Need help choosing an actually powerful laptop/tablet to do animation with

Mobile Tech Laptops & Netbooks
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Hi

The other night I made a thread about the surface pro x. Let me try again because I admit, I was a bit stoned, and that thread turned into a mess.

So I’m trying to go after some life goals right now. One is to have my art hobby back, and specifically to start learning more animation based tools. If possible, I want that to be my job someday.

Currently I have a thinkpad X230T with an i3 3310m and 16gb ram and an SSD. I need something much more beefy in the gpu department, and probably a few more cores wouldn’t hurt. Basically, I want to be able to draw a line on the screen and not have any lag behind the pen whatsoever in Krita, Paint.Net, Sai, or Blender. At least those are the apps that will be installed.

Currently my thinkpad throws me off because at a certain resolution it start lagging a little bit behind, and the higher res you go the more it lags. It’s not even very high either, like 10k X 6.4k sRGB single layer. I can draw with it, but it bugs me enough that I don’t want to deal with it.

I’m looking for appliance level application. The apps listed above are basically all I would run, if not literally JUST blender.

I’m currently interested in the surface pro X. It’s SOC is on light on power it won’t make much heat, it has 8 pretty ok cores and a gpu that at the very least competes with my phone (good enough for me, OP Nord N10), and the pen isn’t awful. Yes it won’t have apps, but literally if I can install blender I do not care. At all. Whatsoever.

Now, if there is another machine that will give me as much access to the hardware and ability to manipulate the system as the surface pro x, SPX is my baseline, I’ll be interested in it.

I have 0 interest in an ipad. I’m honestly not all that familiar and I’d like to stream from the device if possible while doing art stuff. iPads are kinda money holes in that regard, and I don’t wanna spend 300 on a tablet then another 300 in apps and bullshit when SPX’s are 600 used nah the apps are pretty much all free anyways.

Hell at some point I’d have to pay MORE money for a jailbreak to keep using the ipad.

But again, I’m open to arguments. Just don’t expect me to budge.

Either way, help me out.

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Considering I use an somewhat underpowered i3 ULV 2-in-1 for some creative/quick prototyping sketches, if you want a mix of CPU performance and reasonable IGP–Acer’s 2-in-1 which has Ryzen mobile is a step above Intel 2-in-1s in terms of ease of end-user upgrades. Dell’s 2-in-1 models either are crippled on the lower end(Pentium to i3) of memory support or the pricing of CTOing puts you into Surface Pro realm. As far as the Surface Pro X, its far too locked down and even with x86/x64 application layer support pending outside of “Insider Builds” your mileage is going to vary–other 2-in-1/ultrabooks which used Qualcomm’s ARM with x86 support typically had much lower battery life when running such applications.

Have you considered that modular tablet project someone on Hackaday IO had been posting updates on?
The creator made a build log of where to source flex cables for not only a Jetson Nano/NX but also had support for a few Rockchip based boards with a similar I/O. You could buy a 2k or 4k touchscreen and 3D print a case. Jetson Nano actually runs creative software really well :smiley:
Edit: Here is the URL: DLT one - A Damn Linux Tablet! | Hackaday.io

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Eh, seen the modular stuff before. Project Ara had millions pumped into it and it’s still dead in the water. Not gunna happen.

SPX might be locked down, but it’s literally running one app. Maybe 2. I could care less. I have seen reports of 7 hours while running blender, and that’s good enough for me.

I’d be interested in x86 if it were fatless / near silent. I don’t wanna start running a render and then have the thing go orbital.

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Currently I sense the SPX still isn’t given the same level of software support as a normal Surface Pro, also while checking the configuration options the higher end storage models are out of stock—in comparison other Surface models aren’t out of stock, it could mean Microsoft is prepping SPX with x64 support layer being pre-installed. I have to admit I’ve considered the SPX for the mobile LTE support, on the software side of things if Microsoft is stepping up their ARM efforts the next SPX could end up getting closer in per watt performance as Apple’s M1.

Depending upon how you use Blender when not away from a desk, using a cluster of ARM boards for rendering would be another tool when you’re trying to speed up workflow. Whenever I’ve done creative stuff I may do work on a 2-in-1 or drawing tablet with a desktop replacement grade system, using a Pi render cluster avoids the noise factor.