VAIO Z Canvas slate 12.3" @ 3:2 w/ 95% RGB...yes!

In my experience, any fan vibrations are definitely something to take seriously.

As soon as vibrations occur, it increases the chances of even greater axis wobble, leading to a viscous cycle, until the fans are constantly noisy.

It should still be under warranty right? I would create a ticket immediately just to register the problem, then monitor the issue as back-and-forth with the support rep.

 

So after a few weeks, my battery life has been settling at 4:45-5:00 for normal day-to-day use. This is with Chrome as my main browser and it pretty much utilizing resources all the time because I use the Hangouts plugin to make texts/calls through Google Voice.

I'm going to try seeing what switching over to Edge with just the Hangouts extension open does and without any Chrome processes open as well.

So it's about 45 minutes less battery than the SP2 I had before. Quite a bit more powerful though. Do I need the power. Nope , but since I'm on a nearly 2 month trip and away from my desktop completely (except for RDS), it's nice to have comparable power.

 

A new Intel HD driver has been issued, and even though its application to the Surface devices is highlighted, it looks like it should also be applicable to the ZC:

http://www.neowin.net/news/intel-pushes-out-new-hd-graphics-driver-for-surface-devices-ultrabooks

(Courtesy of NeoWin site)

 

My ZC is sold. If they release a refresh with Skylake and 6+ hours of battery life, I'll be back. Great machine otherwise.

 

My dream is for a Z Canvas "XL", at 14-15" in 2017. Perhaps that could simultaneously net higher battery life.

Looking forward to seeing what they do next.

 

Being in Japan, have you heard any rumours regarding VAIO's plans for the Canvas?

I've been trying to search Japanese news sites for information, but it seems like the Canvas has dropped off the map (at least from official news sources) even though it was met with such enthusiasm over there.

Maybe there's something on twitter or message boards with some hints? You can't be the only one in Japan who's looking forward version 2...

 

Purely speculation on my part....but given how the Z Canvas has been one of the very few Tablets specifically designed and marketed to the Artists crowd (As opposed the the afterthought consideration given to our niche market).....I could see Viao waiting and holding back a update of the Viao Canvas until the Wacom Gen 13 AES pens start to hit. Given the spec bump those pens are going to have, and how Viao is more or less known for specing the hell out of their products, that would be the most logical course of action.

 

Do you know if that's dependent on all the USI partners working their "very different ideas" in that article you linked to.

It was not encouraging that ASUS decided to just forego AES entirely and go with Gen3 N-Trig (aka PixelSense).

At this point, I feel like it would be smarter for VAIO to release a TB3/PixelSense refresh and continue building market presence, rather than waiting around for USI to be finalized (and then endure the rounds user-testing/patching as they iron out the inevitable cross-compatibility issues).

Gen3 N-Trg is solid. I feel like the performance difference alone compared to Gen2 is enough for me to seriously consider upgrading. And along with SkyLake/TB3, that would be probably enough to push most fence-sitters to get a Canvas.

 

<<...I could see Viao waiting and holding back a update of the Viao Canvas until the Wacom Gen 13 AES pens start to hit...>>

...I wonder if any of you have been following DRTigerlilly's discussion thread in the Off Topics forum (although why she thought this would be "off topic" is beyond me):

http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/wacom-emr-toshiba-wt310-to-ntrig-sp4.70124/

In particular, she posted a reddit link that was very interesting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/4vg4aj/surface_pro_4_handwriting_tracking_sucks/

...A guy apparently used carbon paper to capture actual pen strokes versus on-screen ink for N-trig / PixelSense! He certainly seems to make a good case; I'm going to try to take a look at this before Redstone strikes on Tuesday and possibly resets the pen response gameboard.

PS: Regarding a ZC update, I could easily see VAIO waiting until 4-core KabyLake processors are generally available. The existing Haswell i7-H770HQ processor holds its performance advantage over the current lower-TDP SkyLake processors used by Surface and should continue to do so when and if Surface shifts to the equivalent class of KabyLake processors. By that time, perhaps some of the pen questions will start to be resolved. Like dark, I suspect (and hope!) that VAIO will continue to customize the ZC towards the artistic community... after all, it's called the Z Canvas...!

 

That's a very interesting test, and I think should be added to repertoire of "standard digitizer tests" that reviewers do on tablets.

However, as I noted in my earlier in the thread, stroke latency is heavily dependent on the InkAPI implementation of the app being used.

In that test, OneNote is being used, whose engine has always struggled to capture quick, tightly-spaced letters (resulting in the infamous "tail hooks" and compressed circles).

By contrast, open up the new Sketchpad in the new Windows Ink Workspace, and you'll see it captures quickly printed letters much more faithfully.

So to emphasize, with N-Trig hardware we are talking mostly about software implementation differences rather than strict hardware limitations—a point which I believe most of the tablet community is unaware of.