done at 100% scaling (eg: no drawing large then zooming out to create an appearance of smooth)
Speed of slow drag is noted as seconds from beginning to end.
Images shown are full sized .png screen captures saved as .gif (Site wouldn't allow original .pngs for some reason). .gif format may be introducing some slight aliasing. IMO the actual aliasing is not at all objectionable for fine lines at 100%
No cleanup up or retouch allowed
Note drawing window size is indicated on most screen captures(total screen - Ui)
My handwritten notes are approx 0.2" high.
Full sized images may appear quite larger on a PC monitor than they are on the device itself. The real world Screen dimensions are 6.75" x 4.25". SO to get an accurate feel for the real world device make each image that dimension on your physical screen.
Some strokes were done using a plastic straight edge or french curve to reduce user jitter and are noted separately from "Freehand"
Tested in PPT with Microsoft Ink and Manga Studio 5
Powerpoint has some "smoothing" built into the Microsoft ink
MS5 has user controlled stroke smoothing which I turned off except where noted. A small pilot pen without smoothing is close to the worst case scenario is MS5.
The Third Screen capture demonstrates MS5 with a single "virtual old Sharpie" pen with a larger pressure sensitive tip and a slight texture. All strokes done without adjusting pen settings other than color.

I hope that helps

PS: I do not have screen protector on the glass. I think a little texture over the glass would create some helpful drag. I'll try that next week perhaps. I don't think I could draw a lot smoother at that size with a physical pen on glass. IMO: There is very little jitter caused by the digitizer. I've seen worse on my Cintiq.

Jan. 25, 2015 - 1) A quick test of the pressure sensitivity of the new TruPen in Manga Studio.
- Test 1 uses a 500 pixel G pen on a 1920 x 1080 canvas done in a single stroke going from minimal thickness to full thickness and then back again. You have to blame some of that jitter on my shaky hand and the raw glass surface. I did this stroke very slowly. I have a matte screen protector coming this week - the screen needs more friction IMO.

- Test two is with a 1000 pixel G pen on a 4000 x 2800 pixel canvas. There are not very many cases where you would need to go from one pixel to 1000 pixel line in a single stroke but it serves the purpose of illustrating that the new Wacom pen does have fairly impressive sensitivity even on this little budget tablet. At full thickness the stroke line was dragging a bit behind the stylus. On the other hand I was very impressed with the fine line sensitivity and control of this very large brush. I pulled this stroke more quickly which helped the smoothness.

2) The other thing that I did on a whim was download and install the free version of Sketchup (Make) 2015. All the modeling tools and functionality seem to work fine on this budget processor with 2 GB of RAM. Basic modeling is actually very responsive. Then I went to the Sketchup warehouse and downloaded a 4.2 GB Chevelle model, turned on textures and shadows and then dragged and rotated the model around in various positions. It was a little bit draggy but it didn't break. And for my use, the idea of having simple Sketchup models that can be used as underlays to block out some layouts is very valuable. Obviously it doesn't make any sense to do serious modeling on this little tablet and I don't mean to imply its suitable for anything other than simple blocking. But I was surprised that it worked at all much less worked as well as it did.

Jan. 26, 2015 - Battery life is OK. Not spectacular IMO. I haven't done a formal test locking out variables like WiFi and power optimization. It seems to me if I leave bluetooth and WiFi on and do sketching and note taking and mixed file management it might be slightly more than 5 hours. That's also connected to a Skydrive/one drive with multiple apps open, I have done no tweaking yet to the brightness/battery config. All of that is "out of the box". I'd like to do a hypermile test to see what it will do with tweaks for long battery life but I have too many networked requirements for all the other evaluations and set up I'm trying.

Jan. 28, 2015 - The goal of this exploration was to evaluate the suitability of the Toshiba Encore Write 8 for PDF viewing and annotation.

SUMMARY:

This is a much longer answer to the basic questions that was asked. This digital annotation and note taking topic is of great interest to me and it has been for a long time. So, this gave me a chance to drill in a little bit with the my new Toshiba Encore 8. Real success of a mobile note/sketch pad for any one person is whether or not we are using the device on a daily basis for note taking in six months or a year. I'm sure we've all had plenty of occasions where we get excited for a month or two but then fall back to whatever we were doing before because it works better in the big picture. Significant improvements in the overall experience come from some combination of hardware + software + ecosystem. How that all works in the real world for someone is multivariate. So I'll provide my short answer on top and then a longer dialogue about my full impressions.

