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iPad as well?


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The one I have has 2.4 Ghz only and no SSD. I updated the firmware when I bought it (4 years ago I think) and never checked if there was another update. Never had any problem with SD cards backup. 

 

 

Drive.png

-- Window 11 - 32 gb - Intel I7 - 8700 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060
-- iPad Pro 2020 - 12,9 - 256 gb - Apple Pencil 2 -- iPad 9th gen 256 gb - Apple Pencil 1
-- Macbook Air 15"

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I have the newer one. In the Pro model there were problems with backing up SD cards in the first few firmwares. The last firmware has resolved all the issues. The 5Ghz Wireless band is amazingly quick making transfers to the iPad very workable. I like that I can connect the iPad to the WD and the WD connects to the internet through my home network.. A neat bit of kit.

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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I have looked into all of this carefully but have decided that the iPad 'solution' is not for me. Thanks to @AlainP for the drive info.

First of all the cost. An iPad pro is about £800 (UK Sterling). An Apple keyboard, Pencil and external wi-fi drive (as described) brings that up to about £1200. Sure, there are cheaper pencils and keypads solutions but quality usually suffers. That is just too expensive for what you get.

I have looked at the MS Surface Pro but don't like the way it locks you into MS Store software (as I understand it?) and the spec' is nothing special for the price.

I have therefore decided to buy an Acer Spin 5, which converts between a laptop and a tablet. The one with a 13.3" screen, an i5 8th generation processor, 8gb RAM and a 256mb SSD drive. It has long battery life and performance is similar to 7th generation i7 processors (apparently). It comes with a "pencil" and more to the point it has a keyboard, USB (including USB type C) and HDMI ports so easy to attach a mouse, a graphics tablet, an external monitor, cheap external USB hard drives etc. It even has a card reader.

I can get one for about £600. That's not much more than the cost of a pencil and an external wi-fi drive for my (decidedly 2nd rate) Air 2.

So much more usable IMHO, I can use my Spyder colour matching thing and existing Affinity Licences (thank you Serif) and of course Publisher :):):) (I will have to pay for that :(). I can even transfer a MS Office license (is that an advantage or a drawback?).

Secondly, I don't have to use the cut-down version of either Designer or Photo and can use the light interface, rather than the hopelessly unreadable dark interface. I am fed up with having to press the question mark every time I want to find a Studio, not to mention all that tapping just to do a simple task. Proper keyboard shortcuts, macros and a mouse whenever I need, yippee! or a touch screen if I don't. It's a little bit bigger than a 12.7" iPad and heavier but I don't mind that. 

I will use my iPad for it's intended use, a toy, or maybe just let it gather dust ;).

spin.jpg.7a3d6931c82589d259587695f9240d7f.jpg

Note: Respect to those of you who are able to use the iPad for professional work (like @DM1) but my interest is mainly creating documents and editing photographs. So proper versions of Photo and Publisher are more important to me. I am crap as an artist so don't do sketching.

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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@toltec You've obviously given this a considerable amount of thought and I suspect you've made the correct choice for your needs. The Spin 5 looks like a nice little unit. Touch screen? I guess so if it has tablet pencil and Win 10. I used to love Office (a decade go), but they kept adding unnecessary features and complicating a simple interface to the point where I really disliked using it.  Being.able to use the desktop versions of Photo and Publisher is a bonus and, should the need arise, you will still have the option of editing on the iPad.  9_9  Enjoy your new toy. :D:D

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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On 10/2/2018 at 9:44 AM, alan goodacre said:

I have affinity on my iMac and am wondering if I should purchase it again for my iPad...

Late to this discussion but one thing I did not see anybody ask about is which iPad model you have. If it is one of the ones that supports the Apple Pencil & you have one or are thinking about getting one, then that plus Affinity Photo & to a lesser extent Affinity Designer for iPad gives you a very nice way to sketch directly on your documents, with full pressure & tilt support for brushwork.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.0 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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On 10/5/2018 at 3:37 AM, toltec said:

I have therefore decided to buy an Acer Spin 5, which converts between a laptop and a tablet. The one with a 13.3" screen, an i5 8th generation processor, 8gb RAM and a 256mb SSD drive.

