Best tablet device to use with your DSLR?

Does anyone own or know a good tablet to use with a DSLR? I'm interested mainly in getting the images from the camera to the tablet and reviewing them and deleting bad shots, maybe rating them and cropping or minor edits. 10" should be good size. Android would be great as an OS since the iPad is way too closed in my opinion and doesn't support plugging in anything without some adapters and what not :) Best would be if I could just plug my camera to the tablet via USB and transfer the images but I'm willing to make do with plugging a card reader to the tablet. Also support for external 2,5" HDD's would be great since the tablets don't have too much memory to store photos.


Feature list I would need:

• ~10" screen with a decent resolution
• Good battery life
• Ability to act as a USB host (preferably plugging the camera straight in for downloading images, but also for external HDD or card-reader)
• Ability to review and sort/delete images and maybe some light editing like cropping etc. (this should be a software problem)

If someone uses a tablet like this or knows of one that might work that would be great!

I can

Do you shoot RAW or jpeg? Which body? It can make a huge difference, especially if you have a 7D or 5Dii.

Personally I use a netbook. It runs windows 7 and basically does everything like a laptop except a bit slower and no cd/dvd drive. I picked up one with one of the better processors (for a netbook anyway) so I can do some basic photo-editing. It also has 3 usb ports and an hdmi output. Good for watching movies on the plane too! Everyone wants/needs something different, this is just one option you may consider. At ~$300 I think they can be a bargain. Just don't expect to get a full feature laptop for performance and capability.


Stephen

Thanks for your input Dr Croupie.


I have used the Asus eeePC before and just didn't like it very much. That was a while ago and they have probably come a long way since then though. But with a quick check I saw most of those tiny atom machines use 1024x600 resolution screens and that just doesn't work with Windows. Also they are slow as you say so all the more reason they aren't really good with an OS designed for faster machines like Windows 7.


If I would get a laptop/minipc I would probably get something like the Samsung Series 9 or some Asus thin and light 13" laptop but they will cost over $1000 which would be my upper limit price wise. Also as a laptop I would like to find one that is really light (under ~1.5kg or ~3.3lb preferably) with a great screen (at 13" 1440x900 would be great) and really great battery life while still be powerful enough for proper post prosessing.


Also one big reason I'm looking at a tablet device is the instant on capability vs a regular laptop/mini laptop that takes time to boot and the better battery life. I would like at least 8+ hours. (iPad2 can do over 8 hours of web browsing so this shouldn't be too problematic with viewing images I think)


With nVidia Tegra 2 or similar chip I would think an android tablet has plenty of power for viewing and sorting the images and doing minor edits like crop or WB adjustments especially when the OS itself is optimized for the hardware.


I have a 7D and will possibly get a 5DII as a second camera when/if I have the money. I shoot mainly in RAW.


Edit: Ah didn't see your post before posting mine NFLD Stephen, thanks for the suggestion but for the above reasons I think a netbook wouldn't fit my needs. I would primarily review the images while I am on the road, check emails, some light web browsing so a tablet should cover all those. Also they are really cool and a must have thing so that's a big plus vs a netbook [:D]

If you

I use an iPad (original) for what you are trying to do. The newest version would be a nice improvement. I don

I

Thanks for the info thekingb. Maybe I should evaluate the iPad again for the task, can you view, sort, rate and delete the RAW photos on it even though you say it

Heh, again someone posts right when I'm replying :)


Weilin: The Lenovo x220 looks pretty good (especially if a 1600x900 screen is an option) but I'm worried about the battery life and also it costs over $1500+ with the good configuration as you mention.


The Asus Eee PC 1215B looks interesting if the battery life really is around 8 hours that they advertise. It would also be the most versatile option compared to a tablet (and in the price range too) and even has USB3.0 which is nice. I'm a bit worried though that even with that hardware Windows 7 just wouldn't be as responsive as I would like. And a big minus is that is has to boot and isn't "instant on" like a tablet.


Dr Croupie: About the battery life of the tablets I would agree with you that RAW conversion might be a bit more taxing than web browsing on a tablet but I don't think the difference would be that huge. Especially if I do this with WiFi/3G off. Here's a link to one test I found with quick googling: blog.gsmarena.com/motorola-xoom-battery-put-to-the-test-in-a-web-browsing-marathon-ipad-2-comes-out-on-top


They load a new page every 10 seconds in that test and the rendering of a whole page should be about similar to the rendering of a photo? About disk access the tablets use SSD storage so it shouldn't use the battery that much? Also for sorting, rating and deleting of RAW files I think the tablet would just extract the JPEG preview from the CR2 file and not really decode/render it from the RAW data? As editing goes I wasn't talking about any real proper editing, mainly just cropping and maybe some WB adjustments for uploading to the web if I'm say on a 2 week trip and want to share some images already from it. The proper post processing would be done with my Intel Core i7 2500K, 16GB Ram, Intel 120GB SSD, Radeon 6870 1GB HTPC after I get back home.

THe iPad

And check out this article about taking a dslr and iPad and hyperdrive on the road in Turkey for weeks on end.


www.macworld.com/.../ipadhyperdrive.html

Thanks again for the info thekingb. Filterstorm Pro looks exactly like the thing I

Wait a while longer. Netbooks won

I think the Asus Transformer might be a great option: www.asus.com/.../Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101


Watched a bunch of video reviews of it from YouTube and it seems very capable + I get the keyboard so it will be a (very good resolution) netbook if needed. Supports plugging an external 2.5" hdd right to it when using the keyboard dock. Maybe even with only the tablet if someone makes an adapter for the dock connector. Battery life is also good in tablet mode and excellent with the keyboard. And on top of all this the price is quite ok, starting at $399. (16GB without the kb-dock though, $549 with the addon) Now I only need to wait for the 3G version which should come out in August.

Thought I would update this a bit. I now have an Asus Transformer android tablet on order from www.simplyelectronics.net which is a debated shop, they usually quote "1-2 day" shipping times but it can take as long as 3-4 weeks to get your order. Some people also complain that it takes forever for a refund if you need one. Their prices are really "too good to be true" though. The consensus on the forums is that they import grey market products from Hong Kong and sell them from their UK based warehouse so EU buyers won

Thought I would update this a bit. I now have an Asus Transformer android tablet on order from www.simplyelectronics.net which is a debated shop, they usually quote "1-2 day" shipping times but it can take as long as 3-4 weeks to get your order. Some people also complain that it takes forever for a refund if you need one. Their prices are really "too good to be true" though. The consensus on the forums is that they import grey market products from Hong Kong and sell them from their UK based warehouse so EU buyers won