PDF / TEXT APPERANCE ON THE SCREEN

I don't have particularly great reading eyesight anymore. I wear glasses. I can spend long periods with the 8" Toshiba without eye fatigue or being distracted by the resolution. But I'm also a bit old school having used computers for years where 72dpi was the standard and you could literally see pixels. The Encore 8 and 10 are 168 and 145 Ppi (pixels per inch) respectively. You can’t really "see" pixels. But there is a crispness to something like ipad retina that you don't get with these low ppi screens.
Expectations: Met

ABILITY OF ENCORE TO HANDLE LARGE PDFs
I tested PDFs up to and over 100MB. The device handled these files well allowing fluid browsing, page flipping, zoom and pan.
Expectations: Exceeded

SYSTEM PERFORMANCE
Unsurprisingly, a lot depends on the software. The built in MS Reader and the Drawboard app worked great. Adobe Reader (free acrobat) chugged a bit. I don’t like Adobe Reader anyway. In MS Reader and Drawboard, once the files were loaded (I was loading from OneDrive cloud) things were very smooth.
On the largest files with lots of pages the preview index (thumbnails) took a while to load. May be 30 seconds for 80 pages.
Expectations: Exceeded

WHAT BREAKS?
I couldn't break it.
Expectations: Exceeded

OVERALL ANNOTATION EXPERIENCE
The Pen is great. The slickness of the raw glass can make tiny handwritten margin text a little shaky but certainly legible. I hope a matte screen protector will help that. But basically underlines, hand notes, text notes, highlights, all worked great. The ability to open a cloud pdf document, annotate it, save it back and then open it on other devices with annotations worked well. I quite like the Drawboard app for annotation.
Expectations: Exceeded. I ventured into this just to explore the Encore. I will certainly use the device for annotation on airplanes or even in "leanback" mode on the couch.
Expectations: Exceeded

------------------------------------------------
DETAILED EVALUATION Notes
------------------------------------------------

EVALUATOR BIASES
I have a bunch of tablet PC experience and iPad experience. I have had Macs too. I have used my iPad 3 with Goodreader for storing a library of PDFs and doing a small amount of annotation while traveling. I would say I am a casual user of the annotation functions while mobile. It is not essential to my workflow. Typically if I am doing research and consuming documents like PDFs I'm at a desktop environment with multiple monitors open and a desk scattered with paper printouts. But when traveling I do use both my iPad and my Fujitsu13" convertible for viewing and annotation. I'm not a annotation connoisseur and I had never used Drawboard before this test.

The handheld mobile reader/notebook experience is good on the iPad from the multi touch tablet standpoint. Obviously the stylus situation leaves a lot to be desired on the current iPad. I have about 25 both passive and active capacitive styluses for my iPads and none of them are great for note taking. I also do some art. I think precision handwriting is way harder than tablet art.

By the way, I'm dictating all of this text into an iPad 3 in OneNote (which then syncs with my windows devices) while doing the annotation testing on the Encore. Dictation may explain the length of this doc. Speech recognition for me seems much more natural with a tablet then either virtual typing or scripting with a stylus. The built in speech recognition in iOS keyboard I have found to be very reliable as long as you're connected to a network. The built-in dictation in Windows 8 is just barely okay and I have not installed Dragon on this new Encore tablet and I am not sure that I will.

TEXT
Obviously the text on a retina screen is going to be substantially sharper than on the Toshiba encore. The retina is beautiful while the Encore is acceptable. I appreciate the tradeoff of lower price processor, efficiency, heat, battery life, etc. of Toshiba's choice to put in a lower resolution screen. Low cost screens will get better every year. But keep in mind that we've become spoiled fast with the last couple years of high rez screens. Retina is nice but it didn’t change my life. If it changed yours and you are super sensitive to screen resolution then you should be cautious of the Encores. But they are better than iPad1's PPi and way better than what most of us were using 5-6 years ago.

Windows 8 has a built-in PDF viewer, I already had full version of OneNote on the machine, I downloaded a copy of Adobe Reader XI (free Acrobat reader), and I also downloaded Drawboard PDF which seems to be the most popular PDF reader for the Windows 8/modern interface.

Let me quickly eliminate OneNote from this discussion. As best as I can tell, reviewing PDFs in OneNote requires that the PDF be essentially printed into the OneNote format which means it is very difficult to get the annotations back out in a proper PDF annotation later. I tried it and it all works OK on this Encore but I think it merits a separate conversation since it is not really staying in the PDF format and there are other idiosyncrasies.

I set aside a few PDFs from my archive that represent different formats and file sizes:

1) 2.8 MB file (text heavy): ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2014
https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ss14/ERS1406.pdf

2) 29.2 MB file (mixed text graphics) : Manga S5 intro book
http://manga.smithmicro.com/documentation/MangaStudio5.0.3StartupGuide.pdf
(I used an older version but it's essentially the same file)

3) 107.5 MB file (a graphic heavy PPT/Keynote printed to PDF) The future of gaming from PSFK
http://www.slideshare.net/PSFK/future-of-gaming

I played around in my spare time over a series of a few days In real world conditions often with multiple apps running . I used the Encore 8 with pretty much straight out-of-the-box settings. I left Wi-Fi on, and I didn't do anything extraordinary to try to give it extra operating overhead

Reader: Default Windows App.
http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/reader/8a4ae377-a4ab-4260-9b80-f9382360e291
The built-in default application, Reader, worked beautifully at viewing all of the files. Even the large PDF on the future of gaming, which is mostly graphics, flowed nicely and I could flick my finger so that it scrolled for five or six pages and the device would catch up and render the graphics. If you pinch the screen, the document goes into light table mode so that you get little thumbnails of all the pages. Again the Encore had no problem keeping up with even the large file.

