Wacom Introduces MobileStudio Pro Line

NEW YORK –Wacom has introduced Wacom MobileStudio Pro, a new line of lightweight, powerful mobile computers with Wacom’s new pen technology.

MobileStudio Pro features the newly-designed Wacom Pro Pen 2, with 4x higher pen accuracy and pressure sensitivity than the company’s previous professional pen, enhanced resolution, leading-edge graphics, excellent color performance, 3D camera and other innovations.

Wacom has developed a family of 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch MobileStudio Pro computers to fit virtually every professional’s creative computer and budgetary needs (starting at $1,499). There are six configurations to choose from. Four 13.3-inch models combine maximum mobility with high performance and color accuracy and two 15.6-inch models deliver a larger work area, 4K resolution, high color performance as well as superior Nvidia Quadro graphics. Bundled with Windows 10, MobileStudio Pro has the power professional creatives need to run industry-standard applications such as Photoshop and Illustrator as well as demanding 3D creative software applications.

MobileStudio Pro 13: four models come with an IPS high-brightness panel, 2.5K (WQHD) resolution and 96% Adobe RGB. Customer options are defined by Solid State Drive (SSD) size – 64GB ($1499), 128GB ($1799), 256GB ($1999) and 512GB ($2499).

MobileStudio Pro 16: two models are fit with an IPS high-brightness panel, 4K (UHD) resolution and 94% Adobe RGB. There’s a 256GB ($2399) with NVIDIA Quadro M600M with 2GB VRAM and 512GB ($2999) with NVIDIA Quadro M1000M with 4GB VRAM.

The 3D camera is available on both models of the MobileStudio Pro 16 and on the 13 model’s 512GB version.

MobileStudio Pro is expected to be available online and at select retail locations in late November.

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FEATURES

Wacom Pro Pen 2

Natural feel with pinpoint accuracy

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Computing and graphics power

Run demanding creative 2D, 3D and CAD software – anywhere

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3D camera

Bring 3D object scanning into your creative work

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Stunning display

Life-like color and up to 4K resolution for a brilliant creative experience

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wacom mobile stuido overview pen features FPO Crop 2

New Wacom Pro Pen 2:
natural and precise

Our new Wacom Pro Pen 2 will instantly become your favorite creative tool. It’s more sensitive, more accurate and more responsive than any pen we’ve ever made.
Wacom mobile studio pro pen feature pressure sensative icon1

4x more pressure sensitive*

Wacom mobile studio pro pen feature accurate icon2

4x more accurate*

Wacom mobile studio pro pen feature no lag icon3

Virtually no lag

Wacom mobile studio pro pen feature tilt icon4

Natural tilt support

Wacom mobile studio pro pen feature paralax icon5

No parallax

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No batteries or recharging

*Compared to Wacom Pro Pen

Ready for the biggest projects

Wacom MobileStudio Pro is designed for serious creative workloads. It’s a full-featured, Intel powered computer with the muscle you need to run professional creative 2D, 3D and CAD applications. Multi-layered, hi-res, CMYK Adobe® Photoshop® files? Seven million vertices in your PixologicTM ZBrush® file? Let Wacom MobileStudio Pro take on the challenge. Choose up to 16GB of RAM, an Intel® CoreTM i7 processor and NVIDIA graphics – with up to 512GB of storage.

3D ready

Wacom MobileStudio Pro is ready-made for 3D. It’s available with powerful Intel™ processors, memory and storage configurations. And Wacom MobileStudio Pro 16 even offers high-performance NVIDIA Quadro graphics. Plus, select models include built-in Intel™ Real Sense camera and scanning software – perfect for product designers, CAD engineers and 3D sculptors who want to capture real world objects to start their creative process.

You’ll see – and feel – the difference

Whatever you’re creating, you’ll see every pica, pixel or polygon in perfect detail. With a resolution of up to 4K and color accuracy to 96% of Adobe® RGB, the screen on your Wacom MobileStudio Pro will make your work look amazing. But while you work, it’ll feel amazing too. The new etched glass surface provides the perfect amount of resistance to recreate the familiar feel and control of pen on paper. So working on Wacom MobileStudio Pro feels totally natural, instantly.

Designed for the way you create

The choice is yours

With six configurations to choose from, there’s sure to be one that fits your unique creative needs. The Wacom MobileStudio Pro 13 blends mobility with high performance and lets you sketch, draw, edit, and create with ease. Wacom MobileStudio Pro 16 models offer a larger mobile creative workspace and higher graphics performance – perfect for 3D design and sculpting, illustration, photography, video, animation and complex photo retouching.

