Asus eee note review, from an artist :)

[latinvixen]

I have been watching Asus for a while and I like their products. Early this year I started to hear about a black and white gadget that would have full wacom on it and it would support as many levels as your typical tablet pc (256 levels and 2400 dpi). So I was interested and kept following it until I saw it pop up in Taiwan earlier this month. I saw a ton of videos that showed the little gadget and it was exactly what I was after. Granted I could not get asus to provide me an english rom to flash it over so I went online and saw every single pic I could find with the translated menus. Saved that in a folder, so when I got it today it was really easy to know what everything meant even if I was not reading chinese (I do the same with most of my japanese gadgets and toys).

If you do not know what the asus eee note is, it pretty much comes down to an ebook reader on steroids. It does not have a backlight so your eyes don't tire as easy.Way faster refresh rates than any ebook reader as I was comparing it to the kindle, and has a few other things. I can stay connected via evernote,so if you have wifi just shoot your info that way. Or good old micro sd which I need to get to save my pictures. The note taking section is beyond easy to figure out and really nice. It does feel like you are writing on paper to an extent. The wacom is flawless and really see's your strokes without an issue. If the pen that is supplied, make it 2 as 2 come in the box is too small,no worries. I saw that it works with any tablet pc pen, and so does the eraser. Funny that the pen supplied has no eraser, yet you use the pen from my toshiba tablet pc and it sees the eraser when you flip it over, easy peasy.


Here is my example, really quick and dirty:
Asus eee note | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

So is this for you? Well it comes down to this. Do you like taking a sketchbook, make it a smaller sketchbook everywhere and maybe read too? You can combine both with this one. I plan to use it mostly as a sketchbook where I can draw everything and keep it organized (it takes photos too, saves them in color but you need to view them on the pc to see color). It lets you create mini sketchbooks inside and then name them. So I could technically have one called dogs and keep all my dog sketches there, along with another called humans. It offers a lot, and the lack of color is not something to be feared. I mean look at it this way, your sketchbook has no color, but you can save your sketches to scan later. Granted nothing will ever replace paper, but this feels awesome if your a digital junkie like me. I totally recommend it to anyone who likes ebook readers or wants a sort of digital sketchpad or for use in school so you can avoid carrying notebooks.

I plan to take a few shots and do a section on my flickr for it. Video on how it works will be posted soon enough as well. As always if you have any questions just ask.



Thanks goes to a friend for helping me buy this from Taiwan ^__^


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[darkmagistric]

Cool beans. How useful is the art/sketch program on that. Is there layers/zoom/ custom brush's support? (Probably not, but figured I'd ask anyway)

How much did you have to pay for it. I recall seeing that it was in the ballpark of $200-300 when it was announced which should make it an easy buy for many.

[latinvixen]

Cool beans. How useful is the art/sketch program on that. Is there layers/zoom/ custom brush's support? (Probably not, but figured I'd ask anyway)

How much did you have to pay for it. I recall seeing that it was in the ballpark of $200-300 when it was announced which should make it an easy buy for many.

The sketch part is in the same section as the notes/inking part. The way to look at it is this, you have a pencil and a few pen tools. I use a mix of the pencil and pen tool to create the effects I want. It does detect how hard you press or how light you press. There is no zoom or custom brushes, it is very basic but exactly what I did with my small sketchbook. No layers, just one, just think of it as one piece of paper where you do it all. Saving it to an sd is super easy so transferring sketches to later color them up on the pc works great.

In total with expedited shipping from taiwan I paid around $260

[whazzup]

thanks for the review!

a request:
can you do another video of you sketching in a brighter light? Need not be long, just a min will be nice.

This video is a nice overview, but due to the light / video resolution, the drawing looks very hazy, couldn't really see how the strokes respond to pressure.


and of course, a very Happy New Year to you!

[latinvixen]

thanks for the review!

a request:
can you do another video of you sketching in a brighter light? Need not be long, just a min will be nice.

This video is a nice overview, but due to the light / video resolution, the drawing looks very hazy, couldn't really see how the strokes respond to pressure.


and of course, a very Happy New Year to you!

Re uploading now in HD so you can actually see it. Hard to film without total glare. If the video is still kinda meh I will do another tomorrow .

[skoster]

Could you possibly do me a huge favor and answer some non-art questions (I am woefully awful at art, but this looks like a strong possibility for what I need)?

Can you take notes in landscape mode?
Could you see yourself able to use it to take notes on the go as easily as using a clipboard with a legal pad?
Any idea of what Linux distro?
Have you tried Wine on it?

Thanks so much for the info so far, looking forward to anything new!

[latinvixen]

Could you possibly do me a huge favor and answer some non-art questions (I am woefully awful at art, but this looks like a strong possibility for what I need)?

Can you take notes in landscape mode?
Could you see yourself able to use it to take notes on the go as easily as using a clipboard with a legal pad?
Any idea of what Linux distro?
Have you tried Wine on it?

Thanks so much for the info so far, looking forward to anything new!

You can take notes only in portrait mode as far as I can tell. The only thing that seems to default to landscape is web browsing. I would say just as easy to take notes as with a regular paper in my eyes. As for the distro not sure on that one just yet. Running wine, no plans to do so at the moment.

[latinvixen]

New video showing the sketching aspect a bit better:
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[whazzup]

nice~ thanks latinvixen!


darn....looks like i need to expedite my search for a taiwanese friend.....haha....

[latinvixen]

nice~ thanks latinvixen!


darn....looks like i need to expedite my search for a taiwanese friend.....haha....

I will take video outside and probably in a few other settings. It is such a breeze to draw with .