Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch
by Wacom, Inc
|
List Price: Our Price: $64.95 You Save: $35.00 (35%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $54.90 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch
Customer Review: Great Intro to a Wacom Digitizer Tablet
Summary: 4 Stars
My first Wacom tablet was the Original "Intuos" 4x5 back in 1998, I loved it so much that the next year I purchased the 12x18 monster! I currently use a Cintiq 21UX and a Fujitsu Tablet, so all my digitizers are screen based. I purchased this for a friend who wants to use it with a projector instead of a "blackboard/whiteboard" in a teaching setting. Below are couple of instructions I gave to him as he was trying to figure out the tablet.
From Mouse to Pen:
You will have to adjust to the cursor moving based on LOCATION instead of drag. The left top corner of the digitizer (tablet) is the left corner of your monitor, the bottom right is the bottom right. I've seen many people trying to use a tablet for the first time and they'll drag it half way and go back to the middle and try to drag the rest of the way (kinda like a mouse/touchpad) instead of moving to pen to the corner.
Yes, you can set it in options so that it acts like a touchpad instead of location accuracy but then why did you get a tablet? Well, Carpel Tunnel Syndrome people aside (a tablet is great for people with this ailment), the point of this tablet is for fast location accurate movement. You'll get used to it. Oh yeah, you can use the "touch" of this tablet to use it as a trackpad, but as others mentioned the Touch aspect is finicky at best, it just doesn't feel and act as good as your laptop touchpad.
Double Clicking:
Trying to double click at first by tapping quickly 2x with your pen also has a learning curve for some people. You can set one of your "thumb" rocker buttons to "double click" if you have problem (it comes as TOP rocker = Right Click, and BOTTOM rocker = Pan/Scroll, you can change the BOTTOM one to "double click"). Or you can use the BUTTONS on the side for easy double click or right click.
Button Customization:
If you get a little more adventurous you can customize every available button (the 4 on the tablet and the 4 on the pen--yes, the tip and eraser count as "buttons") I actually use the BOTTOM rocker = CTRL-Z, so whatever I'm drawing I quickly press the rocker to UNDO my last couple of steps. Every button is customizable so find your best combination of Pan/Scroll, Program Launch, double click, menu launch, etc.
Software:
I wouldn't recommend the Bamboo Dock, they are toys really. You can use your pen on Office 2003, 2007, 2010 to highlight, annotate, etc. Photoshop is perfect for this pen as well. The best software for pure pen use (designed from the ground up to use PEN) is the Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 2011 if you're a student go to their website and you can get a student license with your .EDU address or you can download a 15 day trial version.
If the touch is not good, then why not just buy the cheaper WACOM PEN instead of PEN & TOUCH?
Because the cheaper "Pen" has half the resolution and pressure sensitivity.
- Wacome Pen (CTL460) 512 levels pressure sensitivity and 1270 lines per inch (lpi)
- Wacom Pen & Touch (CTH460) 1024 pressure and 2540 lpi
- Wacom Intuos (the professional line) 2048 pressure (and TILT) and 5080 lpi
Of course the price reflects the advantages and if you're going to work on anything that requires pressure sensitivity (sketching, photo editing, etc) then the higher the better. Just to note, my original Intuos was 1024 pressure and 2540 lpi from what I remember, so that's plenty.
Hope this helped, I have set to receive emails from comments so I can reply to any particular question as well.
Customer Review: Little to complain, much to praise
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this tablet because... well, to be honest, I had no reason for buying a tablet. I'm not a professional graphic designer (though if I were, I'm sure I'd invest in at least the Bamboo Fun over this), and I'm more than happy with Logitech mice. I merely had some money burning in my pocket and wanted to have a much more intuitive, fluid experience. I'm happy to say I had such a thing with this tablet.
To start off, I bought the Pen & Touch model intentionally believing that the addition of both was a good idea, rather than being stuck with only one or the other. Of course the control works flawlessly. There are times where I'll be holding the pen while utilizing the touch, but the pen cancels it out from being too near, but that's due to human error, not a machine flaw.
Now, the pen works perfectly. Everything feels right and great, and the pressure sensitivity is wonderful on Photoshop. It feels (almost) like I'm drawing on paper. Of course, I'm sure we're not ever going to achieve that pencil-to-paper feel with a digital tablet--not with as consumer-friendly of a tablet as this, but for being only $100, it sure gets close; and if I'm going to be using it as a mouse alternative 80% of the time, it's not a big deal to have such a feel anyways. My only gripe would be that there's not much grip the pen, and it can sort of find some wiggle room if you're not careful. Otherwise, it works as it should, and then some. Incredible pen tablet.
When it comes to the touch, however, it falls short a tiny, tiny bit. Of course the larger surface area makes it miles better than any laptop touch pad, but it still feels a bit claustrophobic. For some odd reason, the entirety of the tablet's surface cannot be used for touch. There is a small sliver around the touch-sensitive area that is not used for touch. Why this is, I'm not sure, and it's not too incredibly annoying. I just feel like it should have utilized the whole area, but I'm just nitpicking. In all, the touch portion of the tablet is a bit... well, bad. The touch-only cues are very well done, as the tablet seems to always recognize my flicks for back and forward, as well as scrolling. The zooming is a bit more bipolar, and I have yet to get the rotate to work, though that's merely due to the lack of rotatable objects I've had to work with. Just using the touch portion for the mouse feels incredibly jerky. No matter what speed I set it to, it seems to be impossible to gauge the speed. It feels like it speeds and slows constantly, regardless of what I do. I've been able to get used to it a bit, but I always take the pen over the touch at any point I can.