Adobe Reader XI
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html
All of the docs loaded into reader but that's about where the fun ends. I have trouble with Reader even on my full-size i7 computer. Highlights and written note annotations work but not great, hand scribed annotations are glitchy and unreliable. This is not the fault of the Encore 8. I have the same issues on every computer I've tried the new versions of Reader or Acrobat. It might be user error, but either way it's consistent.

Drawboard PDF
http://www.drawboard.com/
Drawboard is a metro/modern app. I have never use this piece of software before. I set it up to access files from my one Drive account so that I could also experiment with sharing the PDFs with other devices.
Drawboard was able to open all of the files, even the large gaming report and was able to scroll through all of the pages with reasonable ease. Drawboard has a white table mode with small page thumbnails. It took 20 seconds or so for the device to generate the thumbnails the first time, but after that the pages were cached and anytime I returned it to the index it redrew quickly.
Multitouch zoom and pan work very smoothly on all files..
All annotation features work as advertised regardless of the file size.

I was able to save the annotated PDFs back into my one drive where I could open and view them including the invitations on both my laptop and iPad. Presumably you could do the same thing with any cloud Drive service but I did not drive with any others.

CONCLUSION.
I've had this little tablet just a week but I've pushed it pretty hard. The device never crashed during PDF testing.

The 8 inch screen is small for some eyes and the text is not as sharp as on a retina screen. But certainly this device is very functional for reading and annotating PDFs. Multitouch zoom and pan is smooth enough that you can zoom into the margin to make handwritten notes at a reasonable scale and then zoom back out . Any small glitches that I saw I can't attribute to the Toshiba device itself. It seems more likely that there are glitches in the stack of applications cloud services and even the OS itself and when you stream all of these together you can get some small lags and hiccups especially with auto syncing.

Based on my notion that effective note writing and annotation is personal and depends on a lot of factors I can say that for me, this Toshiba Encore is a VERY suitable platform for on-the-go PDF reading and annotation. If I didn’t have other large tablets I would prefer the 10" for consuming PDFs. But this 8" form is very nice. For whoever may be reading this, I can't say if the whole thing will work for you. But it's not because the hardware is lacking. The hardware, especially for the price, is excellent. Here are caveats:

The devices cost $349 and $399 respectively. That's damn affordable for a lot of capability. But it's not going outperform a Surface, iPad or top of the line Samsung. It's not going to be the coolest bit of tech jewelry people have ever seen (though if they are Wacom enthusiasts you will get attention). Get your expectations in line. Mine were exceeded. But I've had my tech heartbroken more than a few times so I have very realistic expectations.

You better be pretty familiar with the windows 8 interface and ecosystem. If you are not, then just that learning curve is going to cause some frustration compared to android or iOS. Windows 8.1 is a much more complex and capable environment. If you already use Windows 8 and understand the difference between modern and desktop then this may be easy for you.

In my opinion the mobile OS tablets all suffer from some common issues. iOS, Android and windows modern/metro have a clunky interfaces for file management. This can become a real speed bump in your workflow especially if you're trying to collaborate with others in a multi computer multi OS kind of environment. Obviously there are workarounds but they all take additional learning and time to make them second nature. Drawboard surprised me to the upside here. Syncing through Microsoft OneDrive made the whole thing work really well for automagically sharing to other devices. Trying to do PDF reading and annotation on a small screen in Adobe Reader or Acrobat in the desktop environment would make me crazy, on ANY hardware.

If you're already a diehard iPad person, you might just wait for the rumored iPad pro comes and see if it includes an OS integrated stylus. If Apple does that it will be a beautiful thing. If they don't, Microsoft is going to start eroding the iPad market for anyone that needs a stylus. This new Wacom pen is very promising for the Windows platform.

The Wacom stylus certainly makes a big difference for hand notes and hand annotation. It doesn't make much of a difference for finger drag highlighting. But if you are looking for reasonably priced digital note and doodle pad that can run some desktop software then Encore is a good candidate.

I did this evaluation out of curiosity and to better understand the limits of the device. I feel confident now about using Drawboard with the PDF annotation tools where I need a small format tablet. My last comment about the Encore in general - If I lost this device tomorrow I would order another one immediately.

