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Wacom to release multi-touch mobile tablet in summer 2013

Mar 4, 2013 at 19:37:38 GMT

OTHER NEWS TABLET WACOM

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Graphics tablet maker Wacom has announced on Facebook it will launch a mobile multi-touch tablet this summer. While it has not posted any details about this device, Wacom's social media post says it will include a pressure-sensitive pen, multi-touch options, an HD display and 'other valuable features that you haven’t seen in other tablets'.

Wacom's announcement on Facebook:

"We’ve heard you shouting out loud for a Wacom mobile tablet for creative uses. Well… we’re listening. We’ve read your email and spoken to many about an on-the-go dream device. It will come. This summer. We’re working 24/7 on it. And yes, it has a real pressure-sensitive professional pen, smooth multi-touch, an HD display, and other valuable features that you haven’t seen in other tablets."

Comments

Total comments: 30

I have a feeling this will be more like the Asus EP 121 which was a Wacom

0 upvotes

This sounds great!

I do hope this will be a widely accessible product, not another stratospheric $3000 device you can only sell very few of.

Wonder if they're going to rely on Windows Pro or something else like Ubuntu or Android..

I could deal with Windows, as long as its not RT.

0 upvotes

What Wacom forgot to mention is that it will also get a very professional price tag. Looking at the product that come closest to this new Wacom tablet (the Cintiq pressure displays). You can be sure that this new device will be priceless....

Comment edited 2 times, last edit 2 minutes after posting

3 upvotes

"it has a real pressure-sensitive professional pen, smooth multi-touch, an HD display, and other valuable features that you haven’t seen in other tablets"

Given that this is a list of traits seen already in other tablets (most notably the Surface Pro) I am not eagerly anticipating this being a market-changing device.

0 upvotes

Why is everyone assuming this is going to work with iOS or even Android?

You can't use either of these for most serious work.

This has to be something that is going to work with eith windows or Mac.

The question is whether they are going to release a full blown PC or something that will work remotely like the Lenovo tablet that was announced a while back which is basically a screen with a digitizer that uses your desktop for computing power.

0 upvotes

Using terms like "mobile" (not portable) and "on-the-go dream device" (not accessory or peripheral) would indicate to me that this will be a self contained tablet device.

OSX and IOS are both not going to happen. Win8 is a possibility. So is Ubuntu. Android is possible but probably unlikely, but would be more than adequate for non-serious work.

1 upvote

Serious work in what sense? I'm betting that it will be targeted at people who generate a lot of quick turn projects for web publication, and as a mobile sketch pad. That's "serious" for some creative professionals. Nobody's going to be doing high power/bandwidth image or video editing, illustration, or layout via a tablet on any of the current platforms. But there are lean Adobe apps for image editing, sketching, wireframing, etc. and a decent pressure-sensitive input option would be useful with apps like that.

A good tablet that can support color-managed content can already be used productively for web content creation. iOS is not an option for a Wacom-branded tablet - Apple doesn't do platform licensing. I'm dubious that Wacom can pull off a tablet that's good enough at Wacom's typical pricing to be successful. They have a hard enough time getting the bugs out of their Intuos5 tablet drivers and I doubt they have the depth to pull off a solid tablet.

0 upvotes

I'm not worried about Wacom's 'Tablet' functionality, I am worried about the very same issue that Microsoft has so far seemed to overlook: a lack of memory to support an OS and Graphic applications.

I currently run LR 4.4 R1, PS CS6E, and Win Vista Ultra x64 with 12 GB of memory– and it is not quite enough!

It seems like a Tablet would have to have at least 8GB of memory and prefferably an option for 12GB – 18GB to really perform well when running an OS, Graphics, and [Productiviry applications]. (Less I/O to Storage will definitely *prolong Battery life* and *greatly increase performance*!)

With just a single SSD for storage supplimented by Memory Cards (SD/µSD), and External Drives (USB2/3 or Firewire)– it seems to me that the Microsoft Surface and Wacom device won't sell unless they have enough memory.

I'm watching the Notebook/Ultrabook/Tablet market closely, I have $1,000 to make a purchase, I like the Microsoft Surface, but it lacks memory and has a small SSD!

Comment edited 2 times, last edit 11 minutes after posting

0 upvotes

No ultrabook is going to give you workstation power, memory, or storage. You can configure an x64 workstation with plenty of ram, cpu power, and graphics card power. It's impressive what you can put into a tablet or ultrabook, but you can't cram the power of a workstation into a slim, light tablet that needs to run on battery power.

1 upvote

They said tablet. They're not in the PC business. This will be an accessory like this other products. It'll work with an iPad or phone and because it's Wacom it'll be considered the industry standard.

Your iPad will be the display. The Wacom tablet will provide the touch sensitive, pressure and angle sensing input.

0 upvotes

Oh, come on.

Who is going to have a tablet for their tablet, yet still not be able to do any serious work?

If you hadn't noticed, just about anybody can get into the PC/tablet business these days. Very small Chinese manufacturers can do it; the barriers to entry are very low wrt to producing hardware. The real barriers are marketing and building a support ecosystem.

