Genius MousePen 8 x 6-Inch Graphic Tablet for Home and Office
by Genius
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List Price: Our Price: $59.95 You Save: $40.04 (40%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $50.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Genius MousePen 8 x 6-Inch Graphic Tablet for Home and Office
Customer Review: Almost a great deal.
Summary: 2 Stars
So i think the reviews written by everyone else here sums up quite a bit of the fears i had about purchasing this tablet. Basically my biggest issue is it appears the drivers are outdated and don't work well with all the graphics applications i use. Folks who use CS3 report no problems at all with this device. Unfortunately i just purchased CS4 and this tablet has major issues in it (pressure sensitivity not responding randomly after a few minuts, drawing an arc and it draws a strait line or dot of varying opacity). After talking with the folks at Adobe (and getting no response from Genius) i narrowed it down to Genius' out of date drivers (which that's apparently correct).
So the pros\cons layed out by others are pretty accurate. When i got mine everything functioned perfectly, no dead batteries, etc... The tablet itself is a fantastic deal w/ great potential especially for $49.99 (now). The user programmable areas on the sides are great, the quick access menu up top is awesome, and the drawing space and overall feel of using it was great. It did however seem a bit flimsy when placed on the lap (how i like drawing) but on a flat surface (even a book) no worries.
Note that i DID try this with "The GIMP 2.6", Corel Painter X, Blender 2.48 etc... basically all the other software i use, and while those performed /almost/ perfectly 100% Of the time, there were still glitches. You just can't have that while you're in the middle of creating something.
Thankfully Amazon.com is amazing w/ returns because it's already on it's way back. Sad this is the first item i've EVER returned from any online purchase i've made EVER (and i've made a lot). Oh well they almost had a great product, if the drivers were a bit more up to date, this would hands down be a great purchase. I decided to go for a Wacom Bamboo, feel free to venture on over there as i've written a review on my experience thus far.
Hope it helps,
Frank...
Customer Review: Affordable, Easily Installable, Works with Vista, Photoshop CS4, OneNote
Summary: 4 Stars
New owner, first-time digitizer/tablet user here.
Price: very affordable as an extra peripheral
Delivery: quick
Out the box & CD install: The software installation ran smoothly on Windows Vista Home, once I d-clicked "setup.exe" in the enclosed CD. The batteries included were dead so I replaced with my own Duracell Pre Charged Rechargeable Nimh AAA Batteries, 4-Pack: one in the mouse, one in the pen. Take care to slide the pen halves apart rather than twist, as the material is not the strongest. With fresh batteries the pen and mouse performed all the checks recommended in the manual. The customization menu was straightforward.
Latest driver install: For my first time using with Photoshop CS4 I'd assigned SHIFT+Letter combos to select Photoshop tools but the customized boxes didn't work as I'd specified. Following manufacturer instructions (at the geniusnet.com website) I uninstalled the current Pen Tablet driver (from the CD), rebooted, downloaded the latest driver from their website, unzipped and installed that, then rebooted again. After this, all my key combo customized areas on the tablet worked perfectly in Photoshop, as well as the pressure sensitivity.
I'm quite excited to continue playing with this and I'm satisfied with the quality of the materials given how ridiculously low priced this item was. Will write back if anything goes wrong with further use.
UPDATE:
+ I think it works better if you plug it into the USB BEFORE you open Photoshop.
+ Also works fine with Microsoft OneNote.
- Sometimes, one of its driver files, WTClient.exe, hogs CPU even when it is disconnected but I only noticed this because I keep my task manager open, not because my pc slowed down or anything, and I just "End Process" if I'm not using it.
Customer Review: Fun and innovative product!
Summary: 4 Stars
I first found this product while browsing through some more expensive tablets and figured I'd give it a shot. I already have a Wacom Graphire 4 4x5 inch, which I'd thoroughly enjoyed, so I thought that I'd try this larger, less expensive tablet as an alternative. Well, let's just say that I personally use the Wacom more as a mouse now, and the Genius is my new tablet. Why use the more expensive brand tablet as a mouse? Well, because it doesn't require any batteries. The Genius tablet, however, has a larger space to work with, which personally makes me feel more comfortable.