SCREEN CAPTURES
All screens shown at full pixel resolution 1280 x 800, unretouched.
Some .jpg compression of the captures required for posting may be causing fuzziness.
Actual screen dimensions are 6.75" x 4.25" and the image may appear larger than actual size on your screen.

Jan 29, 2015 - Purpose: Evaluate the upper limits of canvas size and layer count in MS5

>>> CAVEATS & WARNINGS

I am trying some edge case things to give people in the forum a sense of what the Encore 2 Write is capable of and where are its limits and breaking points.Just because one *can* do the things I'm showing here does not mean you *should*. I am not recommending this device for anything beyond a companion tablet for professional artistic workflow in this evaluation. This Encore is not going to replace a primary computer. If anyone is looking at these tests and thinking that I'm implying you could do hi resolution paintings all day for a living on it, you are mistaken. In my opinion, This tablet should not be expected to serve as a primary machine or attempt to be used for critical path and graphically demanding, processor intensive, professional work. This is a spectacular little device for the kinds of sketches, color comps, notes, and concept work that goes on behind-the-scenes of professional creative work. I am surprised and delighted at how far this encore can stretch but this is not a production machine. I hope I speak the obvious, but I'm never sure who's scanning through these forums and thinks they hear some enthusiast reviewer is recommending $350 8 inch Atom tablet is going to solve all of their needs. Expect too much of not just this product but the whole product category (low cost pen tablets) and you will be disappointed! I'm assuming my audience for these reviews are fairly technically sophisticated and informed computer & tabletpc users.

>>> TOOLBAR CREATOR v2.2

Please note that at the top of my screen captures is a small black toolbar with very teeny writing. This is a toolbar Ui that I am experimenting with using @lblb 's excellent Toolbar Creator (http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/toolbar-creator-v-2-2-beta-available-for-download.63014/). I'm experimenting with a minimal configuration of my own creation that uses a 30 pixel high strip of very small buttons that are always on regardless of the application. This one is tuned for Manga studio. This 30 pixel high strip allows for the toolbar to remain in the header of the application. The toolbar lets you switch to other application specific toolbars, though the load can take 20 seconds or so if you switch. There are many different toolbar kits that are discussed on these forums. This sort of self-programmable toolbar is VERY useful, even essential, on pen tablets for applications like MS5 or Photoshop that rely on a lot of keyboard commands for fast workflow. Essential key combinations can be scripted into any button. Given MS5s customizable command bar I don’t actually need all the buttons shown here. The essential ones would be TAB (that hides all palettes) and the brush size slider (dragging the stylus left or right on this button rapidly changes brush size)

It is the precision of a stylus on a small device like this Toshiba that allows for such a tiny strip of buttons to actually be usable. IMO programs like MS5 or Photoshop are massively frustrating to use in a pure tablet environment without a toolbar of some kind to manage a few essential keyboard shortcuts.

For Toolbar Creator fans: I'm right handed. I've been increasingly finding that I like my buttons (and app ui) on the right side of the screen if I'm interacting with Ui by pen and not touch. That way I can hold the Encore in my left and I don't have to reach across the page to do a selection, blocking my view of the brush size preview) The TAB key and the little brush slider at the top right are really useable even at 30 pix on this little device.

>>> MANGA STUDIO PAINT STRESS TEST

Pictured here is a screen capture of my MS5 stress test in its completed state. Forgive the crudity of the diagram. I didn’t plan it out, I just started painting crap. The objective wasn't a nice painting it was to performance test the Encore.

This is a 4000 X 3000 pixel canvas with 11 layers. Layers are mostly bitmap with one vector layer and one 3D layer. Two of the Bitmap layers have live channel operations (multiply and screen). In its final form it is a 49.5 Mb file.

The background was put down in multiple gradient layers and Encore was able to fill these gradients with little delay.

Chrome pipe was blocked in a single stroke with a 500 px Gpen from back (small) to front (fat). I erased out edges to clean it up, locked pixel transparency then painted in a chrome effect and some reflections with a 50 to 200 pixel oil paint brush.

Soft Air brush was used for overall shading and some detail varying size from 100 to 500 pixels on a separate layer (multiply)

3d chair and 3d soccer ball were added, rotated, and moved into place. These objects loaded fairly quickly and while they are rotatable and resizable in space, they are laggy and you can tell that the machine is having a bit of trouble with swapping the 3D controls and managing the refresh. It doesn’t glitch it just lags - a lot. I don’t expect to use much of the 3D in Manga on this machine. But in a pinch it will work with patience. Frankly I'm surprised it works at all in this large file.

On the background layer I loaded a repeating tree stamp brush and painted a forest effect. Touch of lag but acceptable.

