Pixel or papyrus
September 1st, 2006
I think I really want a tablet computer. I actually write 50% of my notes on paper; that includes my daily work notes, fight choreography and screenplay ideas. I find it easier to be more creative and consise when capturing information in a paper form, but obviously love the ease of use factor of the electronic, so to me that means tablet. Looking around at a few and Dell sells what looks to be a nice one the LE1600 and LS800 from Motion Computing.
Entry Filed under: Technology
4 Comments Add your own
1. Chad | September 4th, 2006 at 10:30 am
I’d go for a tablet too, except that it doesn’t really do anything to organize sketches. If it had a keyboard (like a laptop) then at least it keeps things in character form that can be refactored word-processor style. I can type MUCH faster than I can write with a pen/stylus. So the advantage has to be all the OTHER data that needs to be sketched, labelled, pictogrammed or hieroglyphed. If it had a way of cleaning up sketch information, or refactoring the drawings later into either cleaner versions, or exctacting information from them, that would be cool.
I realize that character recognition is the first step of all this, and they do that. And many interface commands and interactions are stylus-ized, so that’s good. But it needs something like google sketch-up that can keep my drawing strokes organized too. It also needs a complete historical stroke editor so that you can turn drawings in to slicker Illustrator-quality drawings. Otherwise I just have mounds of drawings. And they have to be searchable, so hopefully it knows what I’ve drawn. Anyways. For me, I’d always have a keyboard plugged in. And I’m also wondering about what the optimal size would be. 30″ widescreen LCD in tablet form is, er, awkward at best.
2. Casaubon | September 5th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
It’s me, Spindrift. I have wanted one of these forever. Chad brings up good points, though, it seems to me– like, a lot of the 2D and 3D content development programs available depend on keyboard shortcuts, and, in particular, the modality of input– like, CTRL+input vs. ALT+input. I can’t tell from the product listings whether these tablet PCs enables that kind of workflow or not.
3. Chad | September 9th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
OK I’ve cruised the website a couple of times, and this thing would be so much fun–super cool. Too bad it has no firewire: otherwise I would be using the MOTU Traveller with it.
4. Nick | September 10th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
I guess I should say that I’ve got different goals than you two with this device. I don’t want to do much drawing and I don’t want to use graphic applications. I really want it for a substitute notebook… take my writing and capture it electronically. I would think that it would be exceptionally good at doing so.
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