Motion Computing le1700 versus hp 2730p (or other options)

[Steve B]

Hi all,

So, I recently got a le1600. Loved it. Upgraded to an le1700- sxga screen, but not view anywhere. 1.5 ghz processor. 4 gb of ram. I love it even more. However, I wonder if I am bumping in to functionality issues, which is when I discovered the hp2730p. Now, I'm wondering if I should switch over to it and sell my 1700. I have a number of questions though.

Let me start with what I use the computer for. I make art and I'm also a landscape designer. Thus, this is what I'm looking for.

1) Wacom- the digitizer is essential. Both have it.

2) Weight- I also need to be able to easily carry the machine in the field. So it can't weigh too much. 3-4 lbs for the basic model (without extended batteries) MAX. Both are in this range.

3) Battery life- preferably 3-5 hours at a minimum. 6-8 with an extended battery would be better, on occasion. I sometimes am in the field all day with the computer. I'm maxing out at only 1.5 hrs on my le1700, 3.5 hrs with the extended battery on it- running Win7 32 bit. The 2730p seems to get better battery life, even with Win7. Is this true? Can anyone report on what they're getting?

4) Screen- This is really rather important to me.

It needs a bright screen with relatively wide viewing angles, because I'm sometimes designing outside or sharing the screen with a client to show them something, for example. They both seem to have pretty good screens. And, simply put, it's next to impossible to find the UltraView Anywhere le1700 screen, so that option is sort of a loss to me. This is also why I tossed out the tm2, which seems to have a pretty crappy screen (in terms of viewing angles and outdoor viewing), by the accounts I've read on forums.

As for the swivel screen, it sounds like it could be helpful when showing stuff to clients, etc. but I don't know if it really is more of a pain (wobbly, etc., not latching well). I will say that it's hard to crane one's neck over a slate all day, particularly because (at 3.5 lbs) it's just too heavy to want to hold up for a real long time.

Also, how can they both have 12.1" screens if the hp is almost an inch thinner in width?

The screen res is clearly better on my le1700, and I like that, but I don't know if I find it essential. I liked my 1600 just fine too. I might be able to trade off some space for other factors, if they worked out well enough.

5) Processing Power- I need to print this stuff out for my clients (and for my art). Thus, I'm often having 12" x 18" art files at 150-300 dpi with a few layers. I'm using Sketchbook Pro. Art Rage. I might move in to Painter. No big 3d stuff. Still, my le1700 is definitely playing catch up when I save or open the files or use a very large watercolor brush, for example. It's generally adequate, but at those times it's really very painfully slow. The 2730p has a faster processor, and I've seen some that have up to 8 gb of ram, so it clearly seem to win out on that one. But how useful are those upgrades anyways, for what I'm doing?

6) Keyboard- Yes, I think I'd like one. It is, unfortunately, debilitating when you want to make an email on the fly or some such thing while working away from home. I don't want one 80% of the time, but when I want one I want one, ya know? So the 2730p wins out on this. It's not absolutely, utterly essential, but it would be very nice.

7) Price- Max out at 700-800$. They both seem to fall in this price range. And this is why I decided against the Asus ep121 or some of the LifeBooks, for example, which all seem to fall in to the 1100$+ range.

8) Used?- Yes, that's ok.

9) Multi Touch- Eh, it's cool but not that essential to me. Would be nice, I suppose.

10) 32 bit versus 64 bit- I've seen some 2730p's that are 64bit, with 6-8 gb of ram. That's sounds pretty nice to me. The 1700 maxes out at 4gb, regardless of if you use 64 bit or not. So, it would seem like the 2730p wins out on this too. Though, I'm not really sure if ram is going to help me with what I'm doing. ???

11) Ergonomics- The thin screen on the le1700 is very nice. It is more ergonomic to draw on. Still, if you slap the extended battery on it, it's almost exactly the same size as a 2730p, except the 2730p is 1/2 lighter than the le1700 would be.