I added a vector layer and a 100 pixel red vector "rough ink" stroke was added to the bottom of the page. It lagged a touch (not even a second) but felt very controlled. I washed the "simplify vector" tool over the vector stroke and it took about 4 seconds for the machine to calculate the task. Vector editing was tested and worked fine.

Colors of the rainbow were added in a new layer with separate colored strokes using a 160 pixel watercolor brush. Touch of lag, no problem. I performed a 200 pixel Gaussian blur of the rainbow on the entire layer. This took 10 - 15 seconds to calc. Layer type was set to "screen"

Using a blur tool I softened the back of the chrome tube and its edges with a variety of brush sizes ranging from 100 to 20 pixels. I was zooming and panning and rotating to do this. It's starting to get laggy but still manageable.

So far so good. Let's see how the current file load affects brushes now. I selected a Barbed wire paint brush and with a single fast stroke went from back to front creating a coil. No significant lag. I then erased the wire behind the pipe.

Call-out notes and call out shadows were added in separate layers. The file did not crash at any point. Multitouch pan and zoom still works acceptably though not quite as fluently as with a smaller file. Large brushes of 300 pixel are now very laggy but we will still accurately follow a slow draw.

Just to put a little frosting on this demo cake, the whole time I was doing the Manga painting I had OneNote open in the background with several notebooks open, connected to OneDrive, Wi-Fi on the whole time. In the screen capture below I have task switched over to OneNote done a few things and then brought up the task manager. You can see Manga Studio's memory footprint in the list of open applications. Even though I had this large file open in MS5 it did not degrade the performance or usability of OneNote.

>>> So…Where does Manga Studio "Break" on the Encore 2 8"

The short answer is, "I don't know". It never really broke. It chugged at larger file sizes. On one test I had a 1920 x 1080 canvas with 6 layers and I loaded one of the larger MS5 library articulating human Figures. These are fairly complex poseable 3d .obj models. This one is about a 15Mb file with textures. The screen blacked out when I dropped in on the canvas. I thought I'd finally crashed it. After about 40 seconds the screen refreshed and the model was loaded, moveable and poseable - although REALLY chuggy. I create a paint layer on top of the 3d layer and a 50 pixel brush showed no noticeable lag.

>>> CONCLUSION

In my experience So far, the Encore 2 is quite happy with canvases of 1600 X 1200 or 1920 X 1080 and 5 to 10 layers. At these canvas sizes brushes of 50 or 100 pixels, regardless of the pen or brush type, seem to be able to keep up with the stroke just fine. Larger brush sizes of up to 500 pixels have lag but with just a little bit of patience they are usable brushes. As I've shown in one of my other posts (http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/thr...wt8-b-encore-2-write.63815/page-4#post-425121), brushes of up to 1000 pixels require a very slow and deliberate stroke but the paint still registers to the path with full pressure sensitivity. If you scrub the screen as fast as you can with wild strokes using a very large brush you will break the stroke tracking. But I have still not seen that kind of behavior crash the application or the machine.

As I pointed out in other forum posts, and I'll reinforce here, this little tablet has exceeded my expectations and delighted me given my expectations of it as a low-cost, lightweight, atom processor tablet. I am not trying to do mission-critical work with it. I see it as a very personal mobile sketchpad and note taking device. Paired with Manga Studio and with the small tweaks like a toolbar this little device comes the closest to a portable full color paint kit/sketchpad as anything I've ever had my hands on. Obviously other tools and apps like Sketchbook Pro work great too.

Your mileage may vary.

* FYI: Review dictated into iPad OneNote in parallel to painting on Encore.

Jan. 29, 2015 - MICRO SD
I don't have a cover. I'm trying to avoid that, though the device does need some grip tape or something stuck to the bottom. But, in a standard folding case the microSD should be on the outside. In portrait position it would be on the upper half of the right edge

Toshiba Apps
Generally the OEM apps from everyone but Apple, Sony, and Microsoft are second rate and I tend to ignore or uninstall those kinds of things. The Toshiba Apps aren't much of an exception. I didn't intend to evaluate these because I always consider this stuff "throw away" except for the vendors I mentioned so these don;t figure into my eval. Though its curious to see how much Toshiba touts this stuff in the marketing.

TRU RECORDER
Toshiba's audio recorder App is called Tru Recorder. 3/10.
It claims to distinguish voices in the recording and color codes individual speakers in the playback display. That feature is not working for me.
The quality of the audio is poor. Very "aliased" and compressed sounding. I don't know if its the Array microphones, or the audio codec, or something else.
My Samsung s4 and iPad both have far superior audio and audio apps.

