Do you want a cheaper alternative to Surface Pro 4? With a better pen? Come right in!

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Shogmaster

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I'm going to brave the dangers of looking like a shill or rep for these guys (did a thread about Thinkpad Yoga 14 already last month) and introduce you to this Surface 3/4 clone from Lenovo: The Lenovo Ideapad Miix 700

lenovo-tablet-ideapad-miix-700-main.png


Now let's get it out of the way. This thing is a bold faced - China don't give a fuck - clone of Surface Pro 3/4. I mean, gotdamn son, it's fucking blatant. Never the less, for digital artists, IMO this is a better tablet than Surface Pro 4, even with the less powerful Core M processors.

Why is it better? Wacom, not N-Trig. That's why.

From the lower initial insertion force of the pressure sensor tip to the extensive desktop app Wintab pressure support, to the buttons on the pen barrel that you can actually map to whatever you want, Wacom is much better suited for an art oriented tablet. If you are into numbers, it's even got 2048 pressure levels compared to 1024 of N-Trig (Pssst... pressure levels don't matter after about 256 but never mind that).

Miix 700 starts at $749 with Core M3-6Y30 with 4GB of RAM and 64 GB SSD. That's half the storage of the M3 Surface Pro 4, but is $150 less. Also comes with the keyboard for the price! You only have to buy the pen for $40

Watch this video from IFA earlier in the year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvy2_4VEi2E
 
this looks good, a real surface alternative with a pen, plus it's cheaper
as long as it doesn't come with the lenovo backdoors, it looks pretty solid
 
Wacom you say? Better pen you say? Oh, right, it's that awesome tech that first 2 Surfaces had! Where I could use pen only in the center of the screen? Wacom pen was one of the main reasons I returned original Surface and didn't even bother checking out Surface 2 at all.

Strange things you say :) Surface 3/4 pen is so much better than Wacom it's not even funny.
 
Soulcatcher said:
Wacom you say? Better pen you say? Oh, right, it's that awesome tech that first 2 Surfaces had! Where I could use pen only in the center of the screen? Wacom pen was one of the main reasons I returned original Surface and didn't even bother checking out Surface 2 at all.

Strange things you say :) Surface 3/4 pen is so much better than Wacom it's not even funny.
Click to expand...

Slow down son! This ain't using the edge drifting and jittering EMR Wacom from Surface Pro 1 and 2. It's using the new Wacom Active ES (electro static) from the Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga 14. You get all the accuracy benefits of N-Trig but with better pressure sensor and Wacom's art software support in Wintab!
 
With the Bluetooth keyboard it seems more a suped-up tablet than what the new surface hybrid is aiming for, but trust Lenovo to come up with a budget offering.

Shogmaster said:
With everyone's eyes on them for those security holes, they won't be stupid enough to try that again anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Spot on. Nothing says they've learned from their mistakes like doing the same thing three times in the same year.
 
Not gonna lie, I'm tempted. I've been hesitant to upgrade from a SP2 because of the jitter on the ntrig and hearing reports of software issues on the SP4 that have persisted since the first Surface Pro.

I think I'd want to get a hands on as well as a good idea of battery life and benchmarks
 
Shogmaster said:
Now let's get it out of the way. This thing is a bold faced - China don't give a fuck - clone of Surface Pro 3/4. I mean, gotdamn son, it's fucking blatant. Never the less, for digital artists, IMO this is a better tablet than Surface Pro 4, even with the less powerful Core M processors.
Click to expand...

Let's not get crazy here. Why would you pay that much money for a Core M processor?
 
Meh, I got my 10”/4GB/64GB/wacom compatible/Core M China tablet for $290 (Cube i7 Stylus).

Surface price has never made sense outside of US.
 
andythinkpad said:
Meh, I got my 10”/4GB/64GB/wacom compatible/Core M China tablet for $290 (Cube i7 Stylus).

