Tablet Recommendations for Zbrush and Photoshop work
polycounter lvl 6
Hello Polycount family,
I'm looking for some recommendations for either a 2-in-1 tablet laptop or powerful tablet that can handle Zbrush and Photoshop with ease.
My reasons for getting this portability as opposed to putting the money towards a desktop is because I travel a lot for work and spend a lot of my time in airports and hotels. I'd just like to know if anyone is using anything in particular that they like or have experience with. There's the obvious surface pro 4, but I've read people are having many issues with that just working in general much less handling hardware intensive 3D apps.
I have a budget of $1,500 - $2,000 but would always like to keep it on the lower cost if possible.
Thank you for any recommendations in advance.
I'm looking for some recommendations for either a 2-in-1 tablet laptop or powerful tablet that can handle Zbrush and Photoshop with ease.
My reasons for getting this portability as opposed to putting the money towards a desktop is because I travel a lot for work and spend a lot of my time in airports and hotels. I'd just like to know if anyone is using anything in particular that they like or have experience with. There's the obvious surface pro 4, but I've read people are having many issues with that just working in general much less handling hardware intensive 3D apps.
I have a budget of $1,500 - $2,000 but would always like to keep it on the lower cost if possible.
Thank you for any recommendations in advance.
Replies
https://www.cnet.com/products/lenovo-miix-720/preview/
The Miix 720 Active Pen is partnered with Wacom so I am hoping that it's a solid less expensive option to the Wacom Laptop (whatever it's called).
As for a machine, just get a beefy as fuck laptop + external tablet imo. Ensure graphics are good and have a nice amount of vram (4gb), ensure you've got 16 gig ram, and ensure you've got an i7 of some kind or another. Don't go for absurd screen res, just plug it into a monitor when at a desk, and use the mobile screen when you're actually mobile.
Hell, if its beefy enough you can plug it into a tablet screen at your desk if you really need to, but I'd definitely suggest not getting some sort of hybrid machine that is weaker overall because its got some built in tablet screen.
Also, I love my Lenovo laptop. Going on 6 years old, the thing still looks new after heavy use and travel (though I made sure it was full metal construction which really helps long term). Best computer hardware purchase I have made, ever.
As far as the VAIO Z Canvas and Surface Pro, they use the same pen tech, utilizing Windows Ink, which Windows 10 forces floating key modifiers by the pen tip. This causes performance issues and stuttering, even blocking your view in zbrush.
The GPU in the Canvas was perfectly fine during my tests in Modo, but when holding say "alt" key to rotate the viewport, the word alt appeared by the cursor, everything would stutter. Same would happen in ZBrush.
You use to be able to disable this in Windows 8, but you can't in Windows 10. With Wacom tech, you can go into their control panel and find a disable Windows Ink option, illuminating the issue.
Due to this issue, it didn't matter how good the Surface Pro and Canvas hardware was, that Intrig pen with Windows Ink, which displays modifier floats, ruined performance and responsivnes.
I will say, depending on the software you are using, a dedicated GPU may still be required. For example, Modo's viewport works normally well with an integrated graphics, but their advance open gl mode requires dedicated.
Brian, thank you for sharing your experience with both. That's definitely making me rethink those tablet options as the stuttering is what I'm trying to avoid. Just ruins the experience for me. Wish this was an easier find
I am going to try it out on zbrush later today, but so far we have been very happy with it for 2d work
screen is a bit shiny but have ordered matte screen overlay to give it that sketchy feel
Haven't tried Zbrush on it, but I believe it should handle some light work. If you want something small, portable for drawing then it's difficult to find a better deal. The build quality is surprisingly good as well for a no-name Chinese manufacturer and they have a solid fanbase online in case you need support.
I really appreciated all the advice you all shared and I figured I would let everyone know what I ended up getting and the specs included.
My final pick was the HP Spectre X360:
- Windows 10 Home 64 with Windows Ink
- 7th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 processor
- 16 GB memory; 512 GB SSD storage
- NVIDIA® GeForce® 940MX (2 GB GDDR5 dedicated)
- 15.6" diagonal UHD UWVA eDP touch
I've downloaded the 4r7 Trial and just started playing with what it could handle. I was able to subd a sphere to 30 million polys without any noticeable lag. On the last subd it did take about 5-10 seconds to complete, but it was very minimal. Playing around with sculpting and painting there's really no issue. I did however notice that pressure sensitivity was not working when I initially started and the preferences in zbrush were grayed out. I found I needed to install the wintab drivers located in this article and it worked like a charm: http://www.traubitz.com/2015/09/09/hp-spectre-x360-zbrush/I am not an advanced Zbrush user, but I have yet to notice any lag on it by itself. I will be testing it out with UE4, Zbrush, and photoshop all open at once shortly to see if there is anything else effected.
Thanks again for the support and input!