And the hot keys! How cool are they!? I mean, we could really do without them all together, just like we really don't need a mouse with our tablet, extra buttons, scroll wheels, etc. Yet the hot keys are so innovative.. one might even call them inGenius! There's no moving parts to worry about getting filthy over time like there is with my Wacom. I probably spend more time fiddling with what creative thing I can do with the hot keys than actually drawing with the tablet.
Aside from all the fun, there's a potentially practical side to using these hot keys as well. Suppose I'm creating a graphic for my mom's birthday card, or perhaps even a graphic to give to the bakery to put on her cake, when she suddenly walks in the room. I hit a hotkey which shows the desktop over what I'm doing and thus save the suprise. She'd probably then suspect that I'm hiding smut from her or something, but I'd be able to clear that matter up at her birthday party.
My Wacom does have a few advantages over my new Genius, however. It doesn't use batteries and it has an eraser function. Some programs that I use don't recognize the eraser function anyways, and I imagine that the batteries in my Genius pen will last quite a while. We'll see.
I am blisfully content with this product thus far.
Customer Review: Great Pruduct- Great Price!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my first and only experience with a graphics tablet EVER, that said, I am very happy with it (I've only had it for three days).
The first thing that struck me is how thin the unit was, (about an eighth of an inch in the front, and maybe a half inch in the back. It is pretty light, yet not at all flimsy. I found the drawing area to be larger than I had expected, and since the drawing surface represents your entire screen I think a much larger area would make it awkward when using it as a mouse (meaning, to go from the upper corner to the bottom of the screen, you have to do the same on the drawing area.) This is just how all pads work when using them as your mouse.
And speaking of the mouse, at least one reviewer had called the included mouse "useless" and I mostly agree. While the mouse works okay, it must be used on the surface of the pad, and it's a little frictiony (is that a word?) when you slide it around, which made me worry about unnecessary wear to the drawing surface. Really, if you already have a good optical mouse that you're comfortable with, you will want to skip the included mouse altogether.
I used the pad with "The Gimp ver 2.2" which is an open-source graphics program (i.e: FREE!) and it worked seamlessly with the Genius MousePen Tablet- Like they were made for each other! It came budled with Adobe CS3 Extended, and Corel Painter X (Trial versions) I have yet to check out, but it's nice they are included.
All of the buttons along the top of the pad (new, open, save, print, exit, cut, copy, paste, undo, back, forward, e-mail, and www) worked perfectly with no set up whatsoever. I was pleased when the "www" button launched my browser with a tap of the pen.
One little tip, you'll want to keep the pen mostly straight up and down when you are drawing, as the tip is pressure-sensetive and works badly if you slant it too much. HAVE FUN!!
Customer Review: Genius MousePen 8 x 6-Inch Graphic Tablet for Home and Office Review
Summary: 5 Stars
It's very nice and good its for Vista, Mac, and Windows 7 too I don't know the rest but, this tablet is very sensetive for example your mouse pointer still moves even though your tablet pen doesn't touch the pad. It's quite slow but it's still worth it. Its comes with Adobe Photoshop extended Trial and Corel Painter Trial program in one disk. Also you have to install it but, it takes a few seconds to install it's pretty fast.You need the Pen tablet series CD to install the tablet. Its quite hard to use the tablet. It comes with a mouse with no cord on it. You just grab the mouse and put it on the tablet. Also, their are boxes on the top of the tablet. You just drag your pen on it then the mouse pointer goes on the box if you don't understand me, then go to your program called Paint and click on it. Then drag your pen to the New box on the left top corner on your pad then the mouse pointer goes on File on Paint. Its same with the other boxes but Paint doesnt have the same name boxes on the pad same with other paint programs. The boxes on the right and the left is that if you click one of them it scrolls down or up. Plus theres a instuction book that tells you how to download it (for Mac and Windows). For Vista, put in the Pen Tablet Series CD in and then a popup warning should show up and says if you want to open it and click on the button says you trust it. Then the tablet install thingy should show and click on Tablet Programs and then click on Ok and then it takes a few seconds to install and then click on exit. If a popup says it didn't install correctly then click on install it using recommended settings. And then BAM! Your done and you can use it. People say it isn't good and blah blah blah but this review can help you. Sorry for my bad english if you don't understand me. It's hard to use but after a couple days or more should fix it and very worth it.