The Phoblographer

Photography: Think Simpler

Tablets For Photographers: The Round Up

with 14 comments

Throughout all of last week I have discussed The HP Slate, The JooJoo, The Dell Mini 5, Archos 9, and The Apple iPad as to find out which tablet would serve a photographer best. Now all these tablets have a usefulness to them, none of them is without any worth, however from a photographer’s point of view some of them do not stand up to what we need from a Tablet PC. Here are my final thoughts.

First, we have the Dell Mini 5. The Dell Mini 5 is a great looking tablet. While not pocket sized it is a bit bigger than the iPhone. In fact it doubles as a phone. What I liked about the Dell Mini 5 is the Android OS. The reason being is, like I said in the article, the OS has a lot of potential within it, in addition to the fact that Android is going to become Flash compatible before the first quarter of this year is up. However that doesn’t mean much when it comes being able to edit photos on the Mini 5. The screen is just too small to be used, and even if we had the tools (software) to edit these photos I feel like the menus and icons in programs such as Photoshop would be so clunked together that you would get a headache every time you went to edit a photo. Unfortunately, this means that the Dell Mini 5 cannot meet our needs as photographers.

Next is the Archos 9. Powered by Windows 7, the Archos can run countless pieces of software as long as the processor is able to withstand the demand of resources. Unfortunately, the Archos suffers the same fate here as the Dell Mini 5, as the screen is again just not big enough to be able to comfortable and seamlessly edit photos as if it were on a PC or Mac.

Next is the JooJoo. The JooJoo would be perfect for photography if it was not a tablet made for web browsing only. In addition to this, even though I mentioned in the article on The JooJoo that photographer’s could always resort to Photoshop.com, another issue is simply what if no internet connection is available where you are? I know most coffee shops nowadays in NYC provide wireless access but there are still some spots where internet is just not a possibility. As photographers we would need something that is accessible always, and if we cannot get an internet connection, then unfortunately The JooJoo is out of the question.

The top spot in the round up is a tough call. For years, PC fanboys and Apple fanboys have debated on which OS is top knotch and now we bring it over to the tablets so the endless debate can continue being endless.

The reason why the HP Slate and Apple iPad share my number 1 spot is because both tablets hold a lot of potential to them. The HP Slate running Windows 7 gives the Slate a big advantage of being able to run in numerous amounts of programs. The same for the Apple iPad, with the same OS as the iPod Touch, the iPad has the ability to run countless apps from Apple’s app store.

The most important part of these two devices however is their screen size. As I have said from the beginning, even when I first mentioned The iPad I said screen size would be key. The screen size of these two tablets is prime for any kind of editing, and they are not as hard on the eyes as smaller screens are. Another reason why they make the top of the list is because of how much area there is on the screen to comfortable run these editing applications without any clutter, constraints, and headaches.

So it all boils down to you and your personal preferences. Which would you prefer?

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Related posts:

  1. Ways Photographers Can Use the Apple Tablet
  2. The Apple iPad & The Blind Photographer

Written by Vincent M. Pastore

February 16th, 2010 at 9:02 am

Posted in Uncategorized

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  • http://www.techitsway.info Rick

    Hi,
    Personally, my choice would be neither of them, but most probably the Adam from Notion ink, which runs on Android and can actually do multitasking.
    I’m rather surprised that you chose to talk about the HP Slate without having any specifications, and you set aside other strong competitors of the iPad which are better known today.
    Anyway, everything you said about these 5 tablets is quite right, but just remember there are others too !

    • Vincent M. Pastore

      I realize that there are other tablets out there I just figured these 5 would be of interest. I would possibly continue looking at different tablets though in the future and blogging how they would measure up to a photographer’s needs.

  • Pingback: Tablets For Photographers: The Round Up « The Phoblographer : HP Slate

  • http://glakia.wordpress.com Lakia

    I like the HP!

    • http://clisle.wordpress.com Lisle

      ahh… still I don’t see the point. Laptop still seems to be the tool if u are really trying to accomplish anything, these tablets seem perfect for school or a conference but if im trying to get some photo editing done im still using my laptop or desktop. It almost seems as irrelivent as downloading photo editing software for your iphone… bigger is always better when editing.

  • http://www.zazzle.com/psychostudio psychostudio

    yes, i agree. tablets are suitable for school, conferences, e-learning, training etc.

  • http://www.thewondertechnique.com david hennessey

    Hi Vincent,
    Thanks for your review. As Lisle suggested a laptop is a better option. I use a laptop and on occassion I do a chunk of photo editing. I just posted a group of photos from Carnival in Nice.
    What in your opinion is the advantage of one of the machines you wrote about over using a big screen laptop?
    I will look out for your reply.
    Thank you,
    David
    P.S. if you or another reader would like to see the Nice Carnival photos they are at this link http://thewondertechnique.com/photos-carnaval-de-nice-nice-carnival-our-blue-planet/

    • Vincent M. Pastore

      Well comparing something like the HP Slate to a Lap Top I would say its pretty evenly matched. Although we can’t say this for sure since all there is is a prototype of the Slate. However I would imagine these machines working just like a lap top so in the end all it rally does come down to is preference. I understand where you are coming from as there are also convertible Lap Tops on the market as well and actually I do plan on doing a series similar to this series. The only difference being that it will revolve around lap tops for photographers.

  • admirethis

    Nice gadgets!

  • Mike

    Well I would use one of the larger format Tablet PCs that have been on the market since 2002 and which I’ve used for years i.e. something like a Motion Computing slate format, or a convertible (ie looks like a laptop) tablet like those made by Dell, Acer, etc.

    The iPad is very limited for any image creation/correction functions as it doesn’t include a stylus.

    • Vincent M. Pastore

      I agree and I will admit I did overlook this. Using a stylus does help when it comes to editing the same way a mouse does on a PC. It would be nice to have such an accessory become available in the future as many tablets do come with stylus’

      • Mike

        The other factor where a stylus becomes important is hand support. If you have a touch-only display, you can’t rest any part of your hand on it. If you’re going to use your tablet like a paper-pad to write or draw, then an isolated active detection point (a unique stylus-tip) is needed to separate it out from all jumble of finger-tips, knuckles and palm all sending out contact signals.

        The stylus tip on most existing tablets provides a gradient of pressure-sensitivity, and some of the pens are equipped with an alternate mode for the other end of the pen like eraser.

  • Darrin

    First I’d like to correct you on one point, both the Archos and the Slate have 8.9″ screens. You can’t fairly hold screen size against the Archos and not the Slate.

    As for which is better for photography, iPad or Slate… my opinion: Slate has built in USB ports, on iPad that’s extra $$$. Also, Slate will run any Windows 7 software that would run on a NetBook, iPad will only run software specifically designed for the iPad. iPad is pretty but vacant and way way way overpriced. Slate wins!

  • http://www.hpslate64gb.com Hp Slate 64gb

    Hp Slate will probably be doing a last minute change of the OS. It is rumor that HP will be dropping Microsoft 7 OS from their Slate device. WebOS (most likely) will be their operating system of choice. Last heard is that HP was NOT happy with the performance of Microsoft 7 as a touch screen device. With HP purchasing Palm recently and with it came WebOS, it seems only likely that HP will be using WebOS as their OS for the Slate.
    HP may also be dropping the Intel processor for something “LESS POWER HUNGARY”. If they go to the new OS they won’t need the Intel processor and thus will gain a few more hours of battery life. Something that they were hammered on in hands on testing.