Now, the Motion Computing computer is sexy. That's the god's honest truth. I love that damn slim thing. And if I had 1100$, I'd probably be buying the eee ep121. Dreamy! But I don't. If I sold this le1700, I might be able to get 700-800$ or so for it, so I might be up for sort of "trading in" my computer for a better model of comparable price.

The 2730p seems like a good fit. All for minor downside of an extra 1/3" of thickness and a 1/2 of pound of weight. Plus that cool sexiness I get with the 1700. !! :( They're really very comparable in terms of size and weight, all in all. Slap the ultra thin battery on the back of the 2730p and it seems like it's about a wash (.5 lb heavier, according to specs) with le1700's weight with it's extended battery-- plus you get more battery life, right?

So, is this a good trade off? Are there major issues with the 2730p that I don't know about? Is this swivel wobbly? My wife has a heavy old Gateway (what a beast) and it's swivel screen is a bit wobbly. I've read the latch can be a bit of an issue, but I don't know. It also seems like I find these for a comparatively cheaper price than the Motion computers, in terms of specs. I find these with SSD and 4-8 gb of ram (64bit OS) for the same price that I might find a le1700 with a 60gb hdd and 2 gb of ram.

Finally, though, I don't really understand fully what I need in terms of computing power. I don't care about bootup time and stuff like that. But if big brushes are lagging, and the computer halts to a crawl when saving or opening big files, what will help with that? A faster processor? More Ram? Both? Is one more important than the other? I'm not doing 3d stuff, but I sure would like to see my digital art tool fly through stuff with less lag when I'm right in the middle of creating art. That really halts one's flow.

Also, I'm perfectly open to other suggestions that might help, following these parameters. The 2730p is just what I've found so far. Thanks everyone. You've all been fantastically helpful in the past. Don't fail me now, Obi Wan Kinobi! :)

[Michelle Mastin]

I'm currently using a 2730p as my main work machine (picked up used from craigslist, $650, Core2Duo 1.86, 4GB RAM, 120GB HDD), and here's what I've found:

Battery life: My main battery shows minimal wear (I think under 10%) and provides an average of 4.5 hours of use with mid brightness and wifi on some of the time, off some of the time. I got a used slice from ebay for $50 that's showing about 30% wear (I was willing to take the chance on it as most other ebay slices go for $100+) that gives me an extra 3ish hours. I've never run it all the way down with both batteries, so those are just estimates. The machine on its own is a very nice size and weight, but that slice battery is heavy. It's a significantly different machine when you attach that. I usually leave it off until I run the main battery down to less than an hour remaining.

Screen: It goes bright enough for my needs, but I'm mostly indoors. I think there is an ultra-bright option with these. The 2730p has a relatively thin bezel, helped by the fact that the tablet buttons are on the sides, not the bezel. That keeps the footprint small while still having a 12" widesceen. I find 1280x800 to be plenty of pixels, but it's been a long time since I've had a 1400x1050 machine.

Hinge: Yes, it can be a bit wobbly. I don't find it be distracting when I'm writing. The machine sits flat, which is nice for writing on a table. I do find I have to be rather deliberate about pressing the latch down to get it to catch when closing it in slate mode (screen out). It latches fine in closed mode (screen in).

Power: I have not run into anything that makes the machine feel slow to me, but my reference is mostly netbooks and a TC1100. I was very pleased with its ability to chug through processing my 720p videos from CES.

I've been meaning to write up a full review of my 2730p, and I'll be getting an le1600 for review shortly, so I'd be happy to shoot any comparisons you'd like to see. I can run some benchmarks on the 2730p too if that would help you make decisions about the performance.

If it weren't for your battery life requirements, I would encourage you to save up for the EP121, but it's looking like that thing will only run 4 hours on battery. Another option to consider would be waiting for the Motion CL900. It's got great battery life and a good screen for much less in the way of weight. It's ruggedized to military specs, so it'd be great for outdoor use. The only drawback there would be that it's only got an Atom processor in it, although until the Oaktrail machines really start to come to market and get benchmarked, we can't really know how well they might perform.

