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OLD BUT GOOD TECH THURSDAY: FUJITSU T901

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Old But Good Tech Thursday
#oldbutgoodtechthursday
#tbt

Fujitsu t901
by Jason Kruse
www.jasontkruse.com

What can I say about the Fujitsu t901? It’s portable, durable and powerful enough for most of my needs. It’s got a zippy core i5 processor, 256gb SSD hard drive, 13.3″ screen that makes drawing a pleasure. And for someone who prefers to draw on the couch instead of at a desk, it’s pretty much perfect. Plus, it’s far cheaper than a Cintiq.

This is now my 2nd Fujitsu and let me tell you, it’s a great purchase. I bought this model refurbished 2.5 years ago off of a private seller on ebay after owning the Fujitsu t4220 (also bought on ebay) for over 3 years. I was so pleased with the quality on the t4220 that I decided to stay with Fujitsu. Refurbished, this thing was a steal. I got it for $579 (it didn’t hurt that my company at the time gave us money towards new tablets either). Since then, I’ve upgraded to an SSD hard drive and 8gbs of RAM. Because this is a convertible tablet, I’m constantly moving it around and the original hard drive got the dreaded BSOD. Not having any moving parts in the new hard drive gives me a little more piece of mind. Still, I highly recommend backing everything up with some kind of online service like Crashplan.
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I run quite a few programs on this little beauty and unless you’re working with a huge file, it really won’t have a problem. I mostly use Photoshop and Flash these days and I’ve run into very few issues (knock on wood). I’ve even used After Effects which is a notorious memory hog. To be fair, I’ve only done some editing  in that program but the Fujitsu didn’t have any problems. Illustrator, Manga Studio and Mischief also run smoothly on it. As for 3d, I haven’t tried it on here and frankly, something with a video card and 16gb will probably suit your needs a lot better. There are some tablets out there that do it but they’re few and far between. The Cintiq Companion, the t902 and a Lenovo x230 are the ones that spring to mind.

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There are really only a couple of cons I can give the t901. One is its weight. It certainly isn’t as portable as I would like. It weighs around 5lbs which doesn’t seem like much on paper but when you carry this around thru say, the airport, it gets annoying pretty quickly. On top of that, the battery doesn’t last long. I really can’t give you an estimate for how long a new battery might last since again, this machine is a refurb. It’s always plugged in and these days the battery seems to last at most, a half an hour. Maybe if I buy a new battery but I’m fine with the way it is.

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As for drawing on this computer, I give it a big thumbs up. The screen has some “tooth” to it and while it’s not at level of drawing on paper, it certainly doesn’t have that “drawing on water” feel that I experienced while playing with the Surface Pro 3 at the Microsoft Store. In fact, I’ve greatly cut down on my paper consumption in the last couple of years because of this computer. The pen is a good size for me and there’s a handy dock on the lower-front of the machine. It’s also got usb ports, hdmi, SD slot–pretty much all the good stuff. And again, the 13.3″ screen is big enough so you won’t be hurting too much for drawing space.

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All in all, you’ll get a lot of bang for your buck with any Fujitsu. Lately, I’ve been toying with upgrading to the t904 but honestly, I think this one still has a lot of life left in it. You really can’t go wrong with a Fujitsu.

 

 

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OLD But GOOD Tech Thursday- Fujitsu T5010

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Yet another brand new feature here on Animation Insider in the form of Old But Good Tech Thursdays!

Since Thursdays is traditionally Throw Back Thursdays #TBT anyway, I figure it’s a good day to showcase old technology that is still a good purchase for artists since there’s MANY great old tablets out there you can pick up for almost nothing these days. Each week will strive to post a new article  highlighting old computers and tablets from an artist’s perspective. If you would like to do a review of your favorite tablet or hardware, feel free to give us a shout!
Armed with a copy of Sketchbook Pro, these cheap old gems are still quite viable as a digital tool for the budding artist or old school paper and pencil animator looking to go digital. Even seasoned digital artists looking for a second device to put by the bed for that quick late night sketch might find these tablets useful.