Wacom MobileStudio Pro 13

i5 64

• Intel® CoreTM i5
• 64GB
• 4GB
• 
Intel® IrisTM Graphics 550

Wacom MobileStudio Pro 13

i5 128

• Intel® CoreTM i5
• 128GB
• 8GB
• Intel® IrisTM Graphics 550

Made for sketching and illustration, graphic design and image editing.

Wacom MobileStudio Pro 16

i5 256

• Intel® CoreTM i5
• 256GB
• 8GB
• NVIDIA Quadro M600M graphics with 2GB GDDr5 VRAM

A larger space for drawing, detailed concept art, 3D sculpting and painting, 3D CAD, motion graphics and advanced image editing and retouching.

Wacom MobileStudio Pro 13

i7 256

• Intel® CoreTM i7
• 256GB
• 8GB
• Intel® IrisTM Graphics 550

A great choice for drawing, image editing and retouching, detailed concept art, graphic design and 2D animation.

Wacom MobileStudio Pro 13

i7 512

• Intel® CoreTM i7
• 512GB
• 16GB
• Intel® IrisTM Graphics 550

Intel® RealSenseTM 3D camera and scanning software

Built for drawing, detailed concept art, 3D sculpting and painting, motion graphics and advanced image editing and retouching.

Wacom MobileStudio Pro 16

i7 512

• Intel® CoreTM i7
• 512GB
• 16GB
• NVIDIA Quadro M1000M graphics with 4GB GDDDR5 VRAM

Intel® RealSenseTM 3D camera and scanning software

Maximum power for drawing, detailed concept art, 3D sculpting and painting, 3D CAD, motion graphics and advanced image editing and retouching.

Customize your Wacom MobileStudio Pro

However you like to work, there’s an accessory to make Wacom MobileStudio Pro suit you (each sold separately).

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Wacom Wireless Keyboard

Wacom wireless keyboard is the perfect partner to your MobileStudio Pro for creative and office work. The slim, compact Bluetooth® keyboard charges quickly through a USB cable.

Wacom Link

While Wacom MobileStudio Pro is a powerful computer in own right, you can also attach it to another Mac or PC with Wacom Link so that you can use it as a standard Cintiq.

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Mobile Stand

The new Mobile Stand holds the MobileStudio Pro at three different drawing angles, so you’ll always find a comfortable working position. When you’re ready to move on, it folds flat for easy transport.

Cintiq Alternative- The Artisul D13

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Here’s an interesting new tablet on the market, or at least new to me and my friends… The Artisul D13 which is essentially a 13″ Cintiq type device. you draw directly on the screen and connect it to your laptop or desktop. No word on whether it has Wacom drivers or is N-trig but it seems to be a neat little device and if you read the story behind it, it was designed BY an artist so you know that they’re catering to our community. In the box are the tablet with stylus, Pen Case (10 tips + Pen and inbuilt tip remover), Pen stand HDMI & USB cable, Universal Power Adaptor and 12 Month Warranty. The Artisul D13 sells for $599 and the stand is an extra $60.

SPECIFICATIONS

specification-iconsORANGE_07
Compatible

with MAC and Windows

Advanced Precision

2048 pen pressure for easy control along with 10 pen tips

HD Display & Connections

13.3″ screen size, wide degree viewing angle, USB and HDMI cable

Ergonomics

right or left-handed adaptability

Hot Keys

for shortcuts and increased productivity

Portability

Can be powered by two 3.0USB

Here’s a short video of Roberto Blake using the device. He seems to like it and can clearly draw on it. Still no word on those damn drivers though!

Reviews- Thinkpad Yoga 14 and Surface Pro 4

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By Jason Kruse

Thinkpad Yoga 14:
I wanted to love both the Thinkpad Yoga 14 and the Surface Pro 4. I really did but unfortunately, both fell short.

I can only do a micro-review on the Yoga because, frankly I didn’t keep it long enough to do a full-blown review. First, the good:

It’s very affordable at around $1099 (and I had a 10% Movers Coupon at BB + $100 off for the holidays so it came to $899). It has a small Wacom pen built-in to the lefthand side which uses Wacom’s new AES technology. Plus, unlike a lot of the other new Wacom pens, it’s rechargeable when you place it back into its silo. Big, bright 14” screen with a number of viewing modes (laptop, tent, tablet, etc—though I generally draw in plain old laptop mode to easily hit the shortcut keys) and it was very solidly-built.

And now the bad which caused me to return it. First, Adobe apps tend to run at the wrong scale on the screen. They’re tiny but with a tweak to the program files, it was fixed. Annoying but not a deal-breaker.

