Motion LE1600
The LE1600 was announced in May of 2005 as an update to the M line of slate tablets. It came out as the first slate to feature the latest Centrino mobile technology combined with a hot-swappable extended battery for a full day of mobility. Designed to be clipboard sized, the LE1600 shaved both a quarter pound of weight and a quarter inch of thickness off the previous M1400.
Today, the LE1600 represents an affordable point of entry into the world of active Wacom digitizer based pen slate computers. The 12” screen is a dream to write on and the Centrino chipset is still enough to keep up with most office and internet tasks. These machines are currently available used and refurbished for less than most netbooks, and offer similar or better performance with the added benefit of the active Wacom pen technology.
Specs of the review unit:
Intel® Centrino® Mobile Technology with the Intel® Pentium® M Processor Low Voltage 758 (2MB of L2 cache, 1.50GHz, 400MHz FSB)
1GB RAM (max 1.5GB)
60GB HDD (1.8” 4200RPM)
12.1" XGA TFT LCD with viewing angles up to 180 degrees and active digitizer technology
Intel 915GMS Extreme Graphics controller
Maximum 128MB total with Intel Dynamic Video Memory Technology
11.65”x9.64”x.87”, 3.1lbs standard (38.5WHr), 4.1lbs with extended battery (40WHr)
Design
When I first picked up the Motion LE1600, I was impressed with how slim and sturdy it is. The magnesium and cabon fiber frame give it very solid feel while keeping the weight down. Speaking of the weight, it is well balanced across the machine, and even with the extended battery, remains quite manageable for holding in the crook of one arm to write with the other. Picking it up one handed is much easier without the extended attached, but still doable with it on. The rounded edges also make it very comfortable to hold.
While the ports and buttons sure are convenient to have, they do leave the front and edges of the device looking cluttered. Also, the spread of the ports over the two sides of the device does make a little more awkward to use in portrait mode, because either way you flip it, there will be ports sticking out the bottom that may need to have things plugged into them. Speaking of...
Ports and Buttons
In landscape:
bottom: keyboard and dock connections
left: wifi switch, power slider, 2 USB, mic/headphone, proprietary DVI-D, VGA, ethernet
top: all battery, which does provide a nice grippy handle for holding the machine in one arm in portrait mode
right: pen garage, vent, SD card slot, Type I/II PC card slot, AC adapter
Front bezel in landscape:
left: ctl/alt/del (SAS) button, fingerprint reader (doubles as scrolling surface)
right: LEDs for power, charging status, HDD activity, Wifi activity
tablet buttons including escape, function, a 4-way directional button with enter in the middle, a button to bring up the dashboard, and screen rotate
That’s a lot of useful ports and buttons. The thing that isn’t so useful is the arrangement. In standard portrait, the power adapter, pen, and card slots are all coming at you out the bottom. The other way around, the USB ports are coming out the bottom. This might not be a problem for some, but if you want to set the device up on something (like a music stand) in portrait mode, things start to become inaccessible. For one of my uses (digital sheet music) that means that I have to run on battery and pull the pen out before I set it down, as the USB foot pedal has to be sticking out the top. Most of Motion’s promotional shots show the machine being used in landscape mode.
Two panels on the back also open for easy access to the HDD, wifi card, and single RAM slot.
Screen, Digitizer, and Pen
The 12” 4:3 screen is really nice. It feels just right for writing notes, and is nicer to draw on than the smaller TC1100. Although, the interface does look a little big when 1024x768 is blown up to 12”. To think that 15” notebooks used to come with only that many pixels.
The screen is not exactly glossy, but it sure does attract fingerprints. I’ve had no problem with glare, but in bright light, the fingerprint smudges become annoying. It also looks pretty messy when the machine is off.
The pen is thick and comfortable to hold for long writing sessions. It’s a little heavier than the pen of the TC1100, but in a good way. It does have an eraser end, which is a nice bonus. It also has one button on the side for right click, but mine was broken.
Heat and Fan Noise
I could only hear the fan if I held the machine up to my ear. It only gets warm sometimes, and never hot. It runs comparable to the TC1100 in terms of heat, but with nowhere near the blow dryer fan noise of the TC1100. The noisiest thing on the LE1600 is the hard drive. A quick SSD upgrade and you’d have a cool, near silent device.
Sound and Speakers
These are some of the loudest speakers I’ve encountered in a mobile device. I was able to watch youtube and hulu with the speakers set down to around 40%, where I normally have to have them cranked all the way up on other machines. The sound is not quite as full as from dedicated external speakers, but it sure does win in the volume department.
Audio processing was pitiful under XP, killing its ability to work for me in the studio. However, an upgrade to Windows 7 solved the playback issues in SmartMusic, and would likely greatly improve the performance of any program using MIDI for playback.