Now granted, you’re not going to be running Storyboard Pro or Harmony on these because well truthfully the graphics card can’t handle it (but an old copy of Maya works fine) so it’s not for your main machine but it works perfectly well as a digital sketchbook at Starbucks or the park. Some of these even have View Anywhere Technology made specifically to view outdoors.  You can run Photoshop, Flash, Painter, and ArtRage on most of these, but Photoshop doesn’t always play nice for drawing on these old things, because it’s a pig. You can still edit with it and composite a piece easily enough.

That said, you don’t have to shell out thousands for the new Cintiq Companion or the Surface Pro to sketch digitally and you’re keeping these jewels off the junk heap which is better for our planet and who doesn’t want to help the earth?

That said, our first Old But Good Tech is the Fujitsu T5010 which can currently be purchased on eBay for $129 bucks and it will Windows 8.1 so it will likely run Windows 10!

Fujitsu T5010Fujitsu T5010
by Heather Martinez
heathermartinez.blogspot.com
(All art done on the Fujitsu T5010)

Have Fujitsu Lifebook T-Series…Will travel! And I do.  I travel a lot. I art a lot. I’m also a bit stingy when it comes to spending money, but I’ll grudgingly fork it over if the product meets my needs. About 5 years ago, I was looking into whether I wanted a Cintiq or just another portable tablet. I had burned though a Motion Computing Tablet, and a little 10.15” Fujitsu T4220 convertible tablet. At the time, there was no Cintiq Companion out, and my only choice in the Cintiq world would be to tote around a separate screen display attached to a laptop. No. Not when you do freelance illustration for a living and your life is always on the go.  Fujitsu had just come out with their T5010 series, which are also called  “swivel tablets.” No docking, no pulling apart your tablet and inserting it into a clunky keyboard, and no attaching a separate keyboard via USB nonsense. It’s a laptop with keyboard when you need it and a tablet when you need it.  You open it up, swivel it and fold it back for a tablet. The other thing I was looking for in a world where ALL the new tablets were touch screen only, was a Wacom enabled  tablet with digitizer pen input  ONLY. Fujitsu had it. The only down-side was that the digitizer pen that comes with the laptop is clunky, so I kept the slick one from Motion Computing. I still buy about 4 of those a year. They run about 45 bucks each, but are worth every penny.  The display had also grown up since my last Fujitsu model. The screen was 13.3”. Not bad for a tablet.

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Windows 7 had come out, but I had read all the abysmal reviews and didn’t trust it. Now mind you, this was 5 years ago, but I purchased this Fujitsu T5010 for a whopping $ 3,000.00. I think it would have run me closer to $2,000, but I added a bunch of bells and whistles, like an extended battery, DVD RW,  a 500GB hard drive, upgraded to 4GB of RAM, etc.  Here I was, with a $3,000 dollar laptop running on old Windows XP.  I have run CS2 through CS6, Art Rage and Sketchbook Pro 2010. I’ve illustrated many a project on it, including 3 Golden Books, and it still runs like a champ.  The obvious problems with Windows XP began to emerge this past year.  Running on a 32-bit system when all the new cool stuff is run on 64 bit systems was beginning  to become a hindrance.  The countdown to computer crash was on. With luck, I might be fine continuing my Illustration work, but if I wanted to install, say, Storyboard Pro, I couldn’t.  So, about 6 months ago, I started my quest for newer and better. The Cintiq Companion came out, and I thought my search was over. I was juggling several projects and in the middle of a move, so I put it buying a 2,500.00 computer on the back-burner. Until last week, when my 40 lb. dog sat on my T5010 and cracked the screen.  Don’t ask.

