LE1700 - portable cintiq - IT WORKS! - now with video!

[Nibras]

Hey guys, I just read all your reviews on this and it has been extremely helpful. You've got some great solid information in the thread.
I have a question though which is more about your opinions and recommendations.

Basically if I buy the Le1700 then it will be used as my main tablet, I actually want to use this to create detailed illustrations in photoshop and not only as a digital sketchpad. Like I mentioned before it will be my only tablet and therefore the only thing I can depend on to create my images. In that sense do you guys think that it's worth buying the LE1700 or should I just oupt for a 12" cintiq or Intous 4 tablet instead?

Also I think in the tabletpcreview forum someone mentioned that when using vista/windows 7 then the lag and issues with photoshop are greatly decreased. Any feedback on that?

Thanks in advance and the help is much appreciated

[Arshes Nei]

As most people have said in this thread, this is really more of a digital sketchpad. We have stated Photoshop can be absolutely flakey on these machines. So you have to ask yourself with the hardware limitations is this what you want to depend on for FINISHED PROJECTS when you have a deadline?

I think it has been made pretty clear this was a good portable digital sketchpad solution, especially when you read how Salaryman uses it in his workflow.

You want to create finished projects that have deadlines and less hassle of knowing if PS is going to flake on you? Go with a Cintiq 21" - I recommend the larger one because you often have to work in larger file sizes.

Smaller screen real-estate can be a pain. You will draw on the same spot and eventually scratch up the tablet. Plus you're constantly panning at a smaller resolution. It's just worth it to get the large Cintiq overall.

[Skwerl]

Hey everyone, thanks for the thread!
I am thinking of buying a tablet pc for the purpose of doing life studies outdoor.
It is between either a tablet pc or an iPad.
Here are the two questions I have, how well does the LE1700 screen hold up under the sun?
Also, is there any glaring hardware issue that you guys see after using it for a while? As far as I know, quite a few of you guys here picked it up used?
Thanks =)

[Nibras]

Thank you Arshes, I was thinking along that direction but just needed some clarification. Guess it seems like cintiq or just opting for an intous 4. Like I said it's appreciated

[marcospopart]

I prefer to do a combination between sketching in LE1700 and finishing using the intuos. I do that for commercial illustrations but for my popart artworks I use ONLY my le1700(vector art).
Michal Jelinek do the same but using CINTIQ for sketches and Intuos to finish his artworks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z63k...eature=related

[darkmagistric]

Hey everyone, thanks for the thread!
I am thinking of buying a tablet pc for the purpose of doing life studies outdoor.
It is between either a tablet pc or an iPad.
Here are the two questions I have, how well does the LE1700 screen hold up under the sun?
Also, is there any glaring hardware issue that you guys see after using it for a while? As far as I know, quite a few of you guys here picked it up used?
Thanks =)

DO NOT GET THE IPAD FOR THAT! Despite what some rabid Mac fanboys will tell you, creating art on the iPad is a horrid experience. All the painting apps are limited drastically in ability due to the lack of ram, and if you like to sketch with a pencil, you will utterly hate the pogo stylus. I bought an iPad to do art on, and that is now the least thing I use it for. Any art masterpiece done on the iPad could have been done in far less time and with much better results if it were done on a tablet pc.

[Thor's Hammer]

Ok. I've been reading this thread all day, and I am SUPER excited on two levels. One, I am interested in getting an LE1700 now, but I already have a HP Touchsmart TM2, and I heard it's just as good, if not better, but only if you have the PL-900 Stylus from Wacom. Here is where I'm running into an issue. I cannot, for the life of me, find the PL-900 stylus anywhere in the U.S. to purchase. It's only available in the UK. I emailed Wacom UK to find out if I can order it and have it shipped here, but no such luck yet. If anyone has a PL-900 they'd be willing to sell me, I would buy it, or trade even up for the Wacom Airbrush Stylus. OR, if someone would be willing to trade a Bells and Whistles LE1700 tablet for my HP TM2, I'd be up for that possibly, or maybe even a J3500. For the HP, I have two batteries, two chargers, carrying bag, external CD drive, and when I bought it, I bought the top model, with all of the bells and whistles. It's had a screen protector on it since day one. I use it mainly for email right now, because the stylus it came with is horrible. I was actually going to list it on Ebay, until I found this thread and found out that you can get a better stylus for it. PM me if interested, or if you know anywhere in the US where I can get the PL-900 Wacom stylus.