1 upvote

'bout time.

Wacom really dropped the ball on this one. At one stage, they were the defacto digitiser on just about every tablet sold - back in the TabletPC days.

They totally ignored the move to touch interfaces and mobile devices, and even lost interest and market share on the few TabletPCs still sold.

2 upvotes

Dropped the ball? Hardly. They have their digitisers in more devices now than ever. I don't know what you are thinking of, but Wacom digitisers have not been superseded by capacitive touch panels - they do vastly different things.

0 upvotes

Yep, dropped the ball. They let N-Trig get a toehold when dual input started to gain ground. (And, I'm glad they did - something needed to drive the price down). Sure, Wacom are in more devices now, as the market is vastly bigger, but their share of the market has declined. They had near 100% of the TabletPC market. Now both Wacom and N-Trig have a growing presence in Android tablets and phones. For example, Wacom is used in the Galaxy Note, N-trig is in Thinkpad tablet.

Of course digitisers have different uses to capacitive input; I've used TabletPCs for years so I'm aware of that. But there is sufficient overlap that Wacom should have had a far larger presence in touch in the early stages.

Graphic input digitisers are a very small market when compared to 2.5 million phones and tablets being sold per day. Letting any of that huge market get away is dropping the ball.

1 upvote

Neat. I probably won't be able to afford it. Although if I could- a Surface Pro would be stiff competition for it, for design work and less photo work, as it's made using wacom tech and it's very very pretty.

0 upvotes

As long it isn't priced as Cintiq products, I'll consider it.

2 upvotes

I'm not a fan of their products but I use them. The wacom inkling was advertised to work great with sketchbook pro.... didn't work at all... i don't know if they fixed this yet... asked on their forums... no answer... sent them an email... no answer, I wasn't the only one apparently seeing their forum

i have a graphic tablet from them, works good, so i'm not hating, but they should have some customer service

fix your other products first, and then bring the tablet, i'll buy it if it rocks, hell, works

Comment edited 1 minute after posting

0 upvotes

That isn't exactly Wacoms fault (though the customer service part is of course). Fact is their capacitive pen IS better than the generic ones, still doesn't make them great - just the best of a bad tech (for that purpose).

0 upvotes

Wacom's forums are intentionally designed to be poor for discussing hardware and driver issues. Wacom's support often doesn't even know what their products are supposed to be able to do. I don't see that Wacom has the infrastructure to support its current products well, let along its own tablet computer.

0 upvotes

It needs to have a standard RGB colorspace. Apple's decision to have iOS operate with its own color rules might make some technical sense but it makes my nifty iPad photo apps next to USELESS. Spend as much time as you want perfecting color balance with Snapseed, Photoshop Touch or whatever, the photo will look quite bad when you send it to your PC or an online photo site. The problem is pretty fundamental to the software/hardware in Apple portables so I see little hope for a change. Cross fingers that Wacom does not make the same mistake.

1 upvote

I wouldn't give them one more dime of my cash,,,I bought into Wacom about five years ago and have had nothing but problems with compatibility and popular raw editers. It was not just me, it is well documented throughout the editing field, and they wouldn't even respond to our problems.

0 upvotes

As long as you can easily move files in and out of it the OS truly doesn't matter. Still, I'd prefer a full Windows 8 implementation so I could run the "real" Photoshop CS6 anytime, anywhere.

In any case, I've had a Cintiq on my desk for almost a decade. The ability to "take it on the road" easily would be a dream, like Heliconius said, a dream come true.

joel*

1 upvote

You have been able to do this for a long while now. While not a 100% cintiq replacement, Wacom have been peddling their wares to PC tablet makers for over a decade.

0 upvotes

Considering the 2/3 of creatives use iOS/OSX an Android tablet would be a suicidal decision. Then what?
Would it be only an external touch display?

0 upvotes

Apple will never support a proper pressure sensitive pen... so what are you going to do?

Android/Windows 8 are definitely good enough to run editing apps... and with wacom+HD display they make a more functional combination for this purpose than an iPad.

And I'm an iPad owner...

1 upvote

What has iOS and OSX got to do with this? Is the tablet going to be one of those 3rd party hardware devices running iOS or OSX? Oh wait...there aren't any.

Android makes perfect sense if you aren't an Apple fanboi; but it could more likely be running Win 8 or Ubuntu.

0 upvotes

Android makes no sense unless they plan on coding software from the ground up. It will be W8 and either look like all the other tablets in the crowded micro field, or it will be a bigger version with capacitive buttons in the bezel (like the Cintiq) and money put into the color accuracy of the display. That way everyone running Adobe products on Win can instantly use the full featured packages they already own on a top-notch, made-for-artists screen.

0 upvotes

As a designer, this was my dream since I met tablet ^^

.. and the reason why I didn't buy one yet..

1 upvote

You should look at Lenovo's tablets. They're integrating the same Wacom stylus... but they're not Wacom.

I'd trust Lenovo more than Wacom to build a decent tablet!

1 upvote

They are N-Trig.

0 upvotes

Total comments: 30


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