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AAAAGGHHH! So, I’m in the middle of a HUGE project with a tight deadline, and my Fujitsu has a long hairline fracture running horizontally across my work space. Thank God the laptop still functions, but what on earth am I going to get to replace this thing if it doesn’t hold out?  I don’t have time to deal with a whole new interface and waiting for a new Cintiq to arrive just wouldn’t do.  I jumped on Ebay and found the old and familiar Fujitsu T-series. The difference? They are now all listed at UNDER 300 bucks! The other difference? I found a more updated 64-bit, with 4GB of RAM that had Windows 8 already installed! The guy was apologetic that it DIDN’T have touch-input. Thank heavens, no touch input! He also apologized that it didn’t come with a digitzer pen.  Again, no loss.  In all, I paid $260.00 to replace and upgrade my old pal. The hard drive only has about 300GB, but I have a husband that can replace it with a much bigger one when my big project is over. There is, of course, no amount of value that can be placed on having a techie friend, or husband, for that matter.

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You’ll want to install the Wacom driver that is available on their website so all your programs have good pen pressure sensitivity. If you want to buy new, Fujitsus will last forever…Unless of course, your furry friend sits on it. But I must warn you that new Fujitsus are expensive, and their tech support was and is pretty bad.  (I wanted to know if some of their newer tablets would allow me to disable the touch screen option and just allow for digi pen input and they had no clue.) The other down-side is that Fujitsus have notoriously clunky fans that start to sound like a rock in a blender as they get older. They eventually need to be replaced. I’d be happier running on an SSD, but sometimes you can’t have it all.

 

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Microsoft’s 84-inch pen display for the office

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAMicrosoft had a BIG news day yesterday, among those details about the next version of Windows, and a GIANT 84″ wall screen called the Surface Hub which is essentially a humungous Surface Pro you hang on your conference room wall complete with pressure sensitive pen which magnetically attaches to the side of the screen allowing you erase etc. It’s essentially made to work with One Note but is also a full fledged PC which means you could open Maya, Harmony or Flash with it as well. Strategically placed cameras on the device allow Skype to make it appear as though everyone is speaking at eye level so you can brainstorm on a file as though your entire team was in the room even though they may be abroad. The one flaw seems to be that you do not save files on the device but rather are presented with an email address to send them to your own computer. I’m sure they’ll change that because that seems ridiculous. No word on price or release date yet, but I’m sure it’s gonna cost as much as a small car!

You can read the full article and more pics here!

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Wacom revamps its hybrid Windows tablet for 2015

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Engadget is reporting that Wacom has finally updated it’s original hybrid.

If you remember last year Wacom came out with an expensive but sweet little device called the Wacom Companion which was a standalone portable tablet that let you draw on the go, but also connect to your PC or Mac when you were home for a bit of added extra power. It was a clever concept but also in true traditional Wacom flair, expensive as Hell. Well, today Wacom released a new updated model with better specs as well as a reduced cost by $200. Not bad Wacom, not bad!

From Engadget’s site:

 For 2015, though, Wacom has added more configurations, and knocked $200 off the price. Just like its predecessor, the new Cintiq Companion 2 doubles as a handy pen display when you’re working at home, pairing with either a Windows PC or Mac via the Wacom Connect app.

You can read the whole article here.

A bit more about the Wacom Companion 2 from Wacom’s site:

Arriving early 2015. Available in 5 models.

Enjoy total creative freedom and a superior, natural pen-on-screen drawing experience with a Cintiq Companion 2nd generation. Engineered to run your professional creative software, the Cintiq Companion 2 is ready to inspire the most demanding artists and designers. Create under open skies or plug into your Mac or PC to bring each remarkable detail of your expression to life with exquisite accuracy

Cintiq Companion 2 Features

 

Mac and PC compatible
Powerful Windows 8 creative tablet that you can also use as a Cintiq when attached to a Mac or PC

A professional grade creative pen and a highly responsive glass screen that’s finished to provide the friction of a natural pen-on-paper feel while reducing glare.

13″ widescreen HD display

ExpressKeysâ„¢, Rocker Ring and multi-touch gestures

Pro Pen – ultra-fine precision, 2048 pressure levels and tilt recognition

Ergonomically designed for professional artists and designers (left-handed or right-handed, doesn’t matter!). Work comfortably with the Pro Pen in hand, using conveniently placed ExpressKeys™, a soft-grip tablet back and 4-position adjustable stand to easily work wherever, whenever.