[iCreate]

OH MY GOODNESS. Having never heard of the le1600 prior to reading this thread today, I have now just pressed the ebay buy now button! I feel like a maniac for being so quickly persuaded to spend big money, but your countless joy-filled reviews were just too convincing. Perhaps my long time lust for a cintiq encouraged over-eagerness for anything that promised similar results at 18% of the price.

[fatagen]

Have anyone seen Asus Eee Slate 121 in stock anywhere? It looks awesome!

[iCreate]

I received my spur of the moment le1600 purchase a couple weeks ago and boy has it been fun to play with! It just makes me happy. However, having played with it a while now, I can see why tablet pcs never really caught on. Being forced to use a stylus to navigate your computer 24/7 can be slightly annoying. I find myself really really wanting to just use my fingers for most things, especially web browsing. The new Asus EP121 looks like it would be utterly perfect as it has both the stylus and finger touch ability. Other than that, this cheapo le1600 is the bees knees! I love lying in bed and reading on it. Really, I got this thing to temporarily satisfy my desire for both an iPad and Cintiq, and it's doing a pretty good job.

One question though, I've calibrated the pen repeatedly but still seem to struggle a bit with my pen and cursor lining up perfectly. I assume that's just the nature of tablet screens, but could I be ignorantly missing something? and how does the pen/cursor lineup on the le1600 compare to a Cintiq? same problems? any better?

[jimmy1]

Cintiq is bang on in my opinion - its just the limitiation of tablets & convertiables. Can get the Lenovo X201 sweet in the middle but its way off around the edges (which is really annoying as this is where menus are)

[juliuslim]

how about the pen brush ?
can LE1700 pen perform as a same effect like wacom pen brush?

[ReplicA]

Sorry for the necropost, but I got the le1600, got windows 7 installed, got photoshop, painter, and zbrush 4 installed. Got my drivers in (kinda), and kinda got everything setup, but there's a couple problems I can't find answers too anywhere, and need some help from you guys.

My main problem is, I can't get a shortcut for the SHIFT key. I've gone the windows route, and when I select the tablet key to change to SHIFT, and hit the SHIFT key, nothing happens. I got CTRL-Z mapped, I got ALT mapped, I got several others just fine, but SHIFT refuses to cooperate. It's a key I use VERY often, especially in ZBrush. I tried Autohotkey, but that thing makes NO sense to me whatsoever. How do I get a hotkey for SHIFT on this thing?

Also, I had everything setup the way I want it yesterday, including the flipped screen for buttons on the left side. But when I started it up today, the calibration for the stylus was for the buttons on the right side, while the screen was flipped, making the cursor behave "mirrored". Also, my "ISD Tablet" drivers uninstalled themselves. Any ideas on what to do for this behavior?

Again, sorry for the necropost, but google has failed me, and nothing I've tried is working. I really would like to get this thing working right so I can use it. PLEASE, any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

[darkmagistric]

Just got the Ep121. Its a phenominal Tablet PC. Screen quality is Macbook Pro level and my configuration of 4gb/ and 64 GB SSD runs great with Photoshop CS4. A couple of little kinks I'm trying to work out, but so far its great.

There are some drawbacks with the design of the tablet itself though. The edges of the tablet are near razor sharp, USB port covers are hard to open, and there really are no programmable express keys/buttons. And with Photoshop CS4 running and full screen brightness I'm getting 2 & 1/2 hours of battery life. Not that great, but given the screen quality and how light the tablet is, its more then acceptable.

But I would highly recommend anyone considering the 12 inch Cintiq to get the Ep 121 instead.

[Oddo]

One question if I may. How is the lag on the pen on the ep121 or the LE1700 ?


