Ask JackTechnologyWhat's the best tablet for a photographer with a DSLR?
Tim Locke edits photos on a laptop and would like to show them on a tablet. Should he use an iPad or a Windows 8 convertible?I take pictures with a Canon DSLR camera, and use Canon software (EOS Utility, Zoom Browser and Digital Photo Professional) to edit them on a 4.5-year-old Toshiba laptop. The laptop is still reliable (though slowing down) with a decent screen and still enough oomph to do the editing.
I have decided that a tablet would enhance viewing the photos with the ability to swivel the screen, portability and so on. But experimenting with my wife's iPad, I have found that I cannot transfer the folders as they are on the PC, nor preserve the original file information (date taken, name etc). Nor does the iPad reliably display photos in the order they were taken.
Can you recommend a tablet or a convertible laptop that would meet my viewing and file management requirements? I would hope that using the tablet for browsing, email etc would also preserve the life of the Toshiba.
Tim Locke
The iPad is a very good device for displaying photographs, though it can be somewhat inflexible. Probably the simplest way to use it is to create albums in Apple's iPhoto or Aperture programs on a laptop and then sync these to the iPad, which will show images in the order you chose in iPhoto. You can also use Keynote, Apple's presentation software, to display photos. However, iPhoto and Aperture are Apple-only. You would have to buy an Apple laptop to run them.
An Apple support document says you can use iTunes to sync photos from a Windows PC and Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 or later, or Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0, to an iOS device such as an iPad, though that this is a one way trip. (I don't run iTunes on PCs and don't have the Adobe programs, so I haven't tried it.) There may be other ways of doing it, as well.
Android tablets
Android tablets are cheaper and a bit more flexible than iPads, and they are becoming popular with DSLR owners. Buy one with a microSD or SD card slot and it would be handy for looking at pictures while you're out shooting. There are also programs such as DSLR Controller, which, according to the blurb on the website, "allows you to fully control your Canon EOS DSLR from your Android device, with nothing more than a USB cable".
You could use an Android tablet with either a 7in or 10in screen, or something in between. Pictures look better on bigger screens but smaller devices are easier to carry around. Pictures should also look better on a tablet that has an IPS or Super-PLS screen, and these provide wider viewing angles. (Super-PLS is a Samsung version of IPS.)
Both iPads and Android tablets work best as companion devices. It's quicker and easier to do serious editing and file manipulation (including batch processing) on a laptop or desktop PC. Professional photographers use programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, but there are plenty of cheaper programs available. Good free options include Paint.net, Zoner Photo Studio, Irfan View and Microsoft Photo Gallery.
Windows 8 tablets
In theory, a Microsoft Windows 8 tablet, convertible or transformer would solve all your problems. In principle, the tablet part of Windows 8 (formerly known as Metro) can do anything an iPad or Android tablet can do, while offering a cleaner, more modern user interface. Windows 8 also includes a full Windows desktop that is little changed from Windows 7, so you should still be able to run your Canon software and other applications. You will have to learn how to use the start screen instead of the start menu, but this is certainly no harder than learning a whole new tablet user interface, and your file operations will work the way you already like.
The result is that you get both a tablet and a Windows laptop in a single device. You can almost instantly switch from editing and sorting your photos on the laptop part to viewing them on the touch-screen tablet without having to copy the photos across or go through a tedious export routine.
However, this does involve some compromises. First, it's not a cheap solution. Windows 8 convertibles have to cost more than ordinary laptops because they include much more expensive parts, such as SSDs (solid state disks) and multi-touch screens. You will save some money through not having to pay for two motherboards, two screens, two SSDs and so on, but that's probably not how most buyers will see it.
Second, Windows 8 works well as a tablet, but it may be a big tablet. Microsoft's Surface Pro, for example, is thin and light by laptop standards, but quite a bit heftier than most 10in tablets. (The ARM-based Surface RT version is smaller, lighter and has long battery life, but it doesn't have an Intel processor and won't run your Canon and Toshiba software.)
