Looking for something that does it all..

[Selestial]

I was recently drawing on my cheap drawing tablet and something snapped in my head after all these years of using it. I hate the thing. It's a Bamboo ctl-470 if you're curious. I use it without the drivers so it works like a mouse and doesn't do that stupid "snap to" thing that it would do if I had the drivers. Well, I got fed up with it and started looking for a "draw directly on the screen" solution. I found a really cool laptop called the Microsoft Surface Laptop Pro. That thing with a 3050TI in it and the cool pen and all that. I thought well maybe I could just replace this Dell G7 laptop that I use at my friend's place on the weekend to heavily game. (i7 9750H and 1660Ti 6GB). I was thinking maybe I could get a laptop that can game better than that thing and during the week when I'm home and doing drawings in Photoshop and stuff, I can draw stuff. The problem keeping me from doing that is that while yes, I'd be getting a faster GPU and a pen, I'd be losing 2 GB of Vram for gaming. 

 

Is there a better laptop out there that can give me good performance and still have the capability to let me draw on the screen with a pen? I would very much prefer the laptop to fold into a tablet, but if the circumstances are good enough, I could very well be happy with something that doesn't. That being said, I do have a side question. Can a pen be used on any touch screen laptop or is that not a thing yet? 

[TylerD321]

I would wager that a 3050 ti is roughly about the same power as a 1660 ti in a laptop. If you would want to sell your original laptop and get a new one that does all of the functionality that you need that would be fine. 
 

What I would recommend instead is getting something like an iPad instead. Then you can draw on something lighter and lower profile while not making compromises on gaming or creativity.

[Selestial]

Just now, TylerD321 said:

I would wager that a 3050 ti is roughly about the same power as a 1660 ti in a laptop. If you would want to sell your original laptop and get a new one that does all of the functionality that you need that would be fine. 
 

What I would recommend instead is getting something like an iPad instead. Then you can draw on something lighter and lower profile while not making compromises on gaming or creativity.

Well, the problem with this Dell G7 is that it must be overclocked with the Alienware Control Center that comes with it and will not perform at all if set to "cool" or "quiet". It has to be set to performance and it stays at 100c no matter what I do or what game I'm playing. I could get into all that's wrong with the laptop, but I'll just say this.. I have a laptop with a 1050TI that runs games better. That aside, I wouldn't particularly want an iPad although I'm not an apple hater. My first thought was to just get a plug-in screen that I could draw on, but I don't really want a separate device, that includes keeping the laptop and just getting a separate tablet just for that. From what I've seen Linus say about the laptop in question though, I still don't quite know enough about it because he only really sort of covered it, but I understand he's not a pen laptop guy. He did say in that video that he would recommend the Dell XPS laptop with the "faster 3060" in it, but from what I understand, he was comparing laptop to laptop, not drawing device to drawing device. I might just need to do more research on the 3050TI and see what it's capable of. I'm tired of getting 25-40 FPS in Borderlands 3 at medium settings when my friend sitting next to me with a 1050ti and an i5 6400 is getting 60 with the same settings.

[Qyygle]

The XPS would run just as bad as your G7 if not worse. It has worse cooling since it'd be running a similar spec in a thinner chassis and Dell's thermal designs all around are crap.

 

The Surface Laptop Studio (I'm assuming you mean this machine?) may be similar to the G7 you currently have, depending on the size and W limit it's 1660ti is using. I can only compare against my Legion5, which I've intentionally limited GPU Wattage with (undervolted for fan noise) it usually runs at 80W, with my undervolt it averages around 60-70W and my SLS is capable of similar performance with this. 

The SLS pen will cost extra though (the drawing experience is very good with a slim pen 2 however) and the SLS screen though 120hz, has really bad response times, so it feels slow regardless of the 120hz setting or not.

 

If you want a single machine to replace your G7, it might be worth waiting a bit to see if SLS gen1 prices drop when the rumored gen2 with 40series cards is released. Otherwise, unless you find a good deal on an old Acer ConceptD 5 Ezel or something, for good drawing performance and dGPU, the SLS is one of the only options...

[Selestial]

6 hours ago, Qyygle said:

The XPS would run just as bad as your G7 if not worse. It has worse cooling since it'd be running a similar spec in a thinner chassis and Dell's thermal designs all around are crap.

 

The Surface Laptop Studio (I'm assuming you mean this machine?) may be similar to the G7 you currently have, depending on the size and W limit it's 1660ti is using. I can only compare against my Legion5, which I've intentionally limited GPU Wattage with (undervolted for fan noise) it usually runs at 80W, with my undervolt it averages around 60-70W and my SLS is capable of similar performance with this. 

The SLS pen will cost extra though (the drawing experience is very good with a slim pen 2 however) and the SLS screen though 120hz, has really bad response times, so it feels slow regardless of the 120hz setting or not.