I have gotten a Tosiba tecra m4 convertible tablet a few years (4 or 5) back and because of the lag the only program I could stomach on it was Alias Sketchbook; in Photoshop the on-screen cursor just lagged so much behind the pen, and every time i would start a brush stroke it was some delay in processing and the strokes would look .. weird. I stuck with my Intuos and my desktop for more serious work (well the TN display on the Toshiba didn't do it any favors color-wise) .


Now the ep121 with its IPS panel looks so sweet for a digital sketchpad (again probably too small for finished work without a lot of "nibbling" being needed, but good for portability) but from the youtube videos it seems that the pen lag is again an issue (there's a comparison vs cintiq video and what I saw there kinda scared me ).
i5 processor and that much pen lag ? Is there something I am missing? Can't imagine many people being comfortable with that. Is the pen lag some illusion caused by video compression on the presentation video ? ) .

And if the lag is real, did anyone mess with the drivers and settings to see if this lag is caused by the OS because it is trying to figure if you are trying to do a click or double tap or whatever tricks they have running for tablet PC that interfere with art programs ? ( I see in previous posts that this was the issue on other tablets) .


Thank you

[Ayris]

Hey everyone, i was looking to buy a Cintiq but was put off the 12" version because the poor resolution and the 21 is out of my price range at the moment! I live in the u.k though and the ep121 is not out over here! Are they actually practical for work, and do you know of the best thing available over here? I use tvpaint 90% of the time for my animations so i could do with at least 1080p to fit all the panels i need and still have space to work. What would you suggest?
Thanks for any help.

[Mossi]

@Ayris:

Check out this blog.

Though I haven't gotten my hands on it yet (hooray for Iceland), I haven't seen anyone complaining about this computer's horse power.

With a good core, more than enough Ram and an SSD I think you'd be well set with it.

But.. if 90% of your work is animating, I'd personally rather save up some money and get a Cintiq 21UX.. since on the EP121, you'd always be staring onto this small a screen the whole day, seems like a good way to get migraines.. and connecting the EP121 to a external monitor kinda ruins the point imho.

IMO, the Ep121's not something to do serious high quality work , but rather to get things 60-75% done and finishing up on a workstation.

[Ayris]

@Ayris:

Check out this blog.

Though I haven't gotten my hands on it yet (hooray for Iceland), I haven't seen anyone complaining about this computer's horse power.

With a good core, more than enough Ram and an SSD I think you'd be well set with it.

But.. if 90% of your work is animating, I'd personally rather save up some money and get a Cintiq 21UX.. since on the EP121, you'd always be staring onto this small a screen the whole day, seems like a good way to get migraines.. and connecting the EP121 to a external monitor kinda ruins the point imho.

IMO, the Ep121's not something to do serious high quality work , but rather to get things 60-75% done and finishing up on a workstation.

Thanks for the link and advice, i was pretty sure the Cintiq 21 would have been better for me but just wanted to make sure i couldn't save some money, guess i better start saving them pennies

[Mossi]

Good luck bro

[pegasi]

Just what i wanted, but it seems almost impossible for me to get one. I've searched and it seems that only you US bastards can have them good and cheap! what a shame!

[ionruncan]

ASUS Eee Slate ep121 sounds good and the price sounds ok. For European users it is available on the amazon.de and amazon.co.uk
Does anyone found some reviews for this tablet? It looks like the drawing feature on this tablet is not promoted enough.

[aspenboy]

ionruncan: take a look here: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=203993 - the reviews are not so optymistic :/

[ionruncan]

I checked a bit more on the internet. There are not many reviews because i can see that is very difficult to buy one in Europe. The shipping of this tablet will start around the middle of May. I will get mine around 20 of May.
I did found a forum dedicated to this tablet and most of reviews sound good.
There is a guy that is successfully making a hackintosh from it and he already, almost fully ported a macosx on it.
There are drivers that are supporting this tablet on macosx.
The pressure sensitivity is 256 levels... From my point of view, that's enough to be able to make some good sketching at least, but i'm sure you can do more on it.
Check this links:
macosx on the EP121
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAHoYtADmN0
http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic....0&hilit=tablet
The unofficial forum for EP121:
http://ep121.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general

[Alex Eh]

Got my LE1700 working had to replace a cracked sceen that I broke and the HDD that failed. Clean install of Win7.