There were, however, two showstoppers for me which rendered it fairly unusable for me. There’s a bug, I believe with the new Wacom tech, which makes only around half the pen strokes in Adobe Illustrator register. I’ve heard there’s a fix coming but I had too much work to do and couldn’t wait. The other—and this one really drove me crazy—was the touchpad. For some reason Lenovo made the decision to switch from Synaptics to Elan for their touchpad. At first I thought I could deal with it but the more I used it the more it drove me crazy. The cursor had a tendency to jump all over the place, the “right click” function would pop up when I was on left side of the pad and randomly while I was working. It drove me crazy. Even after I updated the drivers when it was suggested on the tablet forums they could help. I thought I could deal with it but after 4 nights of practically screaming, it went back.

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yoga-14

Surface Pro 4:
Now, onto the Surface Pro 4. It’s such a gorgeous, powerful and well-built machine. I’ve also been rooting for someone (n-trig in this case) to take on Wacom successfully. It was so very close this time. So, so close but no cigar.

So, the model I’d gotten was the Surface Pro 4, core i-7 with 8gb of RAM. I also bought the Type Cover (which I still think should come standard). The kickstand is nice but I bought a case from Amazon which rendered it useless. I also bought the extra set of nibs that change the hardness or softness of the pen tip.  And, unless you like the feel of drawing on very smooth glass, get a screen protector with some tooth. I got one from Photodon which  made it feel similar to my Cintiq at work.

My first thoughts were that the display was stunning, the digitizer was  responsive and all the programs I installed ran quickly and at the right resolution. It’s easy to pair the pen and holding the eraser button down launches OneNote (which I never use but it’s nice for those who do).  I’ve heard that older versions of Adobe have the same difficulty as I’d had on the Lenovo where certain apps run way too small but CC installed just fine. I was shocked at how much power they crammed into such a lightweight machine. It’s truly impressive.

Now, onto more specifics.

First up, the pen. I have mixed feelings on it, honestly. At first it seems like a really nice piece of hardware. It’s built of the same metal as the computer itself and this time has 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity whereas the Surface Pro 3’s pen had 256. Normally, I’ve found that increasing levels of pressure sensitivity is akin to increasing megapixels in cameras—it’s the law of diminishing returns—but in this case it’s noticeable. Even better, the Surface App (downloadable from the Microsoft Store) enables you to adjust the sensitivity curves which really helps particularly with initial activation force on the pen. Basically, that means if you want to you can put down more “ink” with less pressure or vice versa. It’s really personal preference. The pen nibs are also a very cool option but I think most people will prefer the standard nib it comes with which they say is HB. Honestly, none really feel like a true pencil but I have yet to try a stylus that does. One really cool thing is that the eraser does feel like an actual eraser. Oddly, I’ve found when I’ve used various tablets I rarely turn the pen over to erase. I usually just hit the eraser tool. Unfortunately, for some strange reason, there’s no pressure sensitivity with the eraser. Not sure why Microsoft did this.

Now, while the pen is a step forward from the Surface Pro 3’s version, it still fell short for me. For one thing, though the metal is premium, it’s actually too heavy. I like some weight but this was too much. Another thing I hadn’t noticed while at the store was that because the pen is not circular (it’s edged) around, it started to dig into my fingers. I’d say within an hour it felt like I’d been drawing all day. My fingers got sore and it was fairly annoying. A rubber grip of some kind would’ve been helpful. Most of my fellow professionals think I’m crazy but I never use the side buttons on my tablet pens. I have a nasty habit of accidentally hitting them so unfortunately I can’t comment on how good they are. Apparently, you can customize them now too which is nice.

I spent most of my time sketching with Manga Studio which has usurped Photoshop for me, personally. A common complaint with the Surface Pro 3 was the strange jitter that inking using the N-Trig pen caused, particularly when going slowly. A number of reviewers have stated that while it’s been mostly alleviated, it’s still there. I can confirm it. I found sketching quickly to be okay but when I went to final inks I found it very difficult to get the line-quality I wanted. Even with Manga Studio’s “line stabilization” feature, I didn’t care much for it. It felt like it took more effort to get the line to look the way I wanted. Maybe I ‘m just too used to Wacom. For me it was a step up from the Pro 3’s pen but it’s still not there.

Another strange thing that N-trig does is it leaves strange “tails” on the end of the line. I’ll see if I can find a pic (forgot to take a screen cap, sorry) but it kept bugging me the more I used it. It happens in both Photoshop and MS. Hopefully, N-trig is working on the problem. I will say N-trig has better “edge accuracy” than Wacom’s EMR tech so that’s a plus.