Price problems
PC manufacturers are solving the price problem by using cheaper Intel Atom processors (familiar from netbooks) instead of Core iX chips (used in Ultrabooks). Atoms are like the ARM chips used in Android tablets: they are power efficient – which means longer battery life – but relatively slow. At the moment, the standard option is a dual core Atom Z2760. This is an improvement on old netbook chips, but still slower than a typical Core 2 Duo and nowhere near as fast as a third-generation Core i3. Use Notebookcheck's Comparison of Mobile Processors (CPU Benchmarks) to see how the Z2760 compares with the processor in your old Toshiba. The Toshiba may well be faster, though a Z2760 might be fast enough.
If you take this route, there are several options on the market, such as the Acer Iconia W510, Asus Vivo TF810C, Dell Latitude 10, Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx and Samsung Ativ SmartPC. For the most tablet-like experience, choose one where the screen can be detached, rather than rotated or folded back
I have not tested any of these PCs, but I have had brief hands-on sessions with the Acer W510 and Dell Latitude 10, and they seemed to perform quite well. However, the Acer W510 costs more than £500 at Amazon.co.uk while the Dell Latitude 10 comes out at £493.20 including VAT and shipping (£24).
Like the Asus Transformer, the Acer W510 has a second battery in the keyboard dock, which Acer says "gives you up to 18 hours of battery life". It also works in three modes: as a laptop, as a standalone tablet, and as a presentation device. Considering it has an Intel processor and Windows 8 rather than a cheap ARM and almost-free Android, it's reasonably priced compared to, say, an Asus Transformer TF700 (£599). However, it has much less raw power than a traditional £500 laptop.
Convertibles like these should suit schools, where versatility and long battery life have a lot of value, and data is stored on servers rather than 32GB SSDs. They can certainly display your photos, browse the web and handle email, but they are not designed to run heavyweight applications.
Windows tablets with Core iX chips can run the full Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and other professional software, at a price. Examples include Microsoft's Surface Pro, Dell's XPS Duo 12, HP's Envy X2, Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga 13, Samsung's Ativ SmartPC Pro, Sony's VAIO Duo 11, and the dual-screen Asus Taichi.
While Z2760-based convertibles cost around £500 to £750, Core iX-powered models are roughly twice the price. The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 convertible Ultrabook, for example, costs £999.999 with a Core i7-3517U, the Dell XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook is £1,299, while the Asus Tailchi and Sony models have recommended prices around £1,500. This is MacBook territory.
Possible solutions
In sum, this is a very tricky problem. The cheapest hardware solution would be to go for a 9.7in or 10.1in tablet with a capacitative screen display and a card slot. It will display photos – check the screen resolution carefully – and otherwise give you a way to explore Android and its plethora of photo apps. Examples include the Acer Iconia A200 (£205) and the A1CS Fusion 5 Xtra (£155).
The best solution at around £500 would be an Atom-powered Windows 8 tablet with a detachable screen, such as the Acer W510. This will provide a tablet for showing photos while also replacing the Toshiba for most applications, including email and web browsing, but it won't provide the big power boost you'd get from a Core i5-based laptop. Since this is a non-essential purchase you might be better off waiting six or eight months. The Windows 8 market is in its early days, and prices should come down as production volumes increase. Also, Intel has new chips coming, such as the exciting range currently code-named Haswell.
If you feel like making a great leap forward, and want to spend £1,000 to £1,500, you could go for a Core iX tablet — perhaps even a Microsoft Surface Pro, when it's available in the UK. But this type of machine is really a corporate or enthusiast purchase at the moment. You're not one.
So, I think you should explore ways to make your wife's iPad display photos in more amenable ways, even if it means buying Adobe Photoshop Elements (£57.61) and installing the dreadful iTunes for Windows. Unless a reader has a better idea, of course …
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