Tried I number of things to get the pressure sensitivity working. It seems to be working flawlessly so far after messing around with it for a few min in photoshop 7.

I don't know if the bamboo driver does anything. I first installed the Bamboo driver on the US site which did not work.

http://www.wacom.com/en/CustomerCare/Drivers.aspx

I then installed the tablet pc driver present on the European Wacom site
http://www.wacom.eu/index2.asp?pid=29&lang=en

And it works for me. I remember when I first got it about 3 months ago I had sudden loses of pressure sensitivity in photoshop. That's not there anymore.

Also emailed energizer support regarding the correct tip that could be used with the xp18000 universal battery for the LE1700. If I can find the correct tip ill definently get one of those to extend the battery life since mines less then an hour.

Anyways looking forward to using this baby tomorrow time for bed.

[Alex Eh]

If anyones interested in a penabled pen with 2 buttons on it this one will do.

Think it's about the size of an intuos pen which I'm hoping for

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Axiotron-Stu...item2eb4c4485d

[ClaudiaP]

Thank you very much for this link, I may well get one of these.

I had been looking at the ep121 and thought I really wanted one until I started doing a lot of research.

I finally decided on the Fujitsu lifebook T730 instead with a core i-5 processor and 320gb HD. It is heavier but it has longer battery life and the ability to add a second battery .
I got a refurbished model from the Fujitsu ebay store for less than half the price of new even with purchasing the warranty.

It arrived about 46 hours after the close of the auction with standard shipping and looks brand new. So far I'm really happy with it.

I played with it yesterday for about 3 straight hours and I still had over an hour of battery time left and I was not using battery saving at all.

The pen is very responsive and both Painter 11 and CS5 work perfectly, no brush lag in either, using watercolor brushes in Painter and mixer brush and bristle tips in CS5.

This thing is powerful enough to do complete paintings, not just sketch and start and move to desktop.

[Alex Eh]

So I've been using my LE1700 for around 2 weeks very few problems. the other night it locked up a few times, which scared me! I love it so much! I've done everything in Photoshop 7.

I am right handed, and since the buttons are normally on the right hand side, I always have the tablet in reverse landscape mode. I programed one of the buttons to flip the display from landscape mode to the reverse.

This allows me to use the buttons with my thumb while I hold the slate in my hand, which usually rests on my lap or I prop it up at around a 60 degree angle with my bag.

I've programed one of the buttons to save. Then using the dirrection keys I programed 2 of them to resize the brush, one to alt so I can color pick or if I'm using the zoom tool I can zoom out if I hold alt.

The battery life was horrible, would only last for around 30 min. I havnt done any real tests yet to find out the exact number, but I ordered 2 of these
Energizer XP18000 and they last for around 3 hours each with wifi, bluetooth disabled and the original battery removed. I'm unsure still if a fully changed battery drains the xp18000 faster.

[Alex Eh]

I received an Axiotron Studio Pen in the mail today and I find it wonderful to hold, I find it alot nicer then the pen that the LE1700 comes with and it a dual clickable button. I havn't tried yet but I would like to program one of the buttons to "alt" for the color picker in photoshop. Cost $50 though on ebay with shipping and handleing so not that cheap.

One thing I have noticed with the LE1700 is the buttons on the side of the computer are wearing down the shiny paint or what ever is almost all gone on thebuttons I programed for the color picker and resizeing the brush.

[Arshes Nei]

Thanks for mentioning that pen. They're 30 bucks on ebay right now.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...E:L:OC:US:1123

Looks like the person has a thousand pens to sell.

[Alex Eh]

Yup that's who I bought the pen from, really fast shipping.

At some point I'm thinking of droping a few more dollars for some kind of cooling pad to put the Slate on. After a few hours of use it starts running pretty hot and at some point it just starts running slow because of it.