TruNotes 6/10 - for what it is
This is a very simple note taking app. Its got some some nice features but its not a pro tool.
If you have OneNote desktop I can't imagine why you would use this instead. As a simple app, One Note/metro is better. As a pro tool, desktop OneNote is an order of magnitude more sophisticated. There's no reason to get this device for professional or serious student notes and not have full OneNote. The ecosystem of Onenote including cloud drive and interoperability with all platforms is very mature. If you have a new iphone, android or ipad download the free version of OneNote. Dictate into OneNote using the built in speech recognition of android or iOS keypad. Save it to a synced folder and you can view it near instantaneously on a PC. Take handwritten notes or doodles on this little Encore and view them on your full sized desktop in seconds. This is what we have been promised for along time and its starting to work really well with Microsofts release of the free ONeNote Apps.

TruCapture
Toshiba's camera app 5/10
It works. The camera isn't anywhere near as crisp as Samsung S4, iPhone or iPad.
The camera App itself doesn't do much. You can start it up from the lock screen by swiping down.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Whew! I told you this was massive coverage! I did omit a few of Precurve's smaller posts and you can imagine there are many other responses and questions posted by other readers of the thread. Check it out in full here: http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/active-digitizer-on-toshiba-encore-2-wt8-b-encore-2-write.63815/

Toshiba Encore 2 Write WT8PE-B264 8-Inch 64 GB Tablet

$349.99

Toshiba

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Toshiba Encore 2 Write WT10PE-A264 10.1-Inch 64 GB Tablet

$399.99

Toshiba

Buy on Amazon

PostedJanuary 31, 2015

AuthorRick Rodriguez

Categoriesreviews, Windows tablet

TagsToshiba, Encore 2 Write, Wacom, Active ES

10 CommentsPost a comment

When Windows 8 first appeared, I fantasized about owning an iMac-like all-in-one with a touch sensitive display but I soon learned that multi-touch support on a big screen generally meant giving up an active digitizer or pen pressure.

In the last year or so, I’ve acquired several large-screen drawing displays that get the pen pressure right, but I continue to miss the ability to directly pan, zoom or rotate my work with my free hand as I draw.

Wacom’s line of touch capable Cintiqs are prohibitively expensive but at least they prove that pen and multi-touch are possible in a display over 15-inches.

2015 will see the release of a new Wacom Cintiq, the 27-inch QHD Touch, which will retail for a whopping $2799 and Microsoft may release a smaller and more reasonably priced display powered by PixelSense. But that’s still idle speculation and also likely to be a premium product.

The contents of the Monoprice 22" HD SmartTouch Drawing Display include a DVI cable, pen, pen charger, spare nibs, nib extractor, Windows 7 drivers, VESA stand, power supply, power cord and USB cable. A small cleaning cloth, manual and matte screen … — The contents of the Monoprice 22" HD SmartTouch Drawing Display include a DVI cable, pen, pen charger, spare nibs, nib extractor, Windows 7 drivers, VESA stand, power supply, power cord and USB cable. A small cleaning cloth, manual and matte screen protector are also included.

Enter Monoprice, the low-cost parts supplier, with its second generation of pen displays, announced late last year. In 2013-14, the company released the lowest priced 19-inch pen display on the market, which was marred by a TFT panel with especially shallow viewing angles.

The new 22-inch models promise improved viewing angles for $598 and 10-point multi-touch support for $799. That’s $1700 less than the Cintiq 22HD Touch, so my curiosity was immediately piqued. Could this really be a Cintiq killer?

To cut to the chase: No.

The 22” HD SmartTouch Drawing Display will need a lot of improvement before it can compete with Wacom or any of the other low-cost products from Huion, Yiynova and UC Logic. (For the duration of this review, I’ll refer to the display as “Smart-Touch,” because that’s what it’s called on the Monoprice site. On the box and manual, it’s referred to more generically as a 22” HD Multi-Touch Drawing Display.)

Whatever its name, this display might still be worth a look for some of you.

The case of the Monoprice display is very similarly shaped to the Huion GT-220 and Bosto 22U mini, but unlike the aluminum finish of those two models, the SmartTouch is shiny black plastic. Unfortunately, this design similarity repeats some of the issues I had with the GT-220: awkward access to the buttons located along the lower right edge and a shallow lower screen bezel that makes it difficult to draw along the bottom of the screen unless the display is perched at the edge of your desk.

The case might also lead you to think that the devices share the same internals, but according to Monoprice, this digitizer technology is new and is neither supplied by Huion nor UC Logic. That makes sense because none of those companies offers a touch-capable pen display. And neither offers a device with only 1,024 levels of pressure.

The supplied disk contains Windows 7 drivers, so I didn’t install them to see if the manufacturer is identified therein.

To run the SmartTouch display on Windows 8.x or 10, just plug in the DVI, VGA or HDMI cable and attach the USB cable, which transmits pen and touch data. To calibrate, use Windows’ standard pen and touch control panel.

My pen’s calibration was perfect out of the box and running through the calibration process actually made it worse, so I deleted the calibration data.

