Asking Axiotron about a Mac Book Pro slate

[fedron]

Hello everybody,
I bought an M7 C2D with the Nvidia graph card 4 month ago. I'm very please with the screen size and the power. But ..... the rotating hinge and general building quality sucks. When rotating the screen is a pendulum, it's way too heavy for such a tiny mechanism. The bulk and weight sucks too. The battery life is short so I bought the slice battery but now it's even bulkier and heavier.
So because I only can see the M7 as a transition Tablet to my dreamed one and as it looks like 14" tablets are a disappearing breed, I wrote this morning to the guys from Axiotron, the company behind the Mac Book Slate. And asked them that:

”Hello, My name is Federico and I’m a digital artist. I was very impress with your Mac Book Slate Tablet. Almost my dreamed tablet, but not yet as it use the integrated Intel graphic chip.
I actually run a Toshiba 14” M7 with a discreet graphic card. I bought it because of the screen size and the Nvidia graphics which allow me to use 3d programs. The 15” Mac Book Pro series use a discreet graphic card and are as light as a 13.3” Asus R1 and way lighter than the 14” M7 or Gateway CX.
So the question is, and I guess I’m not the first one to ask, do you plan to build a slate version of the Mac Book Pro 15”?
If not could you make it as a Custom Project?
Could you make a 17” Slate Mac Book Pro? I know it sounds crazy but it would be lighter than my M7 and the screen is fantastic for art.
If yes let me know the price as I’m very interested.
Regards and congrats.”


Hope they reply me. A 15” Mac Book Pro slate would be awesome.
And what about a 17 one? Like a portable Cintiq as light as my M7!!!!!

[P8RSON]

Sorry in sounding pessimistic but I would doubt very much if you will see a Tablet of this size.

Cost alone would be hard to accept.

[fedron]

More than the 3600 proud bucks of a new R400?
Let do the math, Axiotron 13.3” Slate Mac Book cost 1200 plus the original Mac. For a 15” it could be as much as 20% more? Let say 1440$, plus the 2000$ original Mac Book Pro. So we could have it for 3440$? Don't sound that much to me, well compared with an R400.

Maybe the answer is that the R400 is too expensive ?

[Shogmaster]

Fedron, Wacom does not yet make a UART sensor board bigger than 14.1". This is why Axiotron cannot offer you a 15" Macbook Pro based slate (nor any TPC OEM for that matter). Also, you are complaining about 14.1" M7 being too big and heavy, and sucking up too much battery power, yet you want Axiotron to make you a 15.4" slate out of Macbook Pro? You will need to figure out what you really want out of this thing (hint: long battery life and large screen does not go together) before going nuts with your wish list. Also, I don't think Aluminum is the best material for slate tablets since Core 2 Duo can warm them up pretty quick. It does make Macbook Pro lighter, but not better to hold.

BTW, having used R15 for two years without any issues, you won't have to worry about the hinge on your M7 going. It's plenty sturdy.

And yes, R400 is just stupid expensive.

P.S. Do you work with any 3D apps? If you don't, you really don't need anything beyond the GMA950 in tablets. My R25 is handling Vista's Aero and Painter X at the same time while doing clone mode dual monitor output! I was doing exactly that today while doing a car sketching demo for a drawing class. And my R25 is only a 1.6GHz C2D! You should just be content with the M7 since it's probably sporting much better specs. Just make sure you give it plenty of RAM (2GB minimum), and make sure you are running Vista. XP:TE sucks for apps that uses Wacom's driver for digitizer input.

[fedron]

Fedron, Wacom does not yet make a UART sensor board bigger than 14.1". This is why Axiotron cannot offer you a 15" Macbook Pro based slate (nor any TPC OEM for that matter). Also, you are complaining about 14.1" M7 being too big and heavy, and sucking up too much battery power, yet you want Axiotron to make you a 15.4" slate out of Macbook Pro? You will need to figure out what you really want out of this thing (hint: long battery life and large screen does not go together) before going nuts with your wish list. Also, I don't think Aluminum is the best material for slate tablets since Core 2 Duo can warm them up pretty quick. It does make Macbook Pro lighter, but not better to hold.

