Affordable Windows Tablet to learn painting?

Count_Crushmore

Hi there!

First of all: Yes, I did a search on this but all I was able to find were old threads and the discussion about the Surface. If there is a thread on this Topic I apologise for doubling up, but I didn´t find any.

I am just making my first steps in Digital Art and I am enjoying it, but I see that I need much practise and unfortunatly my time for that is very limited. On the other hand I spend some hours every day in the train, hours that I spend reading since I don´t like to carry my heavy laptop around with me.

With all those Windows convertibles around those seem to be a viable option for me - but maybe I´ve missed something. I am looking for a affordable Windows Convertible that allows me to run Corel Painter Essentials to paint a bit while I am on the train - maybe even at home since the option to paint directly on the screen with a stylus seems intruiging to me, something that only the more expensive Wacoms seem to offer.

I am aware that workload heavy operations aren´t something that I could expect for this price, but some (Texture) Painting and lightweight 3D Applications like Artform Curvyy should be possible (judging from the Requirements), or am I wrong?

Long story short:
Would you recommend to buy a Windows Tablet arround 250 Bucks (thats arround the ammount I was planning to spend and there are quite many Tablets arround that pricetag) that´s enough for a total noob to play around or would you advise against it?

Are Tablets for that price usable or would you say that they aren´t worth it and only the more expensive tablets are recommendable?

Do you use a budget Windows tablet and could you reccommend it?

Thank you for your patience and your advice!

Fuiosg

The market's not really there yet; there's cheapo tablets but not really ones with good digitizers. I've heard people recommend the asus vivotab note 8; but beyond that and somewhat beyond your price range, there's the encore 2 write, lenovo thinkpad 10, and regular surface 3.

xhi

I bought a Surface Pro 2 a while back and it's been awesome!  I love starting paintings on it because I can work whenever Im inspired.  But I do like to finish work on my home PC because the screen size limits my ability to do fine details.  It's a good and bad thing.  I think painting with a smaller window helps you set the basic shapes and colors.  The Surface Pro has the bigger screen which is kind of important since UI can be tiny on the 2. You don't need all the extra features IMO, but getting it with the windows OS instead of the mobile one is important.  

Edit: Oh to answer your questions.
I'd say not to go for that.  If you're just starting I would say get a simple bamboo tablet or something to get started.  I still use my little 80$ tablet on my main PC.  I'd love something nicer but it's just not within my budget. But like I said Surfaces are really good and they're portable.  I'm sure you could get some version of it for a similar price used.  Or maybe a newer version for under 500.

monster

I have a surface pro 1.  It's close to your price range on eBay. Mine runs Painter and Clip Studio very well. Photoshop makes it drain the battery quickly.  Best thing is that it uses Wacom tech. The only thing is that I have to use a screen protector to give it a layer of grip because the glass is slippery. But that's an issue with all non cintiqs.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Microsoft-Surface-Pro-Intel-i5-1-70Ghz-128GB-Wi-Fi-10-6in-Minor-issue-/191733967762?hash=item2ca43c2b92:g:9fAAAOSwo6lWPtlA

elGuapo

Some good fellow over at reddit put together a list of such devices:
https://www.reddit.com/r/stylus/wiki/index

Perhaps one of those will accomplish what you want and be in your budget.

Count_Crushmore

Wow - that was fast!

First of all - thank you very much for your fast answer!

@Fuiosg:
That´s what I was afraid of. I didn´t want to shell out too much for a high class Tablet, but I also didn´t want to buy something cheap that isn´t usable.

@XHI and Monster:
Good point - a used Surface might be an option, even if I am cautious when it comes to preowned tech. Maybe a refurbished one.

@XHI:
I own a Bamboo fun but I find it very hard to coordinate my movements of the stylus with what is happening on screen. I don´t have those same problems with the mouse so I thought that drawing directly on a screen without purchasing a High End Wacom with an inbuild Screen would help me to develop a feeling for the Stylus.

@Elguapo:
Thank you very much for that list - there is much to dig through, I´ll look into the Tablets from that list, but now I´ll also consider a used Surface.

Thanks again!

Panupat

I got myself a Bamboo (now called Intuos Pen). Heard a lot about it's pressure sensitivity not ideal for digital painting, but it works just fine for the level I'm at and for learning Zbrush.

pigart

COUNT_CRUSHMORE It can be hard at first to draw while always looking at the screen and not the pen. For some people it can take a while to get used to. For me it only took a couple of days. A simple wacom drawing tablet will always be better than those <500$ windows tablets with pens.

claydough

I got the Asus Slate bout 3 months ago at microcenter fer bout $250 I see they r now at New EGG fer $190.
Tested out an i7 surface book at Best Buy last night and although I am pretty sure that if I had zBrush or large texture files in Photoshop for testing there would probably be many instances of apparent performance advantage. But by just noodling around in Fresh Paint ( equally as laggy in just about every tablet I test it with ) it just seems that for the majority of my pen work I would not hesitate to pay that paltry price.

I am still too paranoid to upgrade the Asus Slate to win 10 just yet tho.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA49H1XM8079&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC-_-pla-_-Monitor+Accessories-_-9SIA49H1XM8079&gclid=CLi-pY2_lMkCFUo6gQodW6AMZg&gclsrc=aw.ds

including free shipping!

lefix

I am also tempted. But usually I come to the conclusion that at my skill level, a pen and a sketchbook are probably just as good for practicing