[Steve B]

You sure do make the 2370p sound good. How is it inking on something that thick? I've been keeping to the 1700 without the extended battery when I can, because it's lighter, yes, but also because it's only 3/4" thick that way. That makes a difference when you have your arm on the table. Battery life does sound phenomenally better. I'm only getting 1.5-2 hours on the 1700 using Win7, and that was a real disappointment, because I was getting 3.5 hours on the 1600 using xp. I've actually been thinking about giving up Win7 handwriting recognition just to get useful battery life on the standard model, but that's stupid. urgh!

One of my concerns with the cl900 is that the screen is not 12.1". For making art, anything less seems like it would be way too small. It's also N-Trig, so that's a no-no for me.

Do you know anything about the value of ram/faster processor/ssd/64 bit os for the kind of work I'm doing and the lags I'm experiencing? I think figuring that out would help me figure out what it is that I actually need.

[Michelle Mastin]

I'm not an artist, so I can't speak to the performance issues much. I tried to test Art Rage on the EP 121 when I was at CES, so I grabbed a brush that looked like it might demonstrate pressure sensitivity well. Turns out, I grabbed the most processor intensive watercolor brush, and it lagged like mad. Like, I could draw a few lines across the screen before it caught up. And that was on a core i5 processor. So, there are some tools that are still too demanding for even the fastest hardware if there are other things running in the background. It sounds like most of what you are looking for in a performance upgrade is processor dependent.

The 2730p is great for battery life, if that's your primary concern. The only other machine that will give you similar life would be a lenovo x200t with the 8 cell battery. But those are even bigger and bulkier than the HPs.

Even so, the thickness does make a difference when inking on a table. I mostly have the machine in laptop mode on the table, although I have occasionally turned it around to edit photos or write, and it's not as nice as the TC1100, but it's not bad, definitely workable. Most of my inking is done with the machine just in my lap, and it works great like that. The only thing you'll find with a good all day battery and the thinness of a pure slate is the Motion, but if you need Wacom drivers, then n-trig won't cut it. Although, I will say that I found inking to be significantly better on the Motion CL900 than on the HP slate in the short time I had to play with both.

I traded up to the 2730p to get better battery life and performance than my aging TC1100, and it's working out exactly as I had hoped. Then again, that leap is quite a bit bigger than a side step from an le1700.

[karrotman]

Yeah, I know this is going to sound bias because I fix up and sell Motion tablets, but I personally have had enough of HP convertibles.

I have owned FIVE different HP convertibles. I started with the TX1000, and worked my way up purchasing every new model hoping that all of my issues would go away. (by-the-way, every time I sent a tablet in to repair, HP claims they fixed the problems and it never came back fixed). My main problems were with the pen and the screen rotations.

1) Pen problem: The was a spot on the screen - on EVERY one of the HPs I used that would not write. I had to try to write 10 times before it would finally work. I think the problem here was the lack of sturdiness of HP's convertibles. It must hav had to do with my palm applying pressure to the bottom of the tablet as I wrote (I used them for note taking).

2) Screen problems. Often I found with HP convertibles that when I would rotate the screen the pen would write on the opposite side of the screen. For example if I would draw a line upwards, the screen would draw a line downwards. This frusterated me to no end and appeared on a few of the tablets.

So why did I buy FIVE? I was ignorant. I though HP was all there was. I was then introduced to a Fujitsu Stylistic and thought "My g-d this KILLS the HP!". I was in heaven... until I met my first LE1700. My lifelong search for the perfect tablet has ended.

I can honestly say the for the first time in my life I am content with a tablet.

Don't get me wrong: The HP convertibles make excellent computers and their specs are great. I just feel like HP was never very good at combining the two technologies.

As for your concerns about the LE1700: If you install an SSD drive, put in 3GB ram, and buy a brand new battery online (about $140), you should easily get 2.5-3 hrs without an extended battery. With the SSD and the 3GB ram, unless you plan on watching HD or playing games, you should be fine. I use my LE1700 like that and LOVE it.