BTW, having used R15 for two years without any issues, you won't have to worry about the hinge on your M7 going. It's plenty sturdy.

And yes, R400 is just stupid expensive.

P.S. Do you work with any 3D apps? If you don't, you really don't need anything beyond the GMA950 in tablets. My R25 is handling Vista's Aero and Painter X at the same time while doing clone mode dual monitor output! I was doing exactly that today while doing a car sketching demo for a drawing class. And my R25 is only a 1.6GHz C2D! You should just be content with the M7 since it's probably sporting much better specs. Just make sure you give it plenty of RAM (2GB minimum), and make sure you are running Vista. XP:TE sucks for apps that uses Wacom's driver for digitizer input.

Yes I use 3D applications. Even if I do primarily 2D drawing many times y have to tweak 3D models when I'm not painting some textures, so a GPU is indispensable if I want to do everything in the same computer.

I should not complain about the battery life of the M7, it's reasonable thinking on the hardware and good point on Wacom not having a 15" digitizer.
About the size let me tell you that, if you put the M7 on top of a 15" MacBook Pro you'll see that they have the same size, but the toshiba is 2x thicker. I'm sure it's not because of the wacom digitizer, look at the Asus R1. And I really don't think that my M7 on battery will last longer than the Mac. You're right about the Mac running very hot, but it´s the same for all the models, even the white MacBook offered by Axiotron, and usually bigger chassis are better for cooling.
Anyway what I mean with that is that I don't think what I'm asking for is that crazy. It looks very reasonable to me. Am I the only one crazy person asking for this kind of computers?

Maybe I was too harsh with the M7. It can do very well all I need to. It's a good work horse. But if the R1 from Asus, which used to build Mac Books, had a GPU I would had bought one. My last 3 laptops where Toshiba, but the M7 family was not there best step, even if I own one and will own it for the next two years. I see it, it´s a dying breed and the Asus R1 is on top.
So it's not just a question of screen size and battery life. Maybe it's just because sometime some products are better tan others and Toshiba know it.

PS: I'm very happy to read that the hinge is sturdy, I was kind of worried about that.

[werepumpkin]

I agree with you, fedron, modifying a larger MacBook Pro, whether it be the 15" or 17", does not seem like much of a stretch. Wacom already makes 17" and 20" Cintiqs (sp?).

For a drawer, like myself, the size would be very welcome.

Having said that, I can't wait to finally get that Modbook in my hands, even if it's only 13".

[Shogmaster]

I agree with you, fedron, modifying a larger MacBook Pro, whether it be the 15" or 17", does not seem like much of a stretch. Wacom already makes 17" and 20" Cintiqs (sp?).

Cintiqs use USB connection. Tablet PCs use UART connector. The biggest UART connector digitizer Wacom makes is 14.1". If you make a "tablet pc" out of the Cintiq digitizer boards, you can kiss any semblance of portability goodbye. And also, the 15" and 17" digitizer boards from Wacom does not have Intuos capabilities, so you might as well at that point just get the 21UX since portability is shot.

For a drawer, like myself, the size would be very welcome.

Having said that, I can't wait to finally get that Modbook in my hands, even if it's only 13".

Even as an artist myself, the notion of owning a slate tablet pc without any OS support for tablet features seem very pointless.

I know you guys just LOVE Apple and you want your tablet to be approved by your trend conscious Mac only friends and all, but you should really ask yourself: Are you using the OS to do your work or the Apps? Which part of OSX do you use to do your beautiful drawings and paintings?

Let's face it: the apps are the same on both sides and if you are dealing with the OS most of the time, you are goofing off and not doing work. And you are spending WAY too much in the case of the Modbook just to get an OS that's not even tablet friendly. In the day where you can get a brand new 14" Core 2 Duo TPC for less than a grand, spending this much on a Modbook just seems foolhardy at best.

BTW, I use to be a Mac only guy too. But you eventually learn to grow out of wacky CE manufacturer worship.

[Darak]

http://helpcenter.owc.net/index.php?x=&mod_id=2&id=218