I am a Mac user so my only interest in this device would be as a potential recommendation for my Windows using friends, but do you have a link for purchase info for it? I can't find anything that matches your description very well regarding price & performance.

What I can find, which may be a different model, is this one (US link) from Newegg (UK link). While it looks like a reasonably capable device & has all the ports you want, based on the specs alone & one preproduction review, in several respects it does not seem to compare well to the admittedly more expensive iPad Pros.

Most notably, the screen is nothing to get excited about, just a 1920 x 1080 IPS display powered by an integrated Intel GPU, while the current iPad Pros use a much higher resolution 2224 x1668 (10.5") or 2732 x 2048 (12.9") wide color P3 display running on Apple's M10 coprocessor embedded in Apple's A10X Fusion system chip. As I understand it, the Affinity iPad apps take full advantage of the M10/A10X combo, outperforming the desktop apps is several respects. The Acer is also considerably heavier & runs hot under heavy loads, even though it throttles down to conserve battery life, making it (according to the review) not a 'pleasant' device for handheld use.

Of course, none of this may matter to you but I think it would for my friends, particularly the power user types I am trying to get on the Affinity bandwagon. So if you do get the Acer I would be grateful if you would post something about your impressions on how well it runs the Affinity apps for you.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.0 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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23 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I am a Mac user so my only interest in this device would be as a potential recommendation for my Windows using friends, but do you have a link for purchase info for it? I can't find anything that matches your description very well regarding price & performance.

What I can find, which may be a different model, is this one (US link) from Newegg (UK link). While it looks like a reasonably capable device & has all the ports you want, based on the specs alone & one preproduction review, in several respects it does not seem to compare well to the admittedly more expensive iPad Pros.

Most notably, the screen is nothing to get excited about, just a 1920 x 1080 IPS display powered by an integrated Intel GPU, while the current iPad Pros use a much higher resolution 2224 x1668 (10.5") or 2732 x 2048 (12.9") wide color P3 display running on Apple's M10 coprocessor embedded in Apple's A10X Fusion system chip. As I understand it, the Affinity iPad apps take full advantage of the M10/A10X combo, outperforming the desktop apps is several respects. The Acer is also considerably heavier & runs hot under heavy loads, even though it throttles down to conserve battery life, making it (according to the review) not a 'pleasant' device for handheld use.

Of course, none of this may matter to you but I think it would for my friends, particularly the power user types I am trying to get on the Affinity bandwagon. So if you do get the Acer I would be grateful if you would post something about your impressions on how well it runs the Affinity apps for you.

No problem. 

It arrived a couple of days ago and I have just finished setting it up, loading MS Office and the two Affinity apps. Initial impressions are very good but I will have a chance to evaluate it over the next few days and will post accordingly.

The first things I noticed was having a proper mouse and keyboard, the light interface and fully featured Affinity apps. I'm afraid that after using a mouse for thirty odd years, I find having to tap three or four times for a simple operation was so restricting. Old fashioned I guess :(, or maybe just old ?

This is the model and the UK supplier. They do supply internationally, if that helps.

https://www.box.co.uk/NX.GR7EK.005-Acer-Spin-5-SP513-52N-53HQ_2321763.html

 

 

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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1 hour ago, toltec said:

The first things I noticed was having a proper mouse and keyboard {...} Old fashioned I guess :(, or maybe just old ?

IIRC, we have established that I am (a little?) older than you are.

Anyway, I have to admit that when I first starting using the iPad Affinity apps, I missed having a keyboard enough to buy an Anker bluetooth keyboard to use with it. It works well for text entry & for the keyboard shortcuts the iPad apps support, but despite that I find I don't use it very much. That's because I most enjoy using my iPad handheld while I am kicked back relaxing in my office chair. My smaller & lighter 9.7" non-pro iPad is perfect for this, particularly with my Apple Pencil, which is so much better for graphics work than a mouse ever could be that I can't imagine ever wanting to use one with a tablet computer.

I don't know how the Acer Active Stylus compares to the Apple Pencil, but if you start using it with or without your 'proper' mouse, I would like to know what you think of it.

EDIT: I checked the Box.co site link you were kind enough to provide, but apparently they do not ship items like this one outside of Europe. I am not sure why but it may have something to do with the high energy lithium battery. :(

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.0 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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