[digitaldoctors]

It needs a bright screen with relatively wide viewing angles, because I'm sometimes designing outside or sharing the screen with a client to show them something, for example. They both seem to have pretty good screens. And, simply put, it's next to impossible to find the UltraView Anywhere le1700 screen, so that option is sort of a loss to me.

TIP: All the LE1700s that shipped with Vista have the UltraView Anywhere screens. Sometimes the sellers dont even know that. Remember the good screens are not green at all when turned off - super dark. Much more black than green.


The screen res is clearly better on my le1700, and I like that, but I don't know if I find it essential. I liked my 1600 just fine too. I might be able to trade off some space for other factors, if they worked out well enough.

The ViewAnywhere screen on the LE1600 is really nice. If you don't need the extra screen real estate, the LE1600 is a better choice (more of them, cheaper).

Did you find as an overall impression that the LE1700 was faster than the LE1600 ?

[Steve B]

Well, life with my 1700 hasn't been quite all roses. The screen pixels ARE very nice, but it's not View Anywhere or UltraView Anywhere. So no Hydis screen. I see View Anywhere screens around on ebay. Not the UltraView Anywhere ones though. Perhaps I should pay more attention to the sticker on the back of listings and look for the Vista label. Besides that though it really does run pretty hot (mid 60's to low 70's). Hot enough that I find it uncomfortable to hold on my bare arms or in my lap for a long time. I end up turning the rotation so the fan doesn't blow on me. Battery life is really pretty low too. I bought a new battery, turned down the screen a bit, etc. and I still only get 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Karrotman, will a ssd really add, in your experience, an hour or more of life to my 1700?

Digitaldoctors, I think you're last question is really a very good one. Overall, I'm unconvinced my 1700 runs particularly faster than my 1600 did (I sold it to a friend, though I could borrow it back again to test the comparison more). It clearly multitasks better. Absolutely. But when I work on big files the 1700 is still slow. Perhaps a little less slow? I dunno. The more research I do though, about 32 bit OS's and and core2duo's, the more it seems to imply that 1) you can't apply more than 2gb of ram to a single task with a 32 bit OS at one time, so I'm not sure my 1700 is applying more ram to a single task than my 1600 was (which maxed out a 2gb for the whole thing). The 1700 can run more things at once better, but that's as far as it goes, right? and 2) My understanding is that core2duo's are helpful because they multithread, but I don't think programs like Sketchbook Pro or Artrage or Painter use multithreading. They're not sophisticated enough.

So, if the 1600 and the 1700 both run 1.5 ghz processors (one being a single and one a core2duo), am I really running a functionally faster, more powerful computer when all I am doing is running a single program at a time on my 1700?

I've also been wondering if I should simply go back to XP. Battery power seems like it should be way better (although i can't find anyone running xp now on a 1700 to test it), and I thought the system might have fewer ram gobbling processes in the background. Handwriting recog is why I stuck with Win7, but, frankly, writing with the pen is still a pain, and I am thinking aobut getting the attachable keyboard instead. I just don't see what Win7 is really offering me that I wasn't already getting with XP. The aero stuff doesn't mean much to me. Perhaps I am not understanding what Win7 has under the hood? Does XP do most stuff just as well using less power, or is that a fallacy?

The 1700 has a much better screen and multitasks better, but the 1600 runs cooler, is cheaper, is a tiny bit lighter, and gets way better battery life, and ViewAnywhere screens are easier to come by. If I can swallow the older screen, I've just been wondering if the 1600 will functionally be as fast as a 1700. But maybe that's a bunch of baloney? And the info I'm reading isn't true?

