08-15-2004, 12:05 PM
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 | Administrator | | Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: USA
Posts: 3,322
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| A New Class of Computers
"The model I tested is from Gateway, made by Motion Computing. It has a 933 MHz Pentium III processor, 768 MB of RAM, and a 40 GB hard drive. Although the processor is not state-of-the-art—there are newer models shipping now with faster CPUs—processor speed isn’t the issue for bitmap graphics work; however, for digital video or 3D rendering, it is.
There are two basic types of tablets: slate and convertible. Slate Tablet PCs have detachable keyboards and no internal CD or floppy drives, while convertibles are much like contemporary notebooks but have a double-hinge on the screen that allows the screen to flip around and fold back down, completely covering the keyboard. Most models of either kind have built-in WiFi (802.11b) and all the usual ports you’d expect to find on a PC. Certainly, the convertible models can replace your notebook, but they are quite a bit heavier and larger than the slate kind. The slate models aren’t much bigger than an 81/2-by-11-inch pad, and less than one-inch thick; they are great for carrying around and doodling and, well, taking notes in meetings. However, if you use one as a notebook replacement for everyday work, you’ll often wish you had a real keyboard.
That being said, every digital artist who draws or paints in Photoshop or Painter with a Wacom tablet should take a serious look at this genre of computer, but do not look at it like a notebook computer. Instead, view it like a digital sketchpad. A New Class of Computers |
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