ZBrushCentral

Do you have the Mobilestudio Pro?

Community
#1

Hey Guys!

I’m really new on this forum so I’ll try to be as clear as possible.

So here’s the deal, I’m a game artist, mainly environments or characters from time to time and I’m actively looking for a good pen computer to work when I’m traveling and use it as a third display at home on my workstation and the high-end wacom mobilestudio is very appealing to me…

But what’s troubling me is that I heard the mobilestudio pro 16 i7 has an overheating issue when using it with “heavy” zbrush files (so, does it work well on Unreal4 when you bake your lightmaps or does the device just fries?). I also heard that the tablet is a pain to connect to your computer as a display, with the wacom link and another cable to go from mini displayport to displayport/HDMI…:mad: (kinda surprising for a product that expensive…)

I would hate to have to add a cooling pad on top of the wacom link, the keyboard, the powerbank (crappy battery apparently) and the 3K $ device.

Do you think I should try to find an alternative or do you know any? I found a Wacom hybrid to buy, but with android I cannot run Zbrush, Maya, Unity, Unreal when traveling…

As you can see I’m kinda lost, I really need a good cintiq-like tablet with Windows on it but the reviews for those kind of products are mainly focused on the Adode suite without telling if the device is suitable for my kind of work…

Sorry for the very long post and thank you for your help :smiley:

#2

i own a mobilestudio pro,

im a huge supporter of wacom and I was really looking forward to this tool when it came out , after several months i must admit I regret purchasing it.
it does a decent job of handling zbrush but it does get pretty hot.
pros-
-good performance
-great pen
-nice screen
-everything you expect from a wacom experience when drawing or sculpting
cons

  • heavy and bulky
  • gets hot
  • low battery life
  • dependent on dongles for any usb items
    -needs a extra case or sleeve to protect the screen

but really the main problem i have is that its just not that comfortable to work on outside the studio, hauling it out with all the attachments , wireless mouse and keyboard and power brick just felt like too much of a commitment and ended up being a hassle.

I have found a good alternative . the new HP zbook x2
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/workstations/zbook-x2/index.html

this has become my go to mobile alternative when im on the road, it can handle zbrush well. i use it for photoshop, painter keyshot and unreal engine development, the zbook has full wacom penabled support ,14 inch diagonal 4k screen ,you can buy one with an i7 processor, an nvidia quadro m620 video card and 32 gigs of ram with a 1 terabyte drive.

the main downside of the zbook is the pen, it feels good and has all the sensitivity and tilt of the wacom studio pen but it only has one button on it, its almost a dealbreaker for me but i use the 12 programmable quick keys on the tablet to compensate.

full disclosure, HP has sponsored me for a number of years with new equipment but they are not paying me to give this review and i dont benefit whether you buy one or not. the wacom studio pro has a lot of potential and ill probably give the next iteration of their studio pro a try but at the moment my studio pro collects dust and my zbook rides shotgun on all my out of studio art missions.
if you need more power and have the money i also use the razer blade pro for unreal development work especially because it can handle VR with a 1080 , the razer has touch but no wacom penabled tech or stylus action .

so out of the options i have had experience with i recommend the zbook as solid investment.

good luck,

#3

I just tested the full mobile studio 16"
It’s a solid product. Had no bad experiences with heat but didn’t used it longer than 20 min.

Overall I think it’s kind of big to be super mobile.
The 13" could be a better choice depending on the needs.

The HP has same “lousy” GPU as Wacom mobile. Wouldn’t be my fav.

New microsoft surface book 2 15" comes with 6GB GTX1060 for same price as HP.
Could be THE alrounder for everything including video etc. in the moment.

#4

I have a 16 inch version. I find it rather sluggish in comparison to my workstation. On light 3D work ( Maya, Substance and Zbrush ) it will do the job.
Don’t expect it to be smooth on bigger scenes…the cpu is not that great. 16 is more than enough, big scenes that need that much ram, are not workable on the wacom.

If 3D is your main work, I would search for a better cpu based laptop. Like the new 4core or 6cores. I’d much rather have got a top tier laptop + a XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro Drawing Tablet With Screen vs the all-in-one. I use it mainly for drawing and touch ups.

Note: portable it’s fine for sketches, when doing intensive work you need to plug in. I bought one of those laptop stance with ventilation to fight the heat throttling.