I couldn’t get the touch calibration to work because the display appears to have a dead spot right at the very top and left edge. Not matter how often I pressed the targets there, I couldn’t get the software to recognize my taps. Some of my taps along the File menu and toolbars of various applications are also being ignored, but I assume this is an isolated issue and I’ll try to get a replacement unit from Monoprice. (My display was also missing the four screws that mount the VESA stand. I had to borrow the four that attached to last year’s model.)

**The gray circles appear whenever the display is touched. In this instance, the circles were displayed as the monitor received phantom input due to a loose USB connection.**

A loose USB connector on the display was responsible for a scary period when my pc appeared to go crazy. After moving the display forward or changing its angle, a cascade of phantom touches radiated up and down the left edge of the device, causing programs to launch or close, browser tabs to open, close or resize. Yanking the cable and reseating it correctly got everything back under control.

**The location of the display's connectors awkwardly point downward toward the bottom of the case.**

The VESA stand requires separate assembly. The four screws needed to install the stand were missing from my package. I had to borrow the screws from Monoprice's other pen display released last year. Due to the placement of the connectors, the cables… — The VESA stand requires separate assembly. The four screws needed to install the stand were missing from my package. I had to borrow the screws from Monoprice's other pen display released last year. Due to the placement of the connectors, the cables often will tangle with the stand.

The cable clearance is another issue of this case design. It’s very easy for the cables to become entangled with the legs of the VESA stand and the USB cable has to bend right at the connector base, risking a cable crimp.

Because the display is driver-less, this means that Wintab software will not recognize pen pressure. This might be remedied in the future (no word on whether driver releases are planned), but if you are looking to run an older version of Photoshop, Krita or ZBrush, you’re out of luck for now.

The image quality itself isn’t great. I’d assumed that the Monoprice was an IPS display similar to the Huion GT-220, but it appears to be a higher quality TFT. I may be wrong, but the device specs on the box and on the Monoprice site do not list the display type. Viewing angles are supposed to be 170-degrees horizontal and 160-degrees vertical, but subtle color and brightness shifts are difficult to avoid entirely. At my preferred drawing angle, colors at the top of the screen are noticeably darker and color banding is evident throughout.

**The Monoprice pen (center) is about the same length as the Surface Pro 3 pen, but much narrower than the pen shipped with the Huion GT-220.**

**To charge the pen, it is holstered into the charger, which can be attached to any USB port.**

The supplied pen is rechargeable and ships with three replacement nibs. The barrel is about the same length as the Surface Pro 3 pen, but slightly thinner. I much prefer the thicker flared stylus that ships with the Huion.

The display’s glass feels like it is coated with a plastic finish but it still tends to squeak when the nib comes in contact with it. A supplied matte finish screen protector makes for a quieter and much improved drawing experience. Unfortunately, I suck at applying screen protectors and I now have a lot of unsightly air bubbles caught between the screen and the surface protector.

Like the N-Trig digitizer on the Surface Pro 3 and most other “active pen” technologies, drawing clean deliberate strokes is not always easy on this display. The thinner the brush size and slower the stroke, the more noticeable jitter and wobble will become as you draw diagonally.

**Slowly drawn diagonal lines require stabilization to be useful. This image from Clip Studio Paint shows the results for 0 - 45% stabilization. Pressure range is very good.**

In Clip Studio Paint 1.3.8, I was able to reduce jitter starting at about 15% stabilization and I eliminated it altogether at 45%. Unfortunately, this solution isn’t available in most other software, especially note-taking applications. So unless you’re absolutely sure your software offers some compensation for jitter, you will probably be unhappy with your results.

Even in Clip Studio Paint, having to think about line accuracy and adding pen stabilization will probably slow you down as you ink.

Where you might find your work accelerated is when you add multi-touch gestures to your technique. No more leaving your drawing to find hard-to-reach scroll bars: just pan, rotate and pinch and zoom to your heart’s content.

Because of its size and 1080p resolution, some interfaces that are difficult to use with touch tablets are very manageable on the SmartTouch. I ran Adobe Illustrator CC 2014 with DPI scaling on and all the toolbox buttons were easy to tap. Ironically, switching to that software’s new touch workspace, the icons didn’t scale and now appear smaller than the desktop version. I don’t know why the touch UI isn’t scaling, but that may be a bug or an incorrect setting on my setup.

As with all pen tablets, palm rejection is triggered when the pen is close enough for the cursor to appear on-screen. This hover distance is quite good (perhaps ½-inch), but also depends on the angle at which you hold your pen. I will often rest my palm on the screen first. If the pen is tilted away, the cursor may not activate and my palm contact will cause an inadvertent event like a screen pan. This momentary glitch is more aggravating on some applications than others, but it’s not a deal breaker and the muscle memory can be developed to minimize its occurrence.

