Archinect
anchor

Tablet Wars! - who's in your corner

nycdesigns

Ongoing thought stream but figured it best to put this out to the internets for deliberations. To start, I have a lot of reading to do and I am partial to an android playground. The Android Tablet / Phablet ecosystem has been going bonkers as more and more members are added to the Samsung family. It's almost too much, right?

So the starting point Ipad, in my opinion is too small a screen for my tastes. That on top of my predilection for Android means I am leaning towards a 7 inch plus experience. The S Pen has made for some additional option creating functionality. When you add it up, the 12.2inch Galaxy Note Pro looks real good. The price point does not make this an easy decision. (Comparison, Surface Pro 3 - 256Gb storage with Core i7 = $1549 to start) Sticking to the S Pen, the 10.1 2014 edition looks to be about the right spot.

I however have not seen too many people in the Android Tablet realm, in school or work, and I was curious to see what other people have experienced.

NEEDS

Ability to sketch when and if needed, reading pdfs, wifi internet browsing is ok, light gaming (ala phone apps), email, writing and document editing, magazine reading, added mobility (goes without saying), syncing some workflows with desktop (with

ps. the backdrop to this deliberation is a dead laptop. Replacing the laptop would be about as much as the high end Surface Pro 3, give or take. So that brings me to this threshold. To Tablet or not to Tablet.

 
Jun 23, 14 7:00 pm
lukeggg

File management is pretty terrible on dedicated android or windows 8 apps. They often have their own file types which then need to be converted for everyday use. Sketching in full versions of Photoshop or Sketchbook Pro is really the best way to keep everything organized as they can easily be integrated with everything else that you are doing. Most apps have a limit to the amount of layers, or the styles, or undo's. This won't be a problem in the beginning, but it becomes frustrating. 

I used an android tablet (Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet) for sketching for a while, but I found that android was difficult to use once I got 100+ sketches/notes on there. There are some great apps which allow you to organize everything, but it still when you are trying to print, or move, or edit in photoshop (on a computer) it is a hassle to use an android system. I eventually found it to be too slow and sold it for $50.

I replaced it with a dell venue 8 pro (which are ridiculously cheap, now about a third of their original price) with stylus and I was happy with that for a while, but in the end syncing OneNote on that computer with my main computer, and then converting to PDF to finally open with photoshop still seemed time consuming and cumbersome. I would have installed photoshop onto the tablet but it only has 2 gb of ram and 64 gb storage.

I still have the dell venue 8 but I haven't used the pen in about 4 months because it just isn't worth the effort. What I use now is my old drawing tablet. I have the Bamboo Fun which was discontinued back in 2011 but boy it is reliable. I use it for both mouse and pen input, and I can very easily switch between the two. I don't have the new PhotoshopCC, but I expect it will be even better experience. 

TL;DR Don't expect to have a great experience with sketching 'apps'. File management on them are terrible. get a tablet with a real operating system so you can use full versions of photoshop or sketchbook pro, or just buy a laptop/desktop and use a drawing tablet.

Jun 24, 14 12:51 am  · 
 · 

Block this user


Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?

Archinect


This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.

  • ×Search in: