Tablet For Photo Back-Up/Editing

R

R.Y.K. LEE

Suspended / Banned
Messages
1,023
Name
Ray
Edit My Images
No
Hi guys,

My wife has had a Kindle Fire for some time now, and I recently thought about getting a tablet for myself to back-up photos to while on holiday and for the occasional simple editing.

What would you recommend for a first time tablet owner (lugged around a 17" laptop for the most part for my photos). Will I need an expensive one, or would something like the Tesco Hudl be good enough?

What other bits of hardware/software would I need to consider for transferring the images to the tablet from a card reader?

Does anyone here find the photo editing apps enough/satisfactory for simple edits, or are they too basic (never joined Instagram, didn't want my photos to look like grainy beige images).
 
if you dont want an iPad then (and people will disagree with me here) I find a windows tab great for photo editing and you can pick up something like the Acer W3 or W4 for £140-£180 now, I didn't think I would like the 8" windows tabs but they are very useable, I am happily going from a 10" to an 8.
 
Hi Dave :D

Is the Windows tab running Laptop Windows 8, or Windows phone 8? If it's running Laptop Windows 8, is there a possibility to put Lightroom on it with an external DVD drive? Silly questions I know, but I have no experience with tablets or Windows 8 (running vista on the laptop lol).
 
right to explain as good as I can, there are 2 sorts of modern W8 tablets one of them is Windows 8 RT which cannot install and run software like you would on a full blown W8 pc and so its reliant on Apps, you will also have driver issues with USB devices unless supported..

the other are non RT and are full blown Windows 8 like at home so the only complication would be with spec, most are Atom processors and 2gb ram so latest Adobe products will suffer, I tend to use Adobe Photoshop Express(available on all tabs iOS, Android and W8).

so if looking at W8 tabs avoid RT
 
Okay, I went away and done some reading and downloading.

I can see that some of the Windows tabs are using i3/i5/i7 processors but the price of them is higher than some laptops! Therefore with that kind of money I might as well just upgrade my old laptop :D

As for the lower spec ones, you've mentioned that they will struggle running LR/PS. But will run PSE instead, which I can also get on Android. I downloaded it on my phone to have a play, but must admit I'm not liking it all that much. However I also downloaded Snapspeed and I am really liking that one!

So with that said, would it not be more beneficial for me to buy an Android based tablet, as I will be able to use PSE on it like with a low spec Windows tablet, but also use Snapspeed? I've compared the specs of similar priced units of both platforms and they seem pretty evenly matched. Or am I missing something?

The only way I can see myself buying into the Windows tablet route is if it will run LR/PS on the lower spec model. Has anyone tried running LR/PS on a Microsoft Surface Pro 2 with the atom processor and not the higher speced i3 and up models? Or maybe even on a 10 inch notebook with similar specs?
 
Last edited:
the real issue's for backup is
storage
transfer times
app's suitable for file management (editing i think theres something on every platform)
power to external devices
usb host (plus its actual speed)

maybe see if u can get a older surface non rt ?
 
You can get an original Surface Pro, i5 CPU, 128GB, running Full windows 8 Pro for £370 (new, not used). I'm so tempted to pick one up but have managed to resist so far.
 
yeah sorry didn't mention the i ranges as the cost runs them into full blown laptop/ultrabook territory..

again some will disagree but I cannot stand Android for anything other than basic stuff (web/stream/game) but alot of that is based on my music hobby, Android is absolute pap for anything like that.. on my iPad I plug my m-audio keystation in with a mains adapter, connect it to iPad via usb kit and voila I am rocking away on Garageband.. even better with the ME400c Windows tab as the usb powers the m-audio so no need for mains adapter, plus I use Ignite software just like on main pc.. with Android you can forget it..

so alot of my dislike of Android is with music based stuff, but then again out of the 3 systems I find it the worse for photo editing too, I just dont quite trust the system like I do with iOS/W8, my current phone is Android and I have a HP Slate 21" and they are fine for entertainment stuff, anything else I just cannot use them.
 
Surface pro 2 or 3

I'm thinking of getting the 3 but will wait until I've tried one in a shop first
 
I'm restricted to Android for all my editing. Old laptop that is barely fast enough to handle transferring of files, so I run Adobe photoshop touch, much better than express, with many core 'proper' photoshop features.

I've also recently bought 'Photo mate R2' for developing of RAW files, it's very similar to lightroom, and seems very good to me.

I run both of these apps (and Autodesk's sketch book pro) on my HTC ONE phone! Runs perfectly well, but screen size can be annoying.

I also run all 3 on my galaxy tab2, but that suffers ram issues.

Currently toying with the idea of a 10.1 Note, I feel the performance is enough, with the added accuracy and ease of use that stylus and 10.1" screen brings. The old model is reasonably priced now the 2014 model has been released, but no doubt the new model performs much better.

If you do go android, minimum 1.4ghz quad core, with 2gb of ram.

Storage is never huge in these devices, and portable SSD would be a better bet.



Just my 2p from a hardcore android user.
 
Last edited:
If you're buying Samsung then storage can be expanded via MicroSD. The latest Tab3 10.1 can be expanded by up to 128 GB. Something you can't do with Apple products.
 
stu.artd said:
You can get an original Surface Pro, i5 CPU, 128GB, running Full windows 8 Pro for £370 (new, not used). I'm so tempted to pick one up but have managed to resist so far.
Click to expand...

Sounds very interesting :) Is this the one sold by CCL? If yes, then it might just be what I'm looking for.

Are these upgradable at all? If I wanted to up the ram later, will I be able to do that?

So going by the price of £370, besides the Microsoft Surface Pro 2, are there any other ones on the market I should consider before pulling the trigger on this? I don't really want to buy Apple, so I guess it's either Windows or Android.

As with Photoshop Touch, is this a stripped down version of Photoshop or is it just optimised for use with touch screen devices? Is the Atom processors quad core?
 
Yes it's the one ccl have.
I don't think you can upgrade them other than adding more storage space through a sd card or maybe usb drive.

One major fail for android in my opinion is the stingy 16gb ram on so many of the tablets. Yes you can add an sd card but many apps only use internal storage and can't be moved to the sd card.
 
R.Y.K. LEE said:
Sounds very interesting :) Is this the one sold by CCL? If yes, then it might just be what I'm looking for.

Are these upgradable at all? If I wanted to up the ram later, will I be able to do that?

So going by the price of £370, besides the Microsoft Surface Pro 2, are there any other ones on the market I should consider before pulling the trigger on this? I don't really want to buy Apple, so I guess it's either Windows or Android.

As with Photoshop Touch, is this a stripped down version of Photoshop or is it just optimised for use with touch screen devices? Is the Atom processors quad core?
Click to expand...
Re PS Touch, it is watered down, but has many powerful features, too many for me to list. Do a Google and read a couple of reviews for the feature list.

I've used it for a year or so, never been in a position where it wouldn't do what I wanted with a little persistence, but it won't do RAW 's and is limited in the amount of layers you can have. With the 18mp photos from my 600d I get 3 layers, obviously you get more with smaller pictures.


If you're a regular photoshop user you might get frustrated with its limits, but for someone like me, with no other real options, it does an excellent job.

I'm sure a stylus tab will open it up beautifully though, using fingers can be annoying when you want to be accurate, and the silly 'universal' rubber ended stylus' (styli?) are awful. I've had a play with the note stylus and I'm impressed for a consumer product.
 
Last edited:
you can get tiny micro sd readers, or usb sticks. but in terms of storage your probably not gaining anything over a stack of sd cards, other than viewing your pics
 
Thanks for all the info guys, really appreciate it!

Just got back from Curry's and got more confused. I went to look at the Surface tablets but got tempted by the laptops. Same/less money for more. Had to remind myself to factor in the portability factor.

That's when I noticed the Lenovo Flex 14. Even though its a 14 inch screen it looks small, thin and light. About £400 with i3, 4gb ram, 500gb hd, touch screen windows 8.

If I were to buy the first gen Surface from CCL (3rd gen i5, 4gb ram, 128gb ssd) for £370, I'd probably have to factor in cost of micro SD, external HD, wireless keyboard/mouse. Bringing cost up to probably £500+. While with the Flex 14, it has the keyboard and large HD in it already.

My question is,

- How does the 4th gen i3 compare to the 3rd gen i5?
- Can the ram be upgraded in the flex 14?
- Will those specs run Lightroom/PS?

Just for comparison, my 7 year old Dell has core 2 duo e8400, 4gb ram, and 256mb dedicated graphics. It can run both simultaneously at reasonable speed. Will the 1st gen Surface and Flex give same or better performance?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top