 

If you want a single machine to replace your G7, it might be worth waiting a bit to see if SLS gen1 prices drop when the rumored gen2 with 40series cards is released. Otherwise, unless you find a good deal on an old Acer ConceptD 5 Ezel or something, for good drawing performance and dGPU, the SLS is one of the only options...

Are we talking about laptops now or laptops that come with pens and/or fold?

[Qyygle]

My assumption is that you're talking about a surface laptop studio, when you quote a "Surface Laptop Pro"? The Laptop Studio (SLS) is the hinged convertable with the screen folding forward. A Surface Pro would be one the tablet devices with a keyboard cover, they do not have dedicated GPUs.

 

From your post, your interest is replacing both your gaming laptop (G7) and separate drawing tablet with a single machine, hence the SLS.

 

I don't have a G7 to compare against, but in comparing my SLS against my Legion5-17, I've found they perform similarly based on how I setup/use my Legion, which is also running a 1660ti, same as your G7.

I think the 3050ti in the SLS is restricted to a lower power limit than the 80W 1660ti, but the fact that it's newer architecture helps it perform close in most cases. It only has 4gb vram vs the 6 gb in the 1660, but that doesn't matter too much for the class of GPU these both fall in.

 

Touch screen doesn't automatically mean you can draw with stylus. For background, there are basically 3 types of digital drawing technology out in the market right now:

- Wacom EMR, this is what your bamboo is using. It's generally regarded as the standard in the industry, the pens do not need batteries. These are typically the most accurate and pressure sensative types of drawing digitizers, I prefer this over the Apple Pencil, but it sometimes has trouble with palm rejection. Samsung's S-Pens are actually licensed Wacom EMR digitizers, so they are the same tech

 

- Apple Pencil. Only available on iPad, if you don't want an iPad, no choice here. People like it, I don't like the lack of secondary buttons (eraser, right click, etc.) and the pencil's shape and feel doesn't fit my hand.

 

- Microsoft Pen Protocol/N-Trig OR Wacom AES. These are really 2 different techs, but I lump them together because they're very similar. The pen's require charging/battery, but can offer secondary buttons, etc. These are highly dependant on what version the manufacturer is using. Older versions of MPP/N-Trig are really bad. Wavy lines, lack of accuracy, poor pressure sensitivity, no tilt sensing. Only the most recent MPP that's used on the Surface Pro 8's, 9, and the SLS when paired with the most recent Surface Slim Pen 2 can be counted as 'good' in my opinion. This is why even though a lot of laptop makers are selling 'creative' focused 2in1's, most of them are trash. They're also very bad about stating exactly what kind of tech their laptops use, so you need to very carefully try to see if it's MPP or AES (the pens are not interchangable)

 

Unless you get the most recent surface devices, I'd bet you'll end up extremely frustrated with drawing on anything using MPP/N-Trig or Wacom AES, coming from the screen-less Bamboo. EMR is just that much better than any MPP version before the Pro8/9. Lenovo, Dell, HP, ASUS, are all using either MPP or AES and very old versions of it. The only devices not using these I've seen recently are Samsung's x360's and Acer's ConceptD 7 Ezel (EMR).

 

If you want both a good drawing experience and some gaming ability, the only options out there at the moment is the SLS, Acer Conceptd7 Ezel (don't get a 3, that's using AES not EMR for pen). There are other laptops that offer better graphics, like an ASUS Flowx13 or x16 but they're more commonly using Wacom AES or older MPP styluses.

Then there're options for better drawing experience like the Samsung Galaxybook x360's that have Wacom EMR, but no dedicated GPUs so they wouldn't be able to replace your gaming machine unless you go with an eGPU or something.

 

 

[Qyygle]

As example of how varied MPP/NTrig can be, this is a single one-note page where I tested mutiple pens

Even with the same screen (SLS) using older pens can show the very different results. The new Slim Pen2 is very smooth and does diagonal lines almost perfectly. The older Surface pen (from surface pro 3 I think?) is average, but shows more wave on diagonals and jitter. The random N-trig pen (an HP stylus I think) is incredibly bad with pronounced wave pattern. Wacom Bamboo in this case is Wacom's Stylus (not your tablet) was a dual AES/N-trig pen Wacom sold. It was a fairly recent N-trig/AES version but still has very bad jitter.

 

There's a little bit of testing from an Ipad air on the bottom left. That's actually with a thick screen protector on, so it's wavier than it should be, the bare screen and pencil performed better than the Slim Pen results. You can do your own testing with your Bamboo and see how EMR compares against these results.

A lot of tech reviewers including LTT tend to gloss over drawing issues when they review these devices because they just do the most basic writing test and go, "Yup, my poor handwriting appears" and move on. If one of your main use cases is to draw though, this is pretty important to know.