HP Touchsmart TX2

tigaer · April 19, 2010, 01:21:04 AM

I just got one for my birthday. Fuck. Yes.

Haha just thought I'd let you guys know. ;)

Farley4Fan · April 19, 2010, 06:12:59 AM

You wanna give a little mini review? They looked good to me.

tigaer · April 19, 2010, 10:35:22 AM

Quote from: FarleyFan on April 19, 2010, 06:12:59 AM
You wanna give a little mini review? They looked good to me.

Alright, mini review after using it for a few hours of drawing with it in Photoshop;

I like it a lot. I've been needing a laptop for awhile now so this works perfect for now. When it comes to drawing in photoshop and illustrator, I'm not 100% sold yet, as the Tx2 uses an N-Trig digitizer, meaning in photoshop you can't use the pressure sensitivity with the pen... and only in Adobe products, of course, it works fine everywhere else... which is a slight downfall for me, but I'm still trying to figure out if it's that big of a deal of not, but so far it kind of bugs me as that was one feature I really wanted. I'll be drawing with it more the next couple days to find out if this is really what I want and if the limitations of the pen hurt my art.

So far I haven't found a fix for the pressure sens problem with Adobe products, and it'd be awesome if anybody here knew anything about it and if they're going to fix it. I love how you can draw on the screen. The touchscreen is awesome, I've already started using it for selecting brushes with my left hand and drawing with the pen in my right. The screen actually swivels and rotates all the way around and you can then shut the laptop and have the screen facing up to draw on, it's cool, but doesn't have much of a use to me as I use hotkeys every second and the touch keyboard doesn't support multi-touch (no ctrl+Z) to undo I'd have to open the keyboard by flicking it to the right, tap control, click z, then exit the keyboard, which is WAY too time consuming for me. I find it more comfortable and faster to just lay the laptop in my lap and tilt the screen really far back, which makes it very easy to draw on.

The battery life sucks though. Lasts like 3 hours. Not that big of a deal for me though, as I'll have it plugged in most of the time, unless I'm drawing outside. We'll see how much of a problem it turns out to be.

Overall I like it, it fits my needs right now. Now I can play CT and PS now since I have a decent graphics card and some fuckin RAM (4GB -- I used to work with 512GB). It'll also allow me to model easier, so that's a huge plus. I might have to go and buy a wacom later if I don't get used to this, but hopefully I get used to it. I've never had a Wacom before (parents got me this instead of one) so I've never used pressure sens except on the programs that came with this, and it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me, but I might regret it later. So if you're not using it for art, this is a fucking amazing PC, but if you're using it for art you might need to try it out like me to make sure it's what you need and to see if you can live without pressure sensitivity for the pen.

Cronky · April 19, 2010, 11:19:40 AM

They are pretty fun little machines.

I'm currently typing on an older version of what you're using. (HP Pavillion 2500z)

All I really have to say is that Pressure Sensitivity isn't THAT big of a deal. I'm far from an artist (Got this in hopes that I'd magically become good, along with a tablet later on) but if you're used to not having it then you'll be just fine without it. The precision on the notebooks are far from what a Tablet can get. Searched for about 4 seconds and didn't find an answer for yours, but mine has 256 levels of Pressure Sensitivity where as a tablet can get up to 1024 or so. Again, only really "Useful" if you are some Art Major that needs the utmost precision in their pen stroke and style.

Sounds kind of sucky that, unless I'm thinking wrongly, that they strayed away from the Wacom Active Digitizer for the newer versions.

All in all congrats on it! Fun little laptops to play with! You'll have to post some fun pictures you draw up!

My dream is someday having a Cintiqu *drool*

If only I had an extra grand or two to drop on something so I can make stick figure animations ;D

LennardF1989 · April 22, 2010, 12:30:52 AM

I'll try to explain why the pressure sensitivity does not work in Photoshop.

The TX2 uses n-Trig technology, where as the TM2 uses Wacom technology.
Wacom uses defactored standard (as in: It was the factory standard, once) API called Wintag, for sending around information about the stylus. This is the same API is used by all programs that support Wacom and thus also Photoshop.

n-Trig, on the other hand, uses the Windows API, of which I haven't found the name yet, but I believe it's called "Pen". According to my sources, n-Trig refuses to support Wintag because it's not a factory standard anymore and also patented by a company who sues almost everyone using it. According to their site, n-Trig does promise a "solution to the problem" in mid-May, which was mid-April before (note: May and April last year!).

Conclusion: Get a TM2 or wait for n-Trig to get their high skirts off, which I doubt will happen.

tigaer · April 22, 2010, 02:20:42 AM

I'd get a TM2 if I could, but I'm just going to stick with this because of the price. I'm happy with it and I think I'll be able to draw just fine without it. When I get some more cash I'll invest in a new Wacom though.

tigaer · April 23, 2010, 10:30:30 AM

Lennard, is there a possibility of writing a script or anything for Photoshop to support N-Trig tech, and allow for pressure sensitivity? Since you're a programmer, thought I'd ask if it's possible. I couldn't see how it would be, as there would probably already be some programs out there to fix it, but I just want to make sure.

LennardF1989 · April 23, 2010, 11:08:17 AM

Quote from: tigaer on April 23, 2010, 10:30:30 AM
Lennard, is there a possibility of writing a script or anything for Photoshop to support N-Trig tech, and allow for pressure sensitivity? Since you're a programmer, thought I'd ask if it's possible. I couldn't see how it would be, as there would probably already be some programs out there to fix it, but I just want to make sure.

AFAIK it's possible writing a bridging program, already looked into it, but let's say it's not high on my priority list ATM. I'm kind of wary because it would be a program which allows ALL touch-models to be used with say Photoshop, while Photoshop payed Wintab a huge amount of money (or other way around) to exclusively support Wintab (and thus only Wacom models). I don't want my ass to get sued off.

And maybe because it's a designers market, programmers never looked at the issue?

tigaer · April 23, 2010, 01:36:37 PM

Quote from: LennardF1989 on April 23, 2010, 11:08:17 AM
Quote from: tigaer on April 23, 2010, 10:30:30 AM
Lennard, is there a possibility of writing a script or anything for Photoshop to support N-Trig tech, and allow for pressure sensitivity? Since you're a programmer, thought I'd ask if it's possible. I couldn't see how it would be, as there would probably already be some programs out there to fix it, but I just want to make sure.
AFAIK it's possible writing a bridging program, already looked into it, but let's say it's not high on my priority list ATM. I'm kind of wary because it would be a program which allows ALL touch-models to be used with say Photoshop, while Photoshop payed Wintab a huge amount of money (or other way around) to exclusively support Wintab (and thus only Wacom models). I don't want my ass to get sued off.

And maybe because it's a designers market, programmers never looked at the issue?

Alright, no problem bro. I might look into it more. But like you said, I wouldn't want any legal issues.

And yeah, good point lol.

--- Apparently they're working on a fix for all the known problems (including pressure sens!) with the digitizer. Source. Set to release mid-May of this year. Thank God.