Time For a New Tablet

. What is your budget?
300-400 bucks
2. Would you consider purchasing used/refurbished?
Always
3. Do you prefer a media/mobile tablet like the iPad, Windows tablet PC, or notebook convertible?
tabletpc
4. What size Tablet PC would you prefer?

• 10 to 13-inches
• Above 13-inches

5. Which country do you intent to purchase from [where do you live]?

USA

6. Do you have any preferences to brand loyalty or dislikes?

Nope

7. How many hours battery life do you require?

A few

8. What will be the primary usage scenario of this tablet? (Email/Web Surfing/Drawing/Word Processing/Entertainment/Notetaking etc)
Drawing, photoshop, entertainment, and considering Zbrush

9. Do you have an OS preference? For example, do you own an iPhone and a Mac, or are you a Windows fan? Do you own an Android device and use Google services frequently?
win10

10. What software and tasks do you intend to run? (Microsoft Office or other Word Processing Suite/Photoshop/3D Studio Max/Autocad etc)
yes

11. Do you intend on playing Games? If so please list.
NO

12. Would you like to stream content through your home theater system?
No
Screen Specifics

1. Any preference on screen resolution?
Good
2. Will you be using the tablet outdoors? Do you need to be able to see it through glare from the sun?
See the above linked FAQ for guidance
rarely if ever
3. Do you require a pen? With or without pressure sensitivity? Do you prefer Wacom EMR, AES or N-trig?
See the above linked FAQ for guidance
Wacom

Component Specifics

1. What size Hard Drive and Memory do you require? Would you like expandable memory?

Yes

2. What sort of inputs do you require, if any? Would you like full-sized USB and SD card slots? Are microUSB and microSD ok? Do you require HDMI inputs?

Yes

Hey guys, way back in 2010 I bought a Motion Computing LE1700 on ebay for around 300 bucks. I'm a teacher and used it in class alot back then for presentations, I also did art with it. I'm partial to my desktop for most things but I do alot of video now and it's getting kind of old for that i5 2400.

I haven't had much use of the LE1700 tabletPC in the last few years, it couldn't seem to keep up and now it's totally dead. I loved drawing with the wacom enabled LE1700 and miss it.

I think I look the looks of the Fujitsu convertibles, but that Surface looks cool too. Help a girl out with some advice.

 

Some folks have managed to find Samsung Galaxy Books on eBay at remarkably low prices.

 

For ZBrush you should try to find something with 25W or above CPU. 15W CPUs really struggle with it.

I don't know what fits that criteria for 400...

 

Wacom AES or N-Trig are both okay for casual artists.

For anybody who draws more seriously, EMR is the next logical step up.

I'd base your decision on that metric. -Because if a stylus working at 90% is okay for you, then the world is your oyster. There are a ton of machines out now which fit the bill. Just cruise through this comprehensive list and check them all out. Personally, I know very little about the AES/N-Trig scene. My expertise lies in EMR machines.

If you need 98% out of your line quality, (nobody can offer 100%), your options plummet to just a handful of new devices, and they're all going to cost you. The Samsung Galaxy Book seems to be the popular economy choice; It's not too small, it is reasonably powerful, made out of excellent parts and it works properly nearly all the time. And it's under $1000. I've seen them for as low as $600 if you hunt.

In the used market, if you go back a few years, there is only one machine which would be an upgrade from where you currently are and which isn't an inch-thick very used and very old machine. The cheapest one I could find was this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fujitsu-Li...079905?hash=item2cd40b6e21:g:pBcAAOSw0Lha87qT

You'd have to buy your own pen, but those are easily found and very cheap, ($10), and you might want to buy a new battery for it as well, but they are around $80-$100. I think you could probably get a Fujitsu T904 up and running for around $400.

It was designed around Windows 7! I love Win 7. But it could run Win 10 with no trouble, I suspect.

It has a 13.3" screen at 2560 x 1440, which is quite nice even by today's standards.

 

As much as the T904 was a good machine for its day, the display has a narrow viewing angle, the fans whine loudly when spun up, the speakers are a joke, and the air gap between the glass and the LCD is pretty darn wide. For $400 it's great, but maybe you'd rather get a Chromebook Plus or a Galaxy NotePro, sacrificing Windows and computing power for a much better experience overall.

If ZBrush is a must you're going to have to have Windows, in which case yeah, the T904 and the Surface Pro 3 are your best bets.

 

The T904 is the greatest device of all time and has never been surpassed.



In fact, it's almost as good as the ATIVQ.

I wonder about this sometimes. My first tablet was the thinkpad yoga gen 1 and sometimes I miss the buttery smooth feeling of EMR but I also remember having to recalibrate when switching from portrait to landscape. I wonder if people who grew up with n trig would actually prefer n trig.



Actually I'm sort of curious. Is the consensus that the new fujitsu convertible are getting worse? Did they abandon Wacom EMR / start using slower processers ever since the T902?

 

Thanks guys, I think my previous tablets both were EMR, Motion m1400 and motion LE1700. The drawing sensitivity was fabulous and really felt like drawing on paper. The LE1700 came with windows XP of course but I installed 7 on it and it worked well, when it auto updated to windows 10 things got bad, it became unusable. I downgraded and continued to use but now the power port is dead and the battery holds zero charge.

I know next to nothing about zbrush and 3D modelling in general. I saw a video and thought it looked cool, but it's not a big requirement. The main software I would use on it is sketchbook pro and an older version of photoshop. I also used it to read comics and pdfs alot.

I'm leaning towards the t904, but I'm curious about Surface Pro 3 as well.

Batteries look to be cheaper for the Surface Pro.

 

No kidding? I never knew anybody around here had used one. I'm half considering getting one off eBay and fixing it up as a hobby interest.

Portrait mode never really worked for me. It wasn't about calibration, (I gave up on deliberate offsetting with my old Toshiba EMR machines, so they ended up stayed calibrated regardless of orientation), it was the awkwardness of the GUI. It took a lot of effort to re-configure pallets, plus many art programs weren't set up to deal with screen rotation, so when you went back to landscape, you also had to mess around with Photoshop's main window vanishing off the bottom and other weird problems.

I would imagine things have gotten better, especially since tablets have become a growing concern, but on my current portable's 1080p screen, portrait is virtually useless anyway due to narrowness.

 

Purely based on display resolution and lack of EMR, yes. Fujitsu always aimed at the corporate market and corporations don't seem to care about display quality.

Lenovo and HP are seriously into the convertible market now, gone are the days of Fujitsu and Toshiba.

 

OK, almost ready to buy a t904, but started looking at Yoga 720 and thinking of something newer. Am I making a mistake buying a tablet that old?