If any of you guys understand this stuff better I'd love to be edumucated

[Michelle Mastin]

Okay, got the le1600 and some time. Here are a bunch of comparison shots between it and the HP 2730p. I know this still doesn't answer your performance questions, but I hope it gives you better idea of form factor compromises. The HP is thicker in slate mode and that does make it a bit more awkward for writing and drawing on a table. You're right that the motions are very nice hardware. The HP is certainly not as pretty with sharper edges and things sticking out, but I like the minimalness of it. While the motion's extended battery looks thicker, it recesses a bit into the machine, so it actually adds less bulk. I think the motion would be comfortable to use with the extended battery on all the time, whereas I will only put the slice on the HP when the main battery gets really low. The widescreen does leave a bit extra on the top and bottom, but the music being displayed was created on the 4:3 screen of the TC1100, and I stretched it to fit that screen. I would have to redo it to get it to fit the widescreen better.

[Steve B]

Those are interesting photos. You know, it's funny, but now that I'm used to that 3 lb slate that's only 3/4" thick, slapping the battery on the back of the 1700 makes it seem bulky and heavy to me. Which has been part of my problem- with the extended on the back, it gets atleast reasonable battery life- 3+ hours. No worse than the new ep121, for instance. But having used the 1600 for a while without the extended on it, and getting that 3 hours without the extended, has made me grumpy about the battery life on the 1700. It's neat to see someone discuss the form factor and weight of the 1600 with new eyes.

I showed it today to a landscape designer friend of mine and he was quite impressed. I forget that sometimes.

Also, I hadn't noticed that the 2730p screen is actually longer than the 1700. I just assumed it was the same length but just skinnier. How does the width compare? Are you actually getting more room on the 2730p? But it's just in a different ratio so it looks like less room? Or is it actually skinnier?

Oh, and how do the screens compare? Most of the 1600's on the market are View Anywhere, which are relatively good. I've found my 1700 (non View Anywhere) much brighter, but the angles aren't as good for it. Would be interesting to have you compare the 1600 and 2730p screens a bit, since I think they're both BoeHydis screens I think. Pics are great, of course, but anecdotal evidence would be great too. :) The 2730p is supposed to have a pretty good screen, right?

[Michelle Mastin]

I'll try to get some shots comparing the screens later tonight, with some measurements also. The 2730p is 1280x800 vs the le1600 1024x768, so it does get more pixels in both directions. Not sure the actual dimensions, but the 2730p in portrait feels skinny compared to the le1600 even though it has more pixels. I'd love to see the high res le1700 screen. I have a feeling it's amazing. Battery life on the HP with the slice is great, but if you're already feeling like the 1700 is bulky with the extended battery, the HP is going to feel quite a bit heavier.

For now, I'm off to rehearsal, with the le1600. It performed very well in rehearsal this morning, and I'm looking forward to using it on my upcoming concert. I'm surprised by how huge the screen feels after reading from the TC1100.

Have you checked your le1700 batteries with software that will tell you their wear level? I use battery bar to get stats for battery testing.

[Steve B]

Oh, what's the story on buttons? One of the nice "who would have guessed?" features of the 1700 is that it has an assortment of reprogrammable buttons. This is really great when I want to make shortcuts when using art programs. I basically don't need a keyboard at all. Can zoom and readjust pen size and undo all from the buttons. It seemed like the 2730p had a few buttons (for volume control and whatnot), but are they reprogrammable? I'm not sure if you really would know that.... ?? Since you're not using the tablet for art.

[Michelle Mastin]

The only buttons on the 2730p that are available in slate mode are screen rotate, esc, and the jog dial. I don't think any of them are reprogrammable. There's also an i button the side that I had forgotten about, but it only brings up the HP info center. I bet you could reprogram that one, but there's no quick and easy central interface for it like there is with Motion's dashboard thingy. Then again, I'm running a clean install of Windows 7 on mine and may be missing HP utilities that I didn't get around to installing.

Which reminds me, after using only Windows 7 on tablets, I'm now trying to use XP on the le1600 and it's awful. Stick with Windows 7. It's not just the better handwriting, it's just all around better. I'll try to get some screen comparison shots now, but the more you talk about what you want, the more I think the 2730p may not be the best for your needs. I think the Asus EP121 would have been a great choice except for the battery life. It's got a great screen, Wacom digitizer, core i5, 4GB RAM, but reports are coming in at barely 3 hours of battery.

