I few years ago when the first iPad came out, I began to to look for ways in which it would fit my life and work. I started to analyse if I could somehow justify the investment. Being the gadget geek that I am its quite unbelievable that I resisted the urge and never really bought one as I always felt is was quite limited and more of a novelty or entertainment device.
Fast forward to the android revolution and I, being a new convert (yes the wife converted me from a blackberry to an android touch screen at that time) I began to entertain the idea of purchasing an android tablet. I was particularly fond of the Note series and I could see myself taking notes and sketching with the stylus, What was appealing at this time was that I had adopted the Google services and there could be real use for such device. However for me the biggest draw back was being limited to apps and not being able to run any real programs - it was almost not better than an iPad.
Let's fast forward again... I have finally purchased a tablet !.. no a laptop, not a tablet with a keyboard...
I had purchased an ASUS TF810C. I was very please with the device, how light it was, and above all it could run windows applications being a full Windows 8 tablet and it had a dock and stylus as well. I have to say that I was aware of the surface pro coming but I just had to try out the ASUS. The device proved to be great for light tasks, but not necessarily what I was looking for - I wanted to do Bim on a tablet, but I felt it was a bit slow with the Atom processor and the 2GB of ram.
It was a beautiful device but I had to part with it, so I passed it to one of my colleagues and I purchased a Surface Pro 128GB !
I have to say that despite its "short" battery life and weight I love it. What its remarkable about it is that even though it only has 4GB of ram, I am able to do Bim with it. Last week I conducted a coordination meeting over an internet meeting service right from the Surface ! I was impressed with its performance. No lag, no stuttering. I had both Revit and Navisworks running at the same time. These were not small "demo" models either, these were pretty complex. Whats even more interesting was that I was able to save viewpoints and annotate them right on the screen with the stylus. While this device is not perfect, it really fits me. It is portable, powerful, keeps me connected and most importantly it allows me to do one of the thing I love to do - Bim !
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| This is how Bim is supposed to be done ! ;) |
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| Modeled in my Surface Pro. |