Software
The LE1600 was released with XP tablet edition preinstalled but is “Vista Ready” according to one of the stickers. While XP may be fine for some, I’ve been using 7 for too long to go back. I also need to run Windows 7 to get acceptable audio processing performance for studio use. I tried to use it with XP for a week, but a broken TIP, poor audio performance, poor rendering in Journal, crazy slow boot times, and general sluggishness drove me to a Windows 7 upgrade. I highly recommend the upgrade. The only drawback is that you will not get aero effects in Windows 7, but you don’t get those in XP either, so no real loss. There are some potential problems with sleep mode (mine’s not waking right now, but I haven’t tried much to fix it yet), and the install was no walk in the park (problems with both Ethernet and WiFi, but found all the drivers eventually).
Motion includes dashboard software for controlling many aspects of the hardware including the wireless radios, display, pen and tablet, power, and security settings. This can be launched from the button on the front bezel. The original version shipped with the LE1600 is not compatible with Windows 7, but both the LE1700 dashboard and the J-series dashboard will install and work with Windows 7. I’m currently using the J-series dashboard, and the only thing that doesn’t work is control of the WiFi on/off.
Performance
The internet runs perfectly fine even on these older processors. While OneNote 2010 is a little slow to load, it runs fine once it’s going. The biggest bottleneck currently is the 1GB of RAM, causing switching between many running programs to be slow, as it has to go out to the page file to bring back an application that hasn’t been active recently. It’s definitely faster switching between running programs after the upgrade to Windows 7.
I was hoping to take advantage of the SD card slot to use ReadyBoost to make up for the lack of RAM. However, none of the cards I tried (class 4 or class 6) were acceptable for Windows to use. It would seem that while the card reader can see bigger cards (it had no problem reading/writing my 16GB sandisk card), it does not do so at decent speeds, meaning no card will be fast enough for Windows to consider for ReadyBoost.
Video playback is good, especially considering how strong the speakers are. Standard youtube and hulu playback quite smoothly fullscreen. Hulu at 480p also stays smooth although it stutters a bit on fullscreen. Youtube will playback at 720p fullscreen as long as it’s the only thing going on. It got quite slow when I rotated the screen while a 720p video was playing, but once it caught up it was smoothish again. Netflix was also quite smooth at the default settings. Movie watching on this is definitely enjoyable.
I put ArtRage on it and found the performance to be quite good to my untrained hand. I had my husband (who is an interactive deisigner) put it through it’s paces on both the the LE1600 and the TC1100, and the LE1600 performed noticeably better. Most tools kept up with his sketching just fine. Only the watercolor brush got a bit laggy with faster strokes.
Benchmarks for those who like numbers (I seem to have lost the XP benchmarks, these are both done under Windows 7):
The LE1600 was announced in May of 2005 as an update to the M line of slate tablets. It came out as the first slate to feature the latest Centrino mobile technology combined with a hot-swappable extended battery for a full day of mobility. Designed to be clipboard sized, the LE1600 shaved both a quarter pound of weight and a quarter inch of thickness off the previous M1400.
Today, the LE1600 represents an affordable point of entry into the world of active Wacom digitizer based pen slate computers. The 12” screen is a dream to write on and the Centrino chipset is still enough to keep up with most office and internet tasks. These machines are currently available used and refurbished for less than most netbooks, and offer similar or better performance with the added benefit of the active Wacom pen technology.
Specs of the review unit:
Intel® Centrino® Mobile Technology with the Intel® Pentium® M Processor Low Voltage 758 (2MB of L2 cache, 1.50GHz, 400MHz FSB)
1GB RAM (max 1.5GB)
60GB HDD (1.8” 4200RPM)
12.1" XGA TFT LCD with viewing angles up to 180 degrees and active digitizer technology
Intel 915GMS Extreme Graphics controller
Maximum 128MB total with Intel Dynamic Video Memory Technology
11.65”x9.64”x.87”, 3.1lbs standard (38.5WHr), 4.1lbs with extended battery (40WHr)
Design
When I first picked up the Motion LE1600, I was impressed with how slim and sturdy it is. The magnesium and cabon fiber frame give it very solid feel while keeping the weight down. Speaking of the weight, it is well balanced across the machine, and even with the extended battery, remains quite manageable for holding in the crook of one arm to write with the other. Picking it up one handed is much easier without the extended attached, but still doable with it on. The rounded edges also make it very comfortable to hold.
While the ports and buttons sure are convenient to have, they do leave the front and edges of the device looking cluttered. Also, the spread of the ports over the two sides of the device does make a little more awkward to use in portrait mode, because either way you flip it, there will be ports sticking out the bottom that may need to have things plugged into them. Speaking of...