[Michelle Mastin]

I just realized the EP 121 has no buttons, so maybe that's not a better option. Anyway, here are some screen comparisons. This is indoors with natural lighting only, a good bit of sun coming in, but no direct light on the screens. The 2730p is brighter head on, but the le1600 stays more readable farther off angle. I very much prefer the glass coating of the 2730p (and my TC1100 too for that matter) to whatever it is that covers the motion's screen. HP's glass is flush past the screen, while the Motion's screen is recessed in the bezel. The Motion shows fingerprints way worse than the HP.

[Steve B]

Yeah, I noticed the fingerprint issue as well, with my 1600. The 1700 has a matte finish, and that has been indispensable to using it regularly- fingerprints are no longer an issue. I have a new View Anywhere screen 1700 running XP that I just bought, so I'll be testing that out. I figure I can sell the 1700's if I don't like them, but I might as well give the real try with the best models I can find before I move on to a different form factor. We'll see what the comparison's like when I get them, but it shouldn't take more than a few days to figure out the difference.

Your comments re: running XP after having gone to Win7 is also interesting. I'll soon be doing that myself. My major desire was battery life. I figured that, hey, if they were advertising this thing with 3 hours of battery life back when they were marketing it, then it must have been able to get something close to it under the original conditions- i.e. running XP. Who knows though?
What was it that made XP seem so clunky? Is it slower? etc.? More lag when opening programs or booting up? etc.

It's a bummer about the lack of real, programmable buttons on the 2730p. It's not a deal-killer to me, but it's an issue to be weighed, particularly for what I'm using it for. You do get used to certain functionalities, once you find something that has them.

Oh, I've been reading about some major issues with pen calibration on the 2740p. Is this an issue with the 2730 as well? People talk about issues when you change orientation or when you come out of hibernation-- both things I do regularly. It seemed like there was some kind of update back around Thanksgiving. What's been your experience?

[Michelle Mastin]

My 2730 does have some issues with calibration in portrait mode. There's a lot of drift at the corners, that no amount of recalibrating will fix. But, as I'm mostly just using it for writing, it's not a big issue. I don't use hibernation, only standby, so I don't know of any extra issues caused by that.

About Windows 7, I guess part of it is that I've gotten used to it. The TIP keyboard is so much better in Windows 7. I tried to demonstrate Journal's ability to search handwriting, and it didn't find things because it didn't recognize my words correctly. I like the hover previews of windows from the taskbar. I like being able to pin programs to the taskbar and use the jump lists. Those are some things I miss when I'm working with XP.

[rastafett]

I'm a digital artist and have owned a number of tablets and convertibles. More recently I have had an LE1600 and loved it, sold it for an HP 2730p because it had 8gb of ram and was Wacom active. Well, I sold the HP three weeks into owning because the digitizer and the pointer icon have too much distance between each other and is a bit off kilter. I tried every way to Sunday to get it to line up but it comes down to the thickness of the LCD screen being wider than the Motion tablets, therefore making it impossible to completely line up if you drawing naturally. I now have my lovely Motion LE1700 dual core and it is nothing short of amazing! It really does everything that a digital artist could want with portability, speed and great screen real estate. Dont get me wrong, the HP 2730P is awesome, and runs Photoshop brilliantly, it's just not for a digital artist drawing direct. I own a Cintique and the LE1700 is by far the closet thing Ive come across.

[Steve B]

In the end, the real issue for me over the last year has been that I'd like a computer that I can use at work, outdoors, and that I'd like to use that same computer at home for art. That's been a difficult task to meet. I've decided I might be able to give up a keyboard if I could get used to using Dragon Naturally Speaking to dictate to my computer, but I still need a good outdoor-viewable screen, an ergonomic in-the-hand experience, a good button array for art programs, and atleast 3-4 hrs of battery life. So far, perhaps it's the Motion F5 (or its more expensive update) that's the only real option.

