Need tablet pc: good, the bad and the ugly?

[yrizoud]

I also bought a LE1600, for 200€ with its specific convertible keyboard.
The convertible keyboard is well-made and includes a trackpoint (a bit too hard and unresponsive for my taste).
When the tablet is put in 'laptop' mode with it, drawing with the stylus is too awkward, so don't count on it.
In this mode, it loses the advantage of being a tablet, so I don't advise people to pick that keyboard if you have any other computer. The tablet has buttons that emulate cursor keys, ESC and ENTER, but that's about it. The secondary button on the pen is not comfortable enough for drawing (IMO), so I sorely lack keyboard shortcuts or modifiers (colorpicker, hold space to pan...)
The fingerprint reader can act as pageup/pagedown, it helps but it's a bit inaccurate.
I'm slightly disappointed by the low pressure sensitivity, it has little difference between "not pressing at all" and "pressing firmly". I think I got more subtle pencil strokes with by Graphire.
The power button can be set to make the unit hibernate, it wakes up in 20 seconds and you can resume drawing, excellent.
I removed the cord that was attached to the pen, as I kept catching things with it; since I only use it at home I don't fear losing the pen.
Character recognition is very impressive for handwriting of words that are in the dictionary, but much less for single characters (typing passwords, URLs, etc)

My conclusion: Exceptionally good for taking notes in handwriting and writing schemas. Better than a wacom tablet for pointing intuitively and immediately where you want. The lack of shortcuts is an annoying limit for many programs. Maybe the best drawing setup would be with a wireless keyboard, so you have 3 devices (keyboard, tablet, pen) with no wire between them.

[Argyle]

Here's how I currently have my tablet buttons set.



The words in red for the arrows pointing at the buttons are the button functions after toggling the Function key.

For the tablet, I remap my most commonly used tools for whichever application I'm using to be the same keybindings. Say, like, I have the color picker for both ProMotion and Photoshop both be Ctrl for an example where I'm mapping the same tool for a key, or for another situation I'll have the brush tool in Photoshop bound to the same button that would advance to the next animation frame in ProMotion. I pick the 8 most-used tools I use for whatever program and just map all those buttons to be the same keys. This leaves it so I only have to do a temporary hotkey swap in the tablet options when I'm working on something with a really funky workflow and so I spend less time making use of the pop-up on-screen keyboard or having to hook up extra USB peripherals. The PowerMate (the glowy knob pictured on a previous post in another thread) I have helps by adding about 6 more application-specific bindings when it would be really useful, but I like to keep the machine as light on baggage as possible when I just want to draw comfortably wherever I'm at so I usually just use it without any attachments.

The pop-up menu from the wacom driver on my second mouse button is extra nice, only takes a second to click the key and hit whichever button, since you get used to where all your self-set menu items will be at as soon as you click it, so it's about as fast to use those as it is to do it with the keyboard (well, close enough anyway) so that's a nice perk.

[Geti]

I'm looking to get a HP Compaq TC4400 in the next week or 2, quite keen to be able to draw away from the desk, perhaps get some work done in the quieter hours at uni. Cheers for all the insight Argyle. I assume I'll be sticking with my intuos for when I'm wanting serious productivity, but all this talk of drawing on the couch and internet from wherever is very appealing.

[Geti]

I'm liking my little tablet a lot, for the aforementioned ability to work wherever but also just because it kicks the crap out of a tablet running some portable OS. Being able to run real programs is a major plus over an iPad or whatever imho.

The few bad things I need to sort out:

• The tablet driver stops sending pressure info if the screen is disabled (for example, if I close the lid for 5 mins) restarting fixes this. PITA
• I can't get the quick buttons on the side of it to do much, need to find some drivers for them I think.
• I don't have a quick radial menu working - if anyone has suggestions for a menu that I could bind macros to that would be great. Having to keep the screen just a little bit open so I can mash hotkeys blindly is a bit of a pain

I'll keep fiddling but it seems pretty useful as is and will be very good for taking a trip overseas soon while still working.

[Atnas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzWWMhv71s0&feature=related
The thing in the left corner there can be found here: http://39kasen.sakura.ne.jp/rawinputcontroltest/ [edit] fixed link

idk if it will work with your tablet, but its worked on a lot of people's ep121s.

http://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Keyboard-Built-TouchPad-Pointer/dp/B003UE52ME
Is another alternative, a cheap little wireless keyboard to hold in your hand  [: I cant find the video I found this in though, someone was using it with their tablet to great effect.

You wound up getting the HP Compaq TC4400? It's awful cheap compared to the ep121 I was eyeing, though I can't find any art videos of it on youtube, just an older hp model

[Geti]

I'll have a look at it, even being able to tap to undo, zoom in/out, swap to colour picker and back etc would be handy. Thanks for the link!
The keyboard remote also looks good as it'd allow me to just bind stuff to its input, though it'd impede holding the tablet like a sketchbook probably. I'll see if the software alternative works first but it looks nifty and jakten said he got good use of his.

Yeah I got the TC4400 and it's nice. The fact that it served as a lowend laptop upgrade as well sweetened the deal. I'm not sure if it'll become my primary pixelling device but it's certainly nice to be able to draw in bed before sleeping, haha.