StarLite 12.5-inch
starlabs.systems
Its fanless design ensures your StarLite will never make more than a whisper - unless you want it to. The Mk V supports coreboot open source firmware which you can effortlessly configure to your preferences via our coreboot configurator.

I searching for a tablet for drawing and discovered this one. Anyone tried drawing on it? I wondering if the experience is good.

On the page they doesn’t mention if the screen supports drawing pens, but it’s possible to order an MPP pen with it, so I assume that it works with Wacom or Surface pens?

  • Tabzlock
    25·
    3 months ago

    Hey, I own one of these. For drawing its pretty solid and most software can run on it. The device support MPP 1.51 and 2.0, they sell a 1.51 pen but its quite expensive for what it is. The digitizer isn’t amazing and I have found external wacom screens to be better but considering the price of the starlite is about the same (when I bought it) as an only drawing tab I went with the starlite.

    Performance is decent, I was quite surprised how managable the n200 is. Personally I use it as a study device and it handles 40 Firefox tabs and 15-20 windows just fine. Only thing is that gnome does not support triple buffering yet so overview animation is slightly laggy on the 3k screen, however this is less on the 2k version and fixed with the triple buffer PR.

    The screen itself comes in either 3k or 2k. The 3k screen was only the first batch and the second+ batch is 2k. Screen is 60hz and I believe 300 nits.

    To get buttons mappable on the pen device currently you have to use a custom libwacom entry. I have a PR for that on the github.

    The Tablet itself is very solid the main complaint I would have is the keyboard, its quite mushy and bounces as it doesn’t have much structure. Its alright but not amazing.

    Realistic battery is 4-6hr under usage and 9-13 with light usage and ~2 days in full sleep.

    main board, screen, battery, daughter board and all the parts can be swapped, they sell them on their website.

    • ShaturOP
      2·
      3 months ago

      This is very helpful, thank you a lot!

      How is the passive cooling? Does it get hot?

      • Tabzlock
        2·
        3 months ago

        nah it doesn’t really get that hot, I use it a bit in bed to watch movies and I haven’t found it uncomfortable. Its currently winter here though so the passive may not be as great in summer. Anything that’s going to heat it up a lot though your prolly going to be using it at a desk.

    • ShaturOP
      1·
      3 months ago

      I have a small question about the keyboard :) How does it connect to the tablet? Via pins, it’s not BT?

      • Tabzlock
        3·
        3 months ago

        pins, its also a gravity stand with weak magnets so it doesnt exactly attach super well to the tablet.

  • Dreyns
    10·
    3 months ago

    This seems interesting, never seen it before.

    But i’d say be careful as there’s not much information on the screen (refresh rate, gamut range) and it’s great to brag about you being able to switch parts but there’s not much info on that, i’d be surprised if you can swap anything beside the ssd and some ram. Also the marketing is a bit weird, the keyboard is showed at all time but the price shown is wothout until you try to actually check the price… Kinda scummy if you ask me.

    A part of me still think it looks a bit like a barebone low quality tech that is almost useless in it’s option-less, low spec state.

    • Tabzlock
      9·
      3 months ago

      Uh, the refresh rate is 60hz the gamut is listed on the specification section. The ram is soldered as it could not be increased it is 16gb which is the max supported by the n200.

      main board, screen, battery, daughter board and all the parts can be swapped, they sell them on their website.

      I agree the keyboard marketing sucks and the keyboard itself isn’t great either. Granted its nice to have a cheaper option without the keyboard, but in current Linux tablet state you probably still want it.

      The specs are pretty decent for a tablet and the price of the device. Can handle most tablet tasks and non graphically intensive. I use it for programming and arts and anything needing more power I offload the compile to my PC.

      • Dreyns
        1·
        3 months ago

        I checked on mobile maybe it is not listed there, I’ll check on pc, what do you mean by daughter board ? Also, doing art do you bought their pen ? Is it compatible with other pen tablet pen ? Thanks for all the details !

        • Tabzlock
          3·
          3 months ago

          right yeah my bad, all the io is on the right this one doesn’t have a daughter board. The daughter board is for their other laptop. I did buy their pen but its pretty average it works on other tablets but I replaced it with an mp0p 2.0 pen

    • ShaturOP
      5·
      3 months ago

      That’s interesting details, thanks!

      I saw a few posts on their reddit, like this, they were positive, but no one mentioned the drawing aspect…

  • electricprism
    5·
    3 months ago

    I was kind of turned off by the keeb* being sold separately, also wasnt the aspect ratio meh.

    Rule of thumb larger screen or surface means more fluid strokes, thus smaller screen means more fine motor skills and more tension in the hand and less* fluidity in the work.

    • electricprism
      1·
      3 months ago

      I was incorrect about the aspect ratio it’s 3:2 not 16:9 and I think 3:2 is fine especially at 2160x1440p.

      Still with the dialogs on the left and right anything except minimal would make the drawing area small taking the left and right.

      I did notice it on sale, maybe if you have humble expectations it would be okay for sketching, but if you are used to better quality things or larger draw surfaces you might not be easily impressed.

  • eddanja@lemmy.world
    4·
    3 months ago

    No I jumped ship in May/June and got a refund as they kept kicking the can down the road for release. Was supposed to be Oct '23. Used that money to get something else for drawing. Curious if I should have waited.

  • sramder@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    In my limited experience Wacom pens don’t work with anything but Wacom tablets… I don’t own one of the “new” fancy ones with a screen, but capacitive (most new touch screens) don’t seem to detect the Wacom pen. There are pens out there that are supposed to work with any capacitive screen, but I don’t think they provide the force/angle information that the Wacom pen does.

    • ShaturOP
      2·
      3 months ago

      but capacitive (most new touch screens) don’t seem to detect the Wacom pen

      Yes, it’s totally expected! But looks like this screen supports MPP pens.

    • Tabzlock
      2·
      3 months ago

      the wacom pens on wacom tablets are solid but plenty of other pens support force/angle and those do work with the starlite.

        • Tabzlock
          2·
          3 months ago

          any mpp pen should support pressure. mpp 2.0 will have tilt and such. personally I have a lenovo precision 2.

            • Tabzlock
              2·
              3 months ago

              uh no, mpp 2.0 is the pen protocol. tilt was supported day 1.

              • sramder@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                3 months ago

                Now I’m confused again… the specific Lenovo pen you got supported tilt? You mentioned mmp 2.0 was coming, or something to that effect, that was the next version I was referring to.

                • Tabzlock
                  2·
                  3 months ago

                  the pen I bought supports tilt. The one starlabs sells does not.

                  MPP is the protocol and has different versions like how Bluetooth or WiFi do. MPP 2.0 has existed for a while it isn’t new.