The Windows Store app Sketchable from Silicon Benders worked very well, as did Sketchbook Pro. As long as the software in question supports Windows’ INK API or RealTimeStylus, compatibility shouldn’t be an issue.

Lack of Wintab support and poor diagonal line fidelity make the 22” HD SmartTouch Drawing Display a non-starter for professional users, but for casual or hobbyist artists, it’s worth considering.

Assuming the digitizer and screen of the non-touch display is the same, I would advise potential buyers to steer clear unless they’re certain their software supports pen stabilization. For nearly everyone, I believe the Huion GT-220 is a better choice, especially now that it’s available for $799 or $100 more for a slightly updated version.

I may need to exchange this unit to rectify the dead touch zones, but I’ll probably end up keeping the replacement because I really like the Windows 8.x multi-touch experience on my Surface Pros and many other tablets, and I miss not having it on my desktop.

PostedJanuary 10, 2015

AuthorRick Rodriguez

Categoriesreviews

TagsMonoprice, SmartTouch, 22" HD SmartTouch Pen Display

35 CommentsPost a comment

N-Trig, the Israeli company behind the digitizer tech in the Surface Pro 3 and many other top Windows tablets and convertibles, has updated its website and now offers a link to a line of replacement pens available via Amazon.

Currently discounted to $40 from their $50 list price, the DuoSensePen2 models are not compatible with all N-Trig digitizers. The new pens can only be used with the following devices: Microsoft® Surface Pro 3, Sony VAIO® Duo 11/13, VAIO Tap 11, VAIO® FIT Family, Acer® Aspire ® R7 572, ASUS Taichi 21/31 and Fujitsu Stylistic Q702.

The pens come in an assortment of five colors.

I recently had a chance to compare the DuoSensePen2 (above, green) with other N-Trig pens from (top to bottom) Sony, Microsoft and Acer. The new model is a full inch shorter than the Surface Pro 3 pen, although it surprisingly doesn't feel much lighter.

A clip cap would be a welcomed addition and help to better balance the pen in the hand.

The DuoSensePen2's nib is about the same consistency as the SP3 pen, slightly softer than the Sony's. Unfortunately, the pen does not ship with any spares.

Of the four N-Trig pens I've tried, I most like the feedback from the Acer Active Pen from my Aspire R7-572 convertible. Be aware that Acer's latest models use Synaptics digitizers and are not compatible.

With the Surface Pro 3 pen selling for $50, these new N-Trig pens are a nice option if you'd like to save a few bucks on a replacement or spare. Hopefully for the next generation, N-Trig will lengthen the pen to a standard size and perhaps design a flared barrel that's closer to a traditional paintbrush.

N-trig Active Pen (Blue)

$39.99 $49.99

N-trig

Buy on Amazon

N-trig Active Pen (Black)

$39.99 $49.99

N-trig

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N-trig Active Pen (Green)

$39.99 $49.99

N-trig

Buy on Amazon

PostedJanuary 3, 2015

AuthorRick Rodriguez

Categoriesnews, reviews

TagsN-Trig, DuoSensePen2, DuoSense, replacement pen, Surface Pro 3, Acer, Sony, microsoft

9 CommentsPost a comment

EDITOR'S NOTE: Reader Sasa Teodosijev accepted our open invitation to contribute to the blog with this post about changes to the Wacom Cintiq Companion that he noticed when he recently received a replacement unit. Anyone else spot these changes?

I purchased the Cintiq Companion few weeks after its debut. It was an awesome tool, but there were a few problems. Much like other Wacom hardware, the edge detection was troublesome. I filmed a review of the Companion, and edge detection was one of my primary complaints. The area of little less than a half inch all around the tablet was practically unusable to me. Every time I drew a line close to the edge it would curve up or down. The 13.3-inch area all of a sudden became less than 12 inches and the screen began to feel cramped. I've worked on large Cintiqs my whole life, so edge detection was important when working on a smaller screen.

The second issue I had with the tablet was the screen's 'paper-like' resistance. Based on other Cintiqs I own/owned, the 'paper-like' resistance was very minimal. This made the plastic nibs glide too smoothly and making small marks, for me, was even trickier. Couple that with the edge detection issues and I was becoming very frustrated. I didn't look forward to working on the Companion. I travel a lot, and at one time I even bought the Sony Vaio Flip 15 just because I didn't want to use the Companion.

A-CORD-ing to Bret: Asus PT201Q is worth a look

Wacom Cintiq Companion 2: my final tablet purchase?

Guest post: 10" Toshiba Encore 2 Write Review

HP Pro x2 612 G1: an awkward name worth remembering

UPDATED: Keyboard hinders Lenovo's Thinkpad Helix 2

(Massive) guest post: 8" Toshiba Encore 2 Write impressions

Review: New Monoprice pen display puts multi-touch within reach

N-Trig now selling replacement pens

Guest post: Has Wacom quietly revised the Companion?