Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Current Tablet pc recommendations for sheet music?

Hi all. Anyone has a tablet pc recommendation for sheet music based on:
1) Viewing angle
2) The least laggy when viewing with pdf viewer.
3) Screen size
4) Reasonable budget
5) Lightness/Slimness
6) Misc.

I got the Asus Ep121 after much research. At the moment, you're not going to get any better than this in terms of screen size and viewing angle. The screen diagonal is 12.1". The screen aspect ratio is 16:10, making it less narrow and fitting sheet music better. No problems with screen lag as the processor is very fast. I got mine for £1000. Not a very budget tablet, but that wasn't the priority. I've got the AirTurn hooked up to it via its built-in bluetooth. It's a great tablet for doing other PC stuff too.

Thanks for the recommendation NikkiPiano. Yes you're right. Except for the budget, it's a really cool tablet. Awwww I want an ep121.

My girlfriend just got a Kindle, and if it was bigger it would be so perfect for sheet music. The E-ink display is awesome, for it looks like actual paper, not a lit up LCD screen.

didyougetthatthing,are you referring to the kindle fire? Thanks.

The Kindle Fire uses an LCD screen and doesn't use E-ink. E-ink makes the display look like printed paper, which is preferable.

Just had a look at the eink tablets. Most of them have quite a small screen size. What is the biggest screen eink tablets available now? The largest one I can find currently is the Kindle Dx. The rest are pretty small to be viewed. Yes I think the eink ones are friendlier to the eyes. If only we have nice eink ones with a big A4 sized screen.

Just FYI, eInk isn't usually recommended for sheet music because it's quite a bit slower than a standard display. A page turn on a standard Kindle can take a second (which doesn't sound like a long time, but in performance, it becomes an issue.)

I've had reasonable success with the Asus Transformer and Adobe Reader (for Android). It's a little tricky, because you have to swipe your finger across the screen to turn the page (instead of maybe just tapping it), but it still may be easier than fumbling with a real page.

Good luck!

So when is someone going to come up with the tablet that "listens" to you play, and automatically turns the page (with the option that you can predetermine that point)?

http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=12887

Software that listens to you playing is under development, but piano is the hardest instrument to "listen" to because of the many voices at once. It has worked for a couple years on single note instruments, and it's coming along on bowed string instruments.

I'm glad this topic came up. By some time in March I need to buy a tablet for an upcoming performance, and the Asus EP121 looks perfect. Thanks Nikki!

Just found out that Toshiba has launched a 13 inch tablet which seems a great size for sheet music reading. There are many musicians around the world, I just wonder why there is currently no company venturing to make a tablet specially for musicians with a A4-sized tablet dimension. Maybe I'm no aware of one. Yes, not all musicians would be a tablet-convert given that many still prefer the feel of paper but personally I feel that paperless and sheet music reading from a screen is the way to go in the near future. Or maybe an e-ink style tablet... Ummm.... Anyone has connections to the tablet manufacturers? Probably bring this idea up to them.

Asus just displayed a Transformer AIO PC in the June Exhibition in Taiwan, with a detachable 18.4" lcd. When detached, it becomes the biggest tablet I've known. Just don't know when it will be released.

Can you purchase individual urtext scores online for your PC, Mac, iPad, Kindle, etc?

I've made lots of electronic sheet music purchases and have never seen this format available. I bought a book scanner for the purpose of converting hard to soft copy.