My main computer is getting up in age so I needed to make sure I could weather a catastrophic loss. At the same time, some mobility was  called for. For a very long time I carried a laptop everywhere I went. The last one was a behemoth with a 17″ screen and impossible to open on an airplane, which hardly mattered considering I am a homebody, but it could happen. The giant thing worked fine at the kitchen table and on my lap. But not for long. Two or three good years and it was toast.

I researched and concluded that given all my needs, it boiled down to a Surface Pro, a Wacom portable thing that I think was a tablet, and nothing else. Ipad pro only had 4 gigs ram, so that didn’t stand a chance. Mac Book is expensive and I got the impression it did not have a touch screen. There were other possible options but really, reviews and specs put the Surface at the top every time.

So I got a Surface Pro, it’s keyboard, and a pen.

It’s a virgin. Never been connected to social media. Wish I could keep it that way. Maybe I will. That won’t be so easy.

Microsoft sells a port hub for $200 but to get data in and out of the device I have wifi, a usb external hard drive, and a card reader. The card reader will get data in from cameras while the hard drive will get data out for storage.

Today I photographed this painting-in-progress then imported it into the tablet where I processed it with light room and photoshop just to make sure it works.

Truth: the Cintiq tablet is quite a treat compared to anything else. It’s big, the pen works very well, and I’m familiar with it. But this tablet/laptop seems capable. So far so good. Functionally, it’s similar.

For years I have avoided Adobe’s subscription model because I thought I had to be continually connected to the net to use it. Silly me, that is not the case. I maybe should have signed up long ago.

Now for the next test I will disable the wifi in my house and see which tools don’t work without internet access.

This tablet could be a trackers delight if I let it be. It wants to report back about what the microphone hears, the location, movement the tablet makes, what the camera sees, and more. You probably could not get a warrant to go as deep. My great grand children will not want to believe how utterly free I was before all this began in the latter part of last century. That, however, is a side note.