Surface price has never made sense outside of US.
Click to expand...
I almost pulled thd trigger on thd Cube i7 because it was so cheap but the battery life stopped me. Also. It's not an improvement over the Lenovo Helix 2 I gave to my sister because I thought it kinda sucked as a tablet.

Maximo said:
*Better for digital artists*
Click to expand...
I thought I made that clear...
 
I don't trust any Lenovo tablet without the Thinkpad branding.

Shog you are the only person who use pen, and use it at work anyway. Why don't you own every wacom tablet and have a youtube wacom pen review channel?
 
Wacom is the best

/hugs my Surface Pro 2

I also like that my SP2 is still the smaller 10" tablet size. The reason I have my tablet on the plane is because it fits on a tiny-ass airplane tray table unlike my laptop, if my tablet is as big as a laptop that defeats that whole purpose entirely.
 
andythinkpad said:
I don't trust any Lenovo tablet without the Thinkpad branding.

Shog you are the only person who use pen, and use it at work anyway. Why don't you own every wacom tablet and have a youtube wacom pen review channel?
Click to expand...
Not made of money, friend. Would go broke reviewing every tablet. I do have a half assed YouTube channel though. Video qualities are a bit shit because I'm too cheap to buy decent camera gear. Also, too lazy to edit my videos. lol
 
Shog doe we need to all wait for a better cheaper technology now that Apple made the pencil? It seems like the wrong time to buy these kind of devices.
 
Exokell said:
Shog doe we need to all wait for a better cheaper technology now that Apple made the pencil? It seems like the wrong time to buy these kind of devices.
Click to expand...
Apple is charging $100 for their "pencil". I dont know how that is gonna help these drvices get cheaoer. LOL
 
But its Lenovo. I dont think i can ever buy a Lenovo without thinking, is there spyware in this? I mean they put it in before without anyones knowledge, what would stop them from doing it again?
 
How do you feel the pen accuracy/precision of Wacom AES compares to n-Trig? I tend to write small and in my brief trials of n-Trig, I've never felt that my handwriting looks right.
 
Been using the Surface 4 for a while, and I don't find the initial pressure requirements of the N Trig digitizer to be significantly different from my wacom.
 
This device is not much cheaper than SP4 if you want 8 GB ram and 256 GB SSD. SP4 also has a better, bigger screen and a better CPU/GPU. Better pen or not is subjective. For taking note and drawing sketch, SP4 pen is sufficient.
 
boviscopophobic said:
How do you feel the pen accuracy/precision of Wacom AES compares to n-Trig? I tend to write small and in my brief trials of n-Trig, I've never felt that my handwriting looks right.
Click to expand...

You can write tiny, accurate and fast with the Wacom AES. Not so much with my Surface 3's N-Trig, but I don't know how much that has to do with the fact that my Surface 3 suffers a bit from Atom CPU when doing fast movements, but there you go.
 
Rion said:
This device is not much cheaper than SP4 if you want 8 GB ram and 256 GB SSD. SP4 also has a better, bigger screen and a better CPU/GPU. Better pen or not is subjective. For taking note and drawing sketch, SP4 pen is sufficient.
Click to expand...
I'd argue the definition of "sufficient" but what is not arguable is that the software support is so much better for Wacom's pressure curve. There's always some funkiness with legacy desktop software that uses Wintab on N-Trig. It's fine if you only intend to live in Photoshop Creative Cloud or Clip Studio Paint and others that uses Microsoft tablet API, but with older Photoshop or other desktop software, Wintab pressure curve execution is not great with N-Trig.

Also not arguable is the lower initial insertion force for Wacom. It only takes around 1~3 grams on Wacom pens to start registering pressure. On N-Trig it's about double.
 
If the 3 times in a row spyware hasn't destroyed or harmed the company seriously, you just know that they're going to be emboldened to NOT GIVE A FUCK.
 
This seems right up my alley for someone who just wants to code on the fly and use blender on the bus but is there any reason for me not to pick up a cheap surface pro 3 (maybe even 2?) Off eBay?

