Shift8 Creative Graphic Design and Website Development

Every web designer, developer, and just really anyone who does business should have one of these tablets, I swear.

Why? Well, normally I'd have to say tablets are not really that helpful. They are fun, I think everyone is crazed over them, but they don't offer any real productive value. Sorry, but it's true. You play Angry Birds on them is what you do. Then carry it to the office so you can try to justify it. I could see that if you don't have a smartphone, then a tablet is a great tool for productivity.

Not the HTC Flyer. This is a tablet that really is geared for business and its a great addition to a netbook, smartphone, or laptop because it's simply different than all of them. It's honestly one of the only tablets that has something unique about it. The pen.

While reading about this tablet I was concerned the pen wouldn't be precise enough. Well, it is. It can be quite fine tipped. It works just about as well as some other devices like a Palm Pilot or Windows device with stylus...Only, better. There's two levels of pressure sensitivity as well, so it's pretty good for sketching. Mind you, not as good as what Wacom tablets offer, but honestly pretty close.

Drawing on glass, a slick surface, isn't so bad...Though you do miss out on the tactile feel and it's not real natural. I assume you can put on a matte screen protector and you'd get some resistance that felt more natural.

So why for web designers? It should be obvious...You can note anything. So you can simply go to your web sites and mark them up. Conveying design changes, etc. are a dream come true when you can do that. You can sketch up fresh ideas for design as well to then share. 

Additionally, you can draw all over PDF documents. These can be saved down as flattened PDFs or layered PDFs that will open up back on a PC. You will need to get a file manager app in order to e-mail those saved PDFs out, but you can. It's nice to open those layered PDFs up on a PC to review what you annotated and then remove those markings if you wanted to.

Think about tools like Mockflow and how they export to PDF. Or any other design tool where you may have a site map or wireframe. Bring that PDF right into the Flyer, mark it up, and e-mail it right back out. Beautiful.

Further apply this to business and think about signing PDFs. You can sign off for things, contracts, approval, etc. Having a pen in a digital world means serious business. It helps bridge a gap.

Think about presentations too. You can be going through a slideshow and make markings with the pen to help annotate. Speaking of presentations...The notes app has a recorder. You can record a lecture or presentation so you can play it back later. While this recording is going on, you can take pen notes and those drawings are placed on the audio timeline of your recording. Another beautiful feature.

I can't wait until there's more pen apps out there because I could only imagine the number of apps that could help make my day to day job easier and more productive.

Simply put. Every web designer and graphic designer should have one of these tablets. If you do business in a creative field, this is a must. Even for other industries the pen is a nice tool.