Recommend a Tablet PC

patstormont · Post by **patstormont** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:23 am

So i've decided to go tablet with my new laptop.

Do any of you people have experience with tablets and audio programs?

These are the models I'm looking at:

IBM/Lenovo X60T
HP TC4400
Toshiba M7
Toshiba M400

Any opinions?

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 4:39 am

I wouldn't do it.

Too little performance and too many compromises. Get yourself a good laptop with Core2Duo processing instead....

rozling · Post by **rozling** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 10:35 am

Your reply has too many generalisations - the first model I looked at (second one in the list) has up to 2.16 Core 2 Duo

I'm not going to do a comparison for you but I'd recommend 7200 rpm HD and obviously as much RAM as you can get. One thing: Live doesn't work exactly as it should with tablets, for example if you grab a fader (not a knob) the response is jerky and pretty much unusable. I tried to convince myself it worked but have used it 0 times since reaching that conclusion.

Personally I don't really mind if the laptop is fugly as long as it has the power and can take knocks. I went for an Acer because they listed all the stress tests they list it as having done, and in fairness it's taken a few knocks. Don't buy them though unless you want to get F'd in the A on Saturday.

patstormont · Post by **patstormont** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 12:59 pm

Most of those tablets are available with a core2duo, if not at least in a normal core duo, so they are powerful.

I already have a 7200rpm hd in my current laptop that i'll swap over, and i will max out the ram.

I will be using the tablet with ableton, but probably not with the tablet function as i have made a midi controller to do everything i need.

I'll be using the tablet functionality for reaktor and taking notes at uni. I'm mainly interested in the stability of these tablets using ableton as most of them have shared memory.

patstormont · Post by **patstormont** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 11:11 pm

anyone?

MathematiK I · Post by **MathematiK I** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 11:29 pm

I think it's worth waiting a year or two for the tablets...
Just get a durable kickass laptop!

Herne · Post by **Herne** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 10:29 am

I sell loads of Asus lappies. Nice. solid, durable and a 2year Pan-European collect&return warranty. Only Rock do a longer warranty out of box.
Definately not the HP, too many non-standard parts, expensive for repair.

Lenovo/Toshiba have no real issues, generally well made & reliable.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 2:01 am

People have been saying 'wait a year or two for awesome, stable tablets' since 1998.

My original statement stands - get a laptop. They are smaller and more compact and more powerful than ever before. Tablets are like the betamax of the computer world, they barely exist and have so many tradeoffs performance wise, the cost is often more than an equivalent laptop and they need to run a tablet version of the o/s to maximize their features, sometimes which brings incompatibilities into the equation (such as win xp media center is a pain in the ass compared to win xp pro for running some audio/midi apps)

patstormont · Post by **patstormont** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 9:41 am

Thanks for the helpful comments. I hadn't thought of asus, their r1f looks pretty good, i like the 13.3 screen size too.

leedsquietman:
Most the tablets i listed are based on normal laptops. Basically with a different chassis and a wacom digitizer in the screen. So i don't see why you think they are such horrible things, seeing as they are practically the same. Surely the software might be an issue, but is one of the reasons i'm asking for real users opinions in this thread.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 3:00 am

Whatever. I appreciate your point, maybe some tablet users will come forward and prove me wrong.

I've never heard of any serious musician using a tablet PC to run their DAW software. That doesn't mean it's not happening, but seriously I am a member on lots of websites such as Cubase, here, kvr audio, recording.org, dmusic.com and others and noone mentions tablets.

My point is that you know you will have the support and availability of parts and longevity of product in a laptop. Laptops are not going to disappear tomorrow.

I am surprised that tablets haven't done better but that happens. It has been proclaimed many times that they are going to take off any time soon but I don't see it happening.

Betamax was a better format of higher quality than VHS but died out because of Sony making it proprietary in the beginning and therefore limiting it's availability.

You go ahead and do what you need to do and I sincerely hope it works out for you, I'm not trying to be a troll, I was only trying to be helpful.