Using Splashtop Streamer to draw on your tablet

I've used my tablet several times via Splashtop Streamer (comes for free with the Excite Write) to access my PC and my experiences with it so far on the Excite Write have been pretty successful. Watching high def movies and playing (windowed-only) high-end video games hasn't been without lag, but I've noticed that the better your WiFi connection, the better the results. For example, if you have a dual-band router, use the highest (e.g., 5G) settings available to your PC and the Excite Write, it helps. Physically plugging in your PC to the router and using 5G with the tablet seems to work really well.

Now, there are a whole raft of versions of Splashtop available, the version of Splashtop that comes with your Toshiba tablet is Splashtop 2 Remote Desktop although the icon confusingly says "Splashtop Personal". Splashtop Inc.'s web site explains this as "Splashtop Personal is formerly known as Splashtop 2".

They also sell Splashtop Remote Desktop HD and Splashtop Remote PC Gaming THD both of which boast improved HD performance. I sent an inquiry in to the developers asking what the differences between the three different versions and I'll report back once they clarify their product offerings.

Set up is pretty easy, requiring a simple install on the target PC or Mac and the exchange of some credential information. It really is astoundingly simple.

Now, Splashtop does not currently support the transfer of pressure sensitive data from tablet pens, but the entire Adobe suite can pretty much otherwise be run directly though your tablet. Throw in cloud storage such as Dropbox and you can work on an image in Photoshop through your PC and then open the same file to edit directly on your tablet.

When drawing using the tablet, bear in mind that sampling isn't going to be as accurate if you draw too quickly. It will definitely polygonize if you draw at anything approaching sketching speed of anything larger than a quarter of the screen size.

The version of Splashtop that is installed on the Excite Write won't allow you to seamlessly draw or play videos and videogames as transparently as you'd hope, but it's doable, and I strongly doubt that any other device would necessarily be an improvement.