Besides that, I've wondered about a) modifying 1600 with LED versus CCFL bulbs, OR b) an le1700 Ultraview Anywhere, but with one core turned off so I could hypothetically get battery life more consistent with a 1600. Does that even work though?

As for the F5's, I discovered after some research that, at the end of their run, the F5's were upgraded to the very very good AFFS+ Gorilla Glass View Anywhere screens that are in Motion's current top-of-the-line F5v/C5v and j3400/3500's. They also got a slightly better 1.06 ghz core2duo, the ability to run 4GB of ram if you open them up, and have a very good array of hardware buttons (like all the Motion slates do). They're going for the price of a le1700 (500$ on ebay), and may be what I'll be trying out next. They're also all sealed up, and so can be used in wet and dusty conditions, which has some value to me as I've looked at stuff like the Asus ep121 and Samsun S7 slates, and have seen reports of how easily they break when dropped, etc. Their downside? A 10.4" 4:3 screen, instead of the very roomy 12.1" 4:3 screens on the 1600/1700's, and a bit thicker build.

The real issues I had with the 1700's that weren't answerable were that 1) it ran really pretty hot for me, 2) it got terrible battery life, and 3) it didn't have very good viewing angles. I think all of these problems are largely answered if you're using it as a mini-Cintiq, where, for example, you might be using it at a desk, plugged in, at the appropriate angle for ergonomic drawing. For that, I think it's a dream. It's powerful enough, has good res, is thin, has a good array of buttons in secondary landscape.

But I was never able to really use it in the field. It wasn't really bright enough for me to use outside in my job, and it's 1.5 hr battery life was just terrible terrible. And it did run really hot for me (and I owned three over the course of last year)- always in high 50's and into the low to high 60's. I tried to undervolt it, but the lower settings were disabled in RM Clock. I did, at one point, actually have an Ultraview Anywhere, which had the viewing angles of a 1600 mixed with the res of normal 1700's. It was a very nice screen. But I found it over priced, and I was still unable to use it for very long in the field, and it still ran hot.

I actually have been using a Lenovo x200t Superbright Outdoor for the last 9 months, which has been very nice in some ways, and not so good in others. Gorgeous bright screen that's very usable outdoors, powerful, and runs silent and cool with some mild tweaks (a SSD and using ThinkPad Fan Control). However, it's never really compared to the 1600/1700 as an art tablet. I guess in the end the ergonomics of thickness do actually matter when holding something in the hand mobilely. It also doesn't have a very good button array, nor does it have that very mild (yet wonderful) texture that the 1600/1700 screens have. The Motion slates are also rock hard, and make for a very nice writing surface. The Lenovos and Fujitsus that I've had all have had a bit more "give", and that's always made them not as nice to write on. Finally, the polarizing sheen (used to calm down outdoor reflections) the x200t produces is very unwieldy in portrait mode, and basically makes it non-usable in that mode. I love working in portrait orientation on my 4:3 le1600, and missed that.

I then tried a t5010 (too big), and have recently been playing around once again with an le1600. I would have picked the 1600 as my new main computer, but it's not really particularly usable outdoors. Yeah, you can sort of get by, not it's not that great. I've been spoiled by the x200t Superbright Outdoor. But the le1600 runs cool and quiet, and gets a reasonably consistent 3 hours of battery life running low power usage stuff at its Max Brightness. It's light and thin. Has great viewing angles. I don't need much in the way of processing power, so that's largely been ok. Outdoor viewability has been a problem though, and I really need that for work. I've thought of trying to mod it by installing one of these CCFL to LED kits, but am a little concerned, as I've seen no one do it yet. But that might answer some of the outdoor brightness issues it has.

And that's why, in the end, I'll be trying out an F5 next. What I've been wanting is essentially a 1600 with an Outdoor Viewable screen, and the F5's with the AFFS+ screens seem like the best fit, even with the smaller screen. We'll see though.