One thing I absolutely loved and hated to give up was the Type Cover. It’s so vastly improved from its previous incarnation. I really have no complaints about it. It was responsive and nice and “clicky”.

As I said earlier, the screen was gorgeous and I didn’t miss going from my 13.3” Fujitsu t901 screen to the Surface’s 12.3”. Oddly, the glass is so thin that it kind of “bends” while you’re drawing on it. I believe it’s Gorilla Glass and I tend to have a heavy hand when drawing so I really don’t think anyone’s in danger of breaking it easily.

I was also very impressed how cool the machine managed to stay. I mean, it gets fairly warm but not uncomfortably so. The speakers also seemed to be loud and clear so that was nice and my bluetooth headset paired easily with it.

The final reason I decided to return the unit though was Adobe Illustrator—it had a similar issue/bug to  Wacom’s AES tech. It was only registering half my pen strokes. I thought that maybe it was the screen protector but it turned out not to be the case, unfortunately. It seemed to be only the pen tool though. I looked into it more but there doesn’t seem to be a fix. So, between this issue and the others I’ve mentioned I decided that as nice as the Surface is it’s just not there yet. Not for me, at least. I know a number of other professionals using it may disagree but it just wasn’t for me. Maybe the next iteration will fix my complaints. I know I’m hoping so but right now it’s simply too expensive a purchase to wait beyond the return window I had for fixes.

One bug I encountered that is apparently something with Windows 10 and not exclusively the Surface line is that the MS Store App wouldn’t open. I found a number of work-arounds but ultimately to get it working again I had to do a reset that kept my files but forced me to re install my programs. On the plus side, I didn’t encounter any blue screens or sleep bugs that I’ve read about.

Surface Pro 4

 

 

Apple releases the iPad Pro

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Apple releases the iPad Pro

by Mike Milo

So Apple finally did it. They released an optional pen with their new iPad Pro which is odd considering that legendary Apple CEO Steve Jobs jokingly expressed his animosity towards styluses in general. “Yuck, who needs a stylus,” he claimed. Another thing he said was “If you need a stylus you’ve already failed.”

And yet with the success of the Surface Pro line from Microsoft it would seem Apple is eating it’s words. And I think they’ve failed to tell the truth.

Dubbed the “Apple Pencil”  it’s a rechargeable stylus exclusively for the 12.9” iPad tablet. Despite the name, it remains to be seen whether this is going to be a killer device for ‘pros’ since it’s running iOS9 and not OSX which was rumored.

I can tell you that the all-white stylus felt light in the hand when I used it to scribble in Notes and draw on a picture in Apple’s native Mail app. It also felt fast, unlike some styluses that suffer from latency issues. But again, I didn’t use it for an extended period of time. As with Microsoft’s Surface Pro stylus, you can use it with certain applications, but not all applications. Other developers that will fully support the Apple Pencil are Microsoft’s Office suite, as well as a few of Adobe’s iPad-tailored apps that will be exclusively available on the iPad Pro and will ship in November.

That quote above which is from The Verge says all I need to hear: you can use it with certain applications, but not all applications, which basically makes it a very expensive hobbyist toy as  you’ll never run a serious animation or 3d program off of it which is silly considering the price.

Another thing they did wrong in my opinion is that you need to charge the pen. That’s as lame as it gets as far as I’m concerned and in many ways a deal breaker. It’s one thing if it charged inside the tablet but it doesn’t. Instead, it has an embedded Lightning connector that allows you to directly connect it to the iPad Pro and charge it which tells me you can’t keep the iPad plugged in AND charge the pen at the same time. Why? You know as well as I do that that damn thing is always gonna be dead when you pick it up to doodle on a whim. I guess it’s better than creating some stupid proprietary Apple charging connector just for the Pencil so I’ll give them that.

The iPad Pro will ship in November and starts at $799 for a 32GB device. For one with 128GB of storage, you’re looking at $1,079. It will be available in silver, gold and space grey. The Apple Pencil will cost you $99

 

 

 

Phree device on Kickstarter seeks to let you write on anything

Here’s an interesting device that seeks to allow you to write on anything and have it instantly transfer to your phone. It’s more or less like a Wacom pen but there’s no tablet. Anything you draw anywhere transfers in real time to your phone. Kinda cool but I wonder if that means you can draw on the screen itself and it will still work. After all you can draw on anything so…

Apparently the pen will also let you talk on it like a phone should you so desire to look that silly.

If you’re interested in backing them, drive your browser over here.