Computer / Tablet

[kkmauch]

Sorry if this is off topic. I am looking for the best option for my situation. I travel often, including WDW. I need something incredibly portable, with plenty of speed and battery life so download my DSLR pics from SD card and need to be able to work on updating my website. Don't need to work on photo processing much, just need to be able to clear out my 32GB cards quickly so I can use them again.

Any suggestions? I am open to tablet or laptop, but I really am not sure what offers the portability, storage and speed with full access to non-mobile URL for website updates.

Thanks for any suggestions!!

 

[hakepb]

Tablets are not ideal for photo storage (very few ways to attach external hard drives) and post-processing. A laptop would be a much easier solution to your problem.

 

[cisobe]

Take a look at the future Samsung ATIV Q. Its a combo tablet laptop that runs windows 8 and android. It has a full keyboard and decent processor and ram. You can attach a external hard drive for additional storage too. Supposed to be released soon. If not maybe a surface pro.

 

[photo_chick]

It really depends on how much you want to spend. There are a lot of options. I'd pass on the iPad or an Android tablet for this job. It's just not where they excel. Netbooks and Chromebooks can get the job done, and there are some really nice Windows 8 tablets that bridge the gap between laptop and tablet that would work very well here. There are also a number of laptops that are very thin and light that can more than do the job. But it all comes back to how much you want to spend.


Another option with any device is to use cloud storage. Like with an iPad get the camera connect kit and then use cloud storage. Of course that relies on a decent internet connection and we all know how reliable WDW is in that respect. So I figure it's probably the most time consuming option of them all.

 

[zackiedawg]

As others mentioned, price is your big differentiator. How much do you want to spend? For years, I've used a netbook for vacation photo storage - since I did no editing with it...the small screen and low res, plus slow processor, were no big deal as I only used the device to access e-mail and store backups of my photos.

I recently upgraded to a Windows 8 Tablet/laptop hybrid - I went with the Asus Vivo Tab...beautiful machine, gorgeous build, battery life is absurd (20+ hours when in laptop mode, and 10 hours in tablet mode), processor is fast, and harddrive is solid-state 64GB, plus has expandable miniSD slot where I keep another 64GB for double backup, or longer trips where I need the extra space. It's incredibly thin, even in laptop mode. Comes with a lovely IDS 11.6" WXGA touchscreen with built-in Wacom digitizer and supplied stylus:
http://eee.asus.com//en/vivotab/specification/

Not cheap, but an excellent option that works beautifully for me. The fact that I can use it for remote desktop on my office computer while travelling, and can use it in tablet mode when I want to go light, or just surf internet and e-mail in the morning out on the balcony...that's all icing on the cake.

 

[SkaGoat]

Honestly you might want to look into a 128 GB Microsoft Surface Pro.

At $899.99 at Best Buy they are a steal, a beautiful screen, they're small & light, run Windows 8 Pro, have an i5, 128 GB SSD, and USB 3.0 for any external hard drives you might need to use. Pretty good battery life as well.

 

[11290]

FWIW: I "normally" take somewhere between 200 and 250 pics a day when we travel, depending on where we go. I use a Galaxy Tab2 10.1 tablet and copy all the daily to a folder with that days date on the microSD card storage of the tablet, then back it up to a "thumb drive". I have both 16 and 32gb cards & thumb drives that I use. Works well for me until I get home.

There are some tablets, ASUS or Acer (can't remember which one - I think ASUS), that will power external HDD's. I know Samsung won't.

 

[kkmauch]

Im headed to Best Buy today to test out some of these options. I think I can find something that will work great based on all your suggestions. Thank you!!

 

[cisobe]

I forgot to mention... the Microsoft Surface Pro not only is a full laptop, it also has a digitizer (pen). This means you can use it with photoshop or any drawing program and use the tablet like a cintiq!

however, it does have limited space, so a 1tb external hard drive would be handy (good thing they are relatively cheap).

 

[SkaGoat]

I forgot to mention... the Microsoft Surface Pro not only is a full laptop, it also has a digitizer (pen). This means you can use it with photoshop or any drawing program and use the tablet like a cintiq!

however, it does have limited space, so a 1tb external hard drive would be handy (good thing they are relatively cheap).

I think he's only using it to offload photos from his SD cards while he's on the road, I took it he had larger, more permanent storage elsewhere.

 

[photo_chick]

Having used a Cintiq (we've got a 12" among our Wacoms in the house) and a Surface with a pen input.... it's not the same experience at all. THere are some subtleties that the Cintiq has that aren't quite there on other pen input screens. Lenovo has been working with Wacom though. If that's something you're interested in then check out their offerings.

 

[SkaGoat]

Having used a Cintiq (we've got a 12" among our Wacoms in the house) and a Surface with a pen input.... it's not the same experience at all. Lenovo has been working with Wacom though. If that's something you're interested in then check out their offerings.

You're wrong.... the only difference between them is the screen size, 10" screen on the Surface Pro vs. 13" on the Cintiq, they don't even sell a Cintiq with a screen smaller than 13" and it's $999. You get a Wacom digitizer & pen + a whole i5 ultra book for $899.

It is all Wacom hardware inside the Surface Pro. When it first came out there weren't any drivers for the Adobe apps (that's fixed now).