Ports and Buttons
In landscape:
bottom: keyboard and dock connections
left: wifi switch, power slider, 2 USB, mic/headphone, proprietary DVI-D, VGA, ethernet
top: all battery, which does provide a nice grippy handle for holding the machine in one arm in portrait mode
right: pen garage, vent, SD card slot, Type I/II PC card slot, AC adapter
Front bezel in landscape:
left: ctl/alt/del (SAS) button, fingerprint reader (doubles as scrolling surface)
right: LEDs for power, charging status, HDD activity, Wifi activity
tablet buttons including escape, function, a 4-way directional button with enter in the middle, a button to bring up the dashboard, and screen rotate
That’s a lot of useful ports and buttons. The thing that isn’t so useful is the arrangement. In standard portrait, the power adapter, pen, and card slots are all coming at you out the bottom. The other way around, the USB ports are coming out the bottom. This might not be a problem for some, but if you want to set the device up on something (like a music stand) in portrait mode, things start to become inaccessible. For one of my uses (digital sheet music) that means that I have to run on battery and pull the pen out before I set it down, as the USB foot pedal has to be sticking out the top. Most of Motion’s promotional shots show the machine being used in landscape mode.
Two panels on the back also open for easy access to the HDD, wifi card, and single RAM slot.
Screen, Digitizer, and Pen
The 12” 4:3 screen is really nice. It feels just right for writing notes, and is nicer to draw on than the smaller TC1100. Although, the interface does look a little big when 1024x768 is blown up to 12”. To think that 15” notebooks used to come with only that many pixels.
The screen is not exactly glossy, but it sure does attract fingerprints. I’ve had no problem with glare, but in bright light, the fingerprint smudges become annoying. It also looks pretty messy when the machine is off.
The pen is thick and comfortable to hold for long writing sessions. It’s a little heavier than the pen of the TC1100, but in a good way. It does have an eraser end, which is a nice bonus. It also has one button on the side for right click, but mine was broken.
Heat and Fan Noise
I could only hear the fan if I held the machine up to my ear. It only gets warm sometimes, and never hot. It runs comparable to the TC1100 in terms of heat, but with nowhere near the blow dryer fan noise of the TC1100. The noisiest thing on the LE1600 is the hard drive. A quick SSD upgrade and you’d have a cool, near silent device.
Sound and Speakers
These are some of the loudest speakers I’ve encountered in a mobile device. I was able to watch youtube and hulu with the speakers set down to around 40%, where I normally have to have them cranked all the way up on other machines. The sound is not quite as full as from dedicated external speakers, but it sure does win in the volume department.
Audio processing was pitiful under XP, killing its ability to work for me in the studio. However, an upgrade to Windows 7 solved the playback issues in SmartMusic, and would likely greatly improve the performance of any program using MIDI for playback.
Software
The LE1600 was released with XP tablet edition preinstalled but is “Vista Ready” according to one of the stickers. While XP may be fine for some, I’ve been using 7 for too long to go back. I also need to run Windows 7 to get acceptable audio processing performance for studio use. I tried to use it with XP for a week, but a broken TIP, poor audio performance, poor rendering in Journal, crazy slow boot times, and general sluggishness drove me to a Windows 7 upgrade. I highly recommend the upgrade. The only drawback is that you will not get aero effects in Windows 7, but you don’t get those in XP either, so no real loss. There are some potential problems with sleep mode (mine’s not waking right now, but I haven’t tried much to fix it yet), and the install was no walk in the park (problems with both Ethernet and WiFi, but found all the drivers eventually).
Motion includes dashboard software for controlling many aspects of the hardware including the wireless radios, display, pen and tablet, power, and security settings. This can be launched from the button on the front bezel. The original version shipped with the LE1600 is not compatible with Windows 7, but both the LE1700 dashboard and the J-series dashboard will install and work with Windows 7. I’m currently using the J-series dashboard, and the only thing that doesn’t work is control of the WiFi on/off.
Performance
The internet runs perfectly fine even on these older processors. While OneNote 2010 is a little slow to load, it runs fine once it’s going. The biggest bottleneck currently is the 1GB of RAM, causing switching between many running programs to be slow, as it has to go out to the page file to bring back an application that hasn’t been active recently. It’s definitely faster switching between running programs after the upgrade to Windows 7.
I was hoping to take advantage of the SD card slot to use ReadyBoost to make up for the lack of RAM. However, none of the cards I tried (class 4 or class 6) were acceptable for Windows to use. It would seem that while the card reader can see bigger cards (it had no problem reading/writing my 16GB sandisk card), it does not do so at decent speeds, meaning no card will be fast enough for Windows to consider for ReadyBoost.
Video playback is good, especially considering how strong the speakers are. Standard youtube and hulu playback quite smoothly fullscreen. Hulu at 480p also stays smooth although it stutters a bit on fullscreen. Youtube will playback at 720p fullscreen as long as it’s the only thing going on. It got quite slow when I rotated the screen while a 720p video was playing, but once it caught up it was smoothish again. Netflix was also quite smooth at the default settings. Movie watching on this is definitely enjoyable.
I put ArtRage on it and found the performance to be quite good to my untrained hand. I had my husband (who is an interactive deisigner) put it through it’s paces on both the the LE1600 and the TC1100, and the LE1600 performed noticeably better. Most tools kept up with his sketching just fine. Only the watercolor brush got a bit laggy with faster strokes.
Benchmarks for those who like numbers (I seem to have lost the XP benchmarks, these are both done under Windows 7):
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