Zbook X2 Just Announced

Try the Mixer Brush and you'll start laughing.

 

Just received my zbook x2 yesterday. Besides all the 'extra' software the seller added, everything looked good. Restored windows, thinking that there was a recovery partition that had HP drivers / software but no, so took some time to figure out which drivers I really needed. Before I restored windows tried the modbook pen and noticed the lag and offset right away. When I restored windows made sure to use newest control center and lag and even offset went away. Had already ordered the official HP pen, so I'll compare the two, but for now the modbook pen works quite well.
As for the device, I'm quite happy with it. It's what I've wanted since the cintiq companion 2, the stand and fan noise ruined that device for me, I even tried a flipsteady case, but never could over that fan constantly revving up and down. And again, haven't gotten to use it much, but I like the pen response much more on the zbook compared to the z canvas, nice to have EMR tech again.
I also installed photoshop cs6 before restoring to test how it compared to the z canvas and noticed how small everything was, then scaled up the UI but still wasn't happy, so with the fresh install I'm trying to avoid installing photoshop, but still use the animation feature, does anyone know a program that works like photoshop's animation feature to quickly make gifs / movies? I've moved over to affinity designer for most things, but still stuck going back for that animation feature.

 

Yes there is much less lag at lower resolutions. I make my own brushes, but i optimize the heck out of them in the panel. I really think its a combo of poor layer management and the file size. my latest work is better grouped and things are better, and im using more 'layer comps' rather than 'stamp all visible layers' (this makes the files huge- especially at high resolution). There is still no way i would get away with having what i consider is a good painting experience on a laptop/tablet if i want to print 60" wide @360dpi, but i think a shoe-box sized mini pc with i7 8700k and wacom MSP as screen will be my on the go to device. Loads of portable power for experimental art, and I still have the MSP if i need battery powered ultra portability for client illustration work. I can open my big files , its just frustratingly slow to paint on.

I do miss the form factor of the zbook though. I hope wacom MSP 3 has the keyboard cover and the built in stand, or if the zbook next gen has cintiq mode ill ditch wacom for sure.

Ive tried different performance settings and its hard to see any difference, thanks for sharing yours.

Oh gosh the mixer brush is torture! I can only get a good experience with it by using one (or few) layers in a painterly manner. Its too bad, i actually really like how it paints, its really easy to get wet on wet look, and you can use it to sample and paint with multiple colors with a single stroke. It creates really neat effects with rotation enabled brushes that use the Art pen. Turing off sample all layers helps performance allot if you have multiple layers.

 

Am I being a moron? I can't seem to set the system permission correctly to stop the registry key from resetting to 1 every time I reboot!
I've tried all sorts of things, disabling inheritance, changing permissions for all users etc etc.

I ended up removing permissions to such an extent that I couldn't change anything, so I figured that out, deleted the key and replaced it with the copy I took before mucking with it.

Is there any chance you could explain the individual steps to fix this as I'm stuck?

 

Has anyone who owns a ZBook X2 tried out any good options for charging on the go?

The power brick that comes with it is about 500g and large, so I'm intending to leave it at home and get something small and light for travelling.
The obvious thing seems to be to look for a USB-C charger, but Wattage is an issue and I'm not sure what works and what doesn't.

I discovered that as long as it's asleep or hibernating, it will actually charge with my USB-C phone charger (5 volts x 3 amps = 15 Watts) but if the device is operating it just shows a warning:


There is an interesting thing coming from DELL which combines an AC adapter with a 43 Watt-hour external battery in one (690 gram) product, so you can use either or both as required.
This would be absolutely ideal, but it's the only thing of it's kind I can find and the AC adapter is only 45 Watts, so I have my doubts if it would work.


https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/hybrid-adapter-power-bank-usb-c-ph45w17-ca-45w-ac-adapter-notebook-power-bank-43wh/apd/450-aghp/pc-accessories?ref=p13n_snp_results_mv&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs#polaris-pd

Dell also makes a 65 Watt (20 volt) USB-C external battery, weighting 480 grams which is interesting, but it's nothing like as neat as the hybrid unit and I'm still left searching for a compact, light charger for it and the X2.

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/del...b-c-65wh-pw7018lc/apd/451-bcdv/pc-accessories

Has anyone got any insight from their own experiments or product suggestions?

 

I bought one of these:

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=H6Y83AA&opt=ABU&sel=ACC

Much more compact than the supplied power supply. It also has a USB charging port so I no longer need to carry a separate charger for my phone. I had one fail but the replacement seems to be fine.

 

Thanks for that, it's my fall-back option if I can't find a hybrid solution. I absolutely agree about the USB-A charging port, it's a must, in future, if you've got one of those and a full 100watt USB-C/Thunderbolt port on an AC adapter you should be able to charge just about any electronics.

I take it you haven't found an external battery for your X2 then?
I'm trying to find out from HP exactly what voltage and current ranges the device supports for charging via the Thunderbolt ports, but I'm not having much joy so far.
If I find out, I'll post here.

 

<<…I'm trying to find out from HP exactly what voltage and current ranges the device supports for charging via the Thunderbolt ports...>>

See this PDF document, USB Type-C Charging:

http://www.usb.org/developers/presentations/USB_DevDays_Taipei_2017_USB_Type-C_Charging.pdf

In particular, see charts 9, 14 and 16. On chart 9, note that USB Power Delivery (PD) is controlled by explicit messaging between the (in this case) computer and the PD-qualified AC charger... so the computer tells the charger what voltage to supply. And there are also safe guards in case of error conditions.

Chart 14 sets out the two modes: Fixed voltage and Programmable voltage. Amperage is limited to up to 5 A and power is limited to up 100W.

Chart 16 expands on this; four programmable voltage ranges are available (3-6V, 3-11V, etc.), apparently with variable or fixed (probably max) amperages depending upon the total power requested by the computer. In the past, my experience has been that HP computers use 19V at about 3.5 A for charging (but check your ZBook AC adapter for its specific voltage and amperage). This suggests that the ZBook would utilize the 20 V program (3-21 V at about 3 A) for charging.

HOWEVER, the point is that the ZBook and the PD-qualified charger handle all of this automatically! You simply need to use a PD charger (and, of course, HP needs to have enabled USB-C PD charging in the ZBook which, by the way, is not a certainty; one of the "features" of the USB-C specification is that numerous options can be implemented or not at the OEM's whim)...

 

<<…This would be absolutely ideal, but it's the only thing of it's kind I can find and the AC adapter is only 45 Watts...>>

@incredulous ...I may have found an alternative for you, the Omni 20 USB-C:

http://www.omnicharge.co/products/omni-20-usb-c/



It features a 72 Wh internal battery and USB-C Power Delivery technology and also pass-through charging, the latter much like the Dell hybrid charger mentioned earlier in this thread except that PD will deliver up to 60 W. It's a little expensive at $200, but it's also unique in terms of its capabilities.



Also, see this post about another Omnicharge product:

http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/omni-ultimate-external-battery.74521/

 

Thanks @Steve S, that looks extremely interesting and Omnicharge is not a brand I was aware of.
I've had a read of the website and the amount of configurability is impressive - clearly intended for professionals too, which is reassuring.

There's a dealer in London, so I'll take a look in person.

Cheers for the heads up.
I've passed the indegogo link for the Ultimate product on to a film maker friend too.