 

[photo_chick]

You're wrong.... the only difference between them is the screen size, 10" screen on the Surface Pro vs. 13" on the Cintiq, they don't even sell a Cintiq with a screen smaller than 13" and it's $999. You get a Wacom digitizer & pen + a whole i5 ultra book for $899.

It is all Wacom hardware inside the Surface Pro. When it first came out there weren't any drivers for the Adobe apps (that's fixed now).

The surface I used was not nearly as responsive as the Cintiq we have here. It didn't have the touch sensitivity to the degree the Cintiq does, nor the sensitivity to angles. The Cintiq 12WX that I'm looking at right here on my desk is 12" and was $999 when it was new Christmas before last. It's the model that uses the Intuos 3 platform. The new HD Cintiq does start at 13".

Can you point me to literature where it talks about the Wacom hardware? Because if it was just an issue with drivers or how it was setup I'd seriously reconsider them.

 

[SkaGoat]

The surface I used was not nearly as responsive as the Cintiq we have here. It didn't have the touch sensitivity to the degree the Cintiq does, nor the sensitivity to angles. The Cintiq 12WX that I'm looking at right here on my desk is 12" and was $999 when it was new Christmas before last. It's the model that uses the Intuos 3 platform. The new HD Cintiq does start at 13".

Can you point me to literature where it talks about the Wacom hardware? Because if it was just an issue with drivers or how it was setup I'd seriously reconsider them.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/10/4317986/surface-pro-pressure-sensitive-wacom-driver-download

and a ifixt tear down, see step 6 for the Wacom hardware

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Pro+Teardown/12842/1

 

[wiigirl]

Tablets are not ideal for photo storage (very few ways to attach external hard drives) and post-processing. A laptop would be a much easier solution to your problem.

 

[photo_chick]

http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/10/4317986/surface-pro-pressure-sensitive-wacom-driver-download

and a ifixt tear down, see step 6 for the Wacom hardware

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Pro+Teardown/12842/1

Cool. Thanks! I'll go check it out again. I searched some after your post and saw that there were indeed some driver issues early on that caused issues with responsiveness. Could be what I experienced.

 

[photo_chick]

OK.. I researched further. The Surface has 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity. As far as I can find it is not angle sensitive which is a big deal features wise. So, not a Cintiq. More like the current Bamboo. There's a big difference in the user experience between the two. I'm not saying it's not great for what it is, just that being a Wacom doesn't make it a Cintiq.

 

[cisobe]

Ah, that's disappointing. I was in the microsoft store and the sales person i was talking to said it was based on the intuos tablets (meaning it was angle sensitive). was hoping to pick one up once the prices drop a bit more...

I have a bamboo create (got it really cheap and before i did much research on wacom tablets). It's alright, but I kind of wanted the angle support. It also takes some getting used to drawing on a tablet, and looking up at a screen to see what you're drawing.

to the OP, the Microsoft Surface Pro is still a pretty decent tablet/laptop combo. It does have limited space, but unlike other tablets (galaxy tab/note or the ipad), it does have a full size usb port that you can use to attach a hard drive.

If you're looking only to off load pictures, maybe look into a hyper drive. I have an older model that I use to dump copies of pictures from my CF and SD cards while I travel. I take a bunch of 16 and 32gb cards and just use the hyperdrive and a secondary backup while traveling.

I've been using a Eye-fi X2 pro lately in the SD slot of my 5d3. I set it up to save small jpgs to the eye-fi, and I push protected jpgs to my android tablet and use my tablet to post to my smugmug account or to facebook, or any other service i can access with my tablet.

 

[zackiedawg]

I'll mention again just to clarify with all the talk of the Surface tablet - the Asus Vivo Tab I have is very similar - Windows 8, Wacom digitizer, tablet + dock = laptop, etc. The things that hold an advantage is that the 'dock' half is a proper laptop base, not just a keyboard add-on to a tablet - it has a battery and USB inputs all its own...and excellent balance in laptop mode where it doesn't need a kickstand to stay up when open...and when in tablet form, it has its own battery and inputs as well, so it can be used fully as a tablet when desired. The unique point is when they're together - the base and tablet batteries combine - the tablet battery will use first, followed by the base battery for about 20 total hours of battery life. If you use the tablet separately then return it to the base, the base battery will actually transfer its charge to the tablet battery, so you can even get 20 hours out of the tablet alone without plugging it in, because you can run the tablet down and return it to the base to charge it back up.

I knew I was getting a Windows 8 tablet (Not the RT version, but the full Win8), but shopped around the Surface, and a few other combo/hybrid units from Dell, Acer, etc..the Asus was unique with the double batteries and gorgeous build, so I went that route. And while I was worried initially about the limited 64GB harddrive, I love that it's solid state, doesn't get hot or make noise, and as I do with a cellphone, I stuck in a 64GB miniSD card in the tablet and leave it there, where it becomes a second solid state drive for storage, and I can still back everything up to a portable Passport drive via USB (it does power drives plugged in via USB).

 

[cisobe]

How's the performance on the Vivo Tab? I checked it out after your post, and saw that it's running a dual core intel atom processor. The main reason I mentioned the surface is because it runs an i5 processor, which gives you the power of a standard laptop. I had a net book with an atom processor, and the performance was less then stellar... good enough for checking email, and surfing the web, but not much else...

curious how the vivo tab runs...