Dropped by the AsusPH headquarters yesterday and I got to pit the two against each other. Now you might say that these two are very much different and while that is true, they share a particular technology which is very relevant to the field of design: a Wacom digitizer panel.
The primary characteristic that makes the EP121 stand out is that it is equipped with an i5 processor with 4gigs of RAM, that in itself equates it to a power computing standard during its hayday, heres a tour around the device;
It is also accompanied by its very own uniquely designed bluetooth keyboard and the digitizer pen with 512 levels of pressure for when interfacing with the machine. This particular unit didnt get to market itself in our shores because the technology then (around 2 years ago) made it a bit expensive to produce. Its specifications however, even for today’s tasks (except gaming), remain quite formidable.
The more recent offering, the TF810, possess a number of advantages over its predecessor because of technological advancements in the production of hardware and manages to do plenty of what the earlier Slate can offer… here is a tour around the Vivotab:
You can already feel the difference in weight just by looking at the sides. This machine comes with a battery equipped keyboard dock with a second generation hinge and locking mechanism and its own Wacom pen wiith 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity:
While I have yet to find this compared to the Cintiq, it does perform with a very important technology that the other pen enabled machines from other manufacturers does not have: a working palm rejection that allows resting on the surface for more comfortable penning, you can see it at work below:
The main reason that this machine isnt being compared to the workstation level of utility is because of its processor which really targets more on the power management and continuous operation away from a wall outlet as you can see below:
Here’s the same screen for the Slate for comparison:
While the WEI (Windows Experience Index) of the Slate is inferior to the Vivotabs, the response of the pen and overall usability of the device for heavy applications is affected… of course what we’re seeing here is an engineering model for the Vivotab so there might be improvements in the final build.
Since you cant realistically purchase the Slate in stores anymore, there really is no contest between these two. I just wanted to look at how both the digitizers compare. It would’ve required a more in-depth test using at least the free sketchbook app in the Microsoft Store for a better comparison. Heres to hoping a more powerful model of the Vivotab comes out, one that will really be a more portable Cintiq-ish experience.
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