Has anyone got any experience with the Cintiq/like machines? I'm asking on behalf of an animator friend who's kind of budget-strapped but wants a portable workstation/tablet hybrid. She's used a basic wacom before, but she's tired of being tethered and having to reference a separate display.

Her options right now are the Asus Slate and the Cytrix Complex.

She might also consider a refurbished Cintiq Companion.

Of the two cheaper alternative above, seems to me that Slate might have less lag on Maya/Photoshop/whatever relevant software based off processor and graphics card. Otherwise, this is the first time I've heard of these kinds of machines. I'm intrigued, myself --- has a more precise pen/paper-like interface? They're still working on effective touch-integration, apparently.

Does anyone here have hands-on experience to advise in more detail?

 

Have you considered the Surface 3 (the not-pro)? If I'm not mistaken, the stylus has been praised and it has a proper Windows now rather than the old tablet-software-only-Windows.

 

Gabe, the artist-half of the Penny Arcade duo has a lot to say about the Surfaces. If you google "penny arcade microsoft surface" you'll find a lot of interesting conversations about the family of devices, both good and bad.

Try this to get an idea of how Gabe talks about the Surfaces: http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/06/16/surface-pro-3-update

I'd like to think that the problems Gabe talks about with that Surface Pro 3 prototype have been fixed since then, but you'll have to dig in to the other posts and find out yourself. He seems to have loved the Surface Pro 2 as well. Again: read those posts yourself, I only checked the one.

I knew that reading Penny Arcade would be good for something one day!

This is also interesting: http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/16/mi...eering-team-to-work-out-surface-pro-3-issues/ - It speculates that drawing lag in the Surface Pro 3 prototypes may be due to using N-Trig tech instead of the Wacom tech that was in the Pro 2. Did that get fixed? Again, again: research.

Apparently there's a Surface 3, Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, and a Surface Book now. This is good news for your friend-on-a-budget. New models push the prices of the old ones down. If the Pro 2 meets her needs, then there's never been a better time to buy.

 

Thanks, guys. She gave the Surface Pros some real hard thought. Went for the Lenovo Yoga in the end.