I really just want it for those two things
 
andythinkpad said:
Meh, I got my 10”/4GB/64GB/wacom compatible/Core M China tablet for $290 (Cube i7 Stylus).

Surface price has never made sense outside of US.
Click to expand...

Hold up.

How is the quality of this tablet and where did you get it? I want something thin and light for drawing, and at that price it's difficult to not be interested.
 
Shogmaster said:
You can write tiny, accurate and fast with the Wacom AES. Not so much with my Surface 3's N-Trig, but I don't know how much that has to do with the fact that my Surface 3 suffers a bit from Atom CPU when doing fast movements, but there you go.
Click to expand...

I heard the SP3 pen was garbagio, but apparently they've made improvements with the 4. Have you tried the 4 pen before?
 
Axiology said:
I heard the SP3 pen was garbagio, but apparently they've made improvements with the 4. Have you tried the 4 pen before?
Click to expand...

Yes, but I really can't tell the difference between the old SP3 pen and the new SP4 pen. The problems with N-Trig DuoSense 2 has never been the hardware IMO. That was DuoSense 1.

The problem with N-Trig is software. Namely, Wintab pressure curve mapping, and complete lack of customizing pen functions in driver. This is where Wacom crushes N-Trig. But this is largely Windows/OSX legacy desktop art apps using WinTAB problem. .

LouisaFerre said:
Hold up.

How is the quality of this tablet and where did you get it? I want something thin and light for drawing, and at that price it's difficult to not be interested.
Click to expand...

Cube i7 Stylus uses old Surface Pro 2 panels (10.6" 1920x1080 IPS) and is Core M powered. I think it's around 1.6 lbs. The battery life is around 5~6 hours max. It still uses the Wacom EMR from SP1/SP2 so edge drift issues are present.

You can get it from several importers but they have to mod the OS setting for English. The tablet only comes with Windows 10 single language version in Chinese. Current prices are around $350 from those importers.

http://www.cube-tablet.com/cube-i7-stylus-10-6-inch-4gb-64gb-tablet.html
 
Zaptruder said:
If the 3 times in a row spyware hasn't destroyed or harmed the company seriously, you just know that they're going to be emboldened to NOT GIVE A FUCK.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if something happens yet again on that front.
 
Damn you, Shog. If it wasn't hard enough to figure out whether to get a Surface 3 or a Surface Pro 4, this is thrown on my lap to understand.

Researching Lenovo's bloat malware problems doesn't help their cause for me. Plus, the price isn't that much better then Microsoft's products here in Canada. Also, their Canadian website lists the Ideapad Miix 700 shipping to be 10-12 Days. Can't really buy it locally from what I can see in stores.

The Pen is the biggest selling point it seems. But since I'm not a pro artist and just want to doodle and practice, I think anything will work for me.

Thanks for the information though, it's good to be informed of these things.
 
Jinaar said:
Damn you, Shog. If it wasn't hard enough to figure out whether to get a Surface 3 or a Surface Pro 4, this is thrown on my lap to understand.

Researching Lenovo's bloat malware problems doesn't help their cause for me. Plus, the price isn't that much better then Microsoft's products here in Canada. Also, their Canadian website lists the Ideapad Miix 700 shipping to be 10-12 Days. Can't really buy it locally from what I can see in stores.

The Pen is the biggest selling point it seems. But since I'm not a pro artist and just want to doodle and practice, I think anything will work for me.

Thanks for the information though, it's good to be informed of these things.
Click to expand...

Determine it like this:

Do you plan to use Adobe CC or CC2 or Manga Studio 5/Clip Studio Paint? Then go ahead with SP3/4 using N-Trig.

Do you plan to use Adobe CS6 or older? Then you want to get something with Wacom.
 
Shogmaster said:
Determine it like this:

Do you plan to use Adobe CC or CC2 or Manga Studio 5/Clip Studio Paint? Then go ahead with SP3/4 using N-Trig.

Do you plan to use Adobe CS6 or older? Then you want to get something with Wacom.
Click to expand...

I think I'm with the former option. Thanks sir!
 
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