Intel® Core™ Processing Power

Cintiq Companion 2 Specifications

Modes
Fully portable or plug into your Mac or PC

Display Size & Resolution
13.3 inch
2560 x 1440 WQHD display

Overall Dimensions
374 x 248 x 15 mm (14.7 x 9.9 x 0.6 in)

Weight
1.7 kg (3.75 lbs)

Advanced Controls
Wacom Pro Pen and multi-touch

Productivity Boosters
ExpressKeysâ„¢ and on-screen controls

Compatibility (when plugged in)
Windows® 7 and later
Mac OS X 10.8 and later

Operating System
Windows 8.1 or Windows 8.1 Pro

Processor
Intel® Core™ processors

Memory
Available with 4 to 16 GB DDR memory

Storage
Available with 64 to 512 GB solid state drive (SSD) storage

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News: Toshiba’s inexpensive Windows tablets now have a pen option

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With CES in full swing, lot’s of interesting tech tidbits for us artists are surfaces, so here’s something interesting… Toshiba has just updated their cheap tablets to support pen input!

What does that mean? Well, you can now get a cheap Windows 8.1 tablet for under $500 and run full blown Sketchbook pro on it to draw to your hearts content. Now, of course that does NOT mean that you’ll likely be running Flash, Photoshop or any other processor intensive app on it’s tiny little Atom processor, but it does allow you to have a modern tablet that you can doodle with and not forgo a full interface by having to work around iOS’s refusal to include pen input or Android’s hit and miss implementation of the same. Now of course, whether the digitizer is powerful enough to handle real time pen input remains to be seem but it seems plausible since it it will have pressure sensitivity.

From Engadget’s site:

Though they are indeed inexpensive, they allow for pressure-sensitive pen input, something you’ll rarely see on a device in this price class. The two tablets come in 8- and 10-inch sizes, and will sell for $350 and $400 when they go on sale next week. For the money, you get a Wacom-made pen, with 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity. To put that in perspective, Microsoft’s own Surface 2 costs $449 and doesn’t have a pen option.

What’s also interesting to note here is Toshiba’s including three useful apps the third of which I find extremely useful. The first one  is called TruCapture allows you to scan newspaper clippings and other printed text using the tablet’s 8-megapixel camera, and then automatically brightens and straightens them. In addition, the app uses character recognition, allowing you to search for keywords later, as well as export raw text to Toshiba’s “TruNote” app which is the second app they’re releasing with this tablet. You can write, draw, doodle and clip anything in and out of this app, which could be cool for research etc.

The third app called TruRecorder, I find the most interesting. It can recognize different voices in a conversation, and then break up the recording according to who’s speaking, complete with color-coded labels for each person. From there, you can play back individual voices, or specific combinations of people. Anyone wanting to record their dialog for a short or animatic will instantly recognize the value of that!

The fact that tablet companies are finally seeing people would like stylus input but not pay $1500 for what really is about as useful as a sheet of paper is both encouraging and exciting. here’s to many more clever art related gadgets in 2015!

 

You can read the whole Engadget article here.

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News: HP’s Surface Pro 3 replica debuts today

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROTZLWKtQz4

The Verve is reporting that HP has released a Surface Pro clone which goes on sale today. No word yet whether it’s Wacom digitizer or nTrig (which I think was the downfall of the Surface 3). A quick look on Wacom’s site shows that Wacom has yet to produce a 15″ digitizer and since this Envy x2 comes in a 15″ model, it’s doubtful. Some seem to think it’s Amtel which means it’s not going to be the best for drawing according to this post.

HP is launching its own version of the Surface Pro 3 today. No, it hasn’t taken over manufacturing of Microsoft’s tablet, it’s merely imitating it. HP’s new Envy x2 has a multi-angle kickstand, a fabric keyboard cover that clicks into place with a stylus holder loop, and it all adds up to something that looks eerily similar to Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 tablet. There’s a 13.3-inch model and a 15-inch version, and both ship with Intel’s latest Core M processors in a variety of configurations. Although the 13-inch model has a base display that’s 1366 x 768 resolution, it can be upgraded to match the 1920 x 1080 resolution of the base 15-inch model.

You can read the whole story here.