The tablet is incredibly solid and incredible. The pen portion is completely flawless; sure, there are places where you could nitpick, but that's just if you REALLY want to find any type of negative aspect to it. The touch could be polished a bit, and it's definitely different from what I'm used to. I'm sure over time, any person could easily master this minuscule task. Mastering it shouldn't really be a priority, though, if it were maybe fixed up a tiny bit. Regardless, don't let these comments sway you from the tablet. The touch really isn't that bad. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a 7. It's up there, it just needs a push higher.
Really, for only $100, it's an incredible deal. It sounds like a lot, but I was honestly surprised something as nice as this could go for $100. The space itself is generous, too. It works incredibly, and is as consumer-friendly as a microwavable Mac & Cheese. Crappy analogy, yes, but it works.
Customer Review: For anyone considering this as a drawing tablet.
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been wanting a Wacom tablet for years but the price on them has always put me off. I love to draw, but pencil and paper just isn't cutting it for me anymore. I wanted to get my art directly onto the computer and be able to play with it in Photoshop (and scanning artwork in every single time is a chore).
With the Bamboo line I finally decided to jump in and go for it. After scouring Youtube and the rest of the internet for product reviews on this bad boy I felt comfortable enough to know what I could expect from one of these things.
First off, if this is your first drawing tablet then prepared to be amazed. Drawing with it is simple easy and lots of fun. My jaw dropped when I saw how much my lines looked as if I had just drawn them with a real pencil. There's a learning curve though. As an artist I'm used to looking down at the paper as I draw or paint, I like to be able to see exactly where my hands are. So it takes some getting used to with having to look at your monitor instead. It's almost drawing blind in a way as you can't tell where your hand is at. However, your on-screen brush/paint cursors follow the movements of your hand exactly, so you always know where to put your lines. It's just take a bit of getting used too, but after a few weeks of it you'll be just fine.
The pen itself is very weighty, so it provides a good grip and a lot of control. The two customizable buttons on it at it's base though can be a bit of a pain. It's so easy to click them while you're drawing, but it's not really a big deal, just a minor quibble. The buttons are ridiculously useful though, I have one set up for adjusting my brush size and the other for panning the canvas in Photoshop, so I'll gladly take a little headache in exchange for these kinds of features. The pen even has an eraser on it. Just flip it over while drawing and your brush automatically switches to eraser mode. How this works I have absolutely no idea, but it does work and it's such a handy little feature. I wasn't expecting such a fully featured pen tool for this price.
The pen is also completely wireless and it doesn't require batteries either. Again, how the heck the pen works like this is anyone's guess. But no one will argue that it's nothing short of awesome.
If you've been wanting to draw, paint or whatever with a drawing tablet but have yet to do so then this tablet won't let you down. It's the perfect introductory tablet to digital drawing and it's one you'll use for years. Don't let it's price or looks fool you. You can create professional quality artwork and beyond with this thing.
I'm too used to the mouse, so I don't use the tablet as a mouse replacement. But I have to admit, writing out the names of websites or Google searches in my own handwriting and having it automatically recognized by the tablet is too cool for words.
Oh, and one handy little tip I came up with. I like the drawing texture on the tablet, but if you're like me and would like something a little more close to actual paper then check this out. Take a small sheet of paper, cut it up so it matches the size of the drawing screen and place it on top of the drawing area. Tape it down on the sides and try drawing on it, the texture, feel, and behavior of the brush is just like drawing in your favorite sketchbook with no loss of tablet functionality.
Great product, 5 stars easy.
Customer Review: Small fun.
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this for 4 reasons - to edit images, reduce risk of repetitive strain injury, portability and cost effectiveness. I've explained my reasons in detail below.
1) To edit images. It allows me to refine and clean up images much more efficiently because using a pen to touch up selected areas in an image is a lot easier and precise than using a mouse.
2) To stop using a mouse and reduce the risk of Repetitive Strain injury -I was experiencing wrist fatigue when I used a mouse for extended periods of time, but using the pen as a mouse or the tablet as a touchpad now allows me to keep working longer and wrist fatigue is no longer an issue. I would definitely recommend buying this product if you are beginning to suffer from any sort of wrist fatigue while using a mouse. However it does take a while - (4 or 5 days ) to get accustomed to using the touchpad and you have to configure it through the Bamboo software so it suits your input style.
3) Portability - since this is the small tablet, its easy to slip into most medium or even small sized laptop bags. I can take it with me when I'm in the field without being weighed down. However because of it's small size, sometimes when drawing on the tablet, you may find that you're running out of stroke space. It used to happen to me until I got conditioned to the dimensions of the tablet.
4) Because it was cost effective. This is basically the value buy in the line of Bamboo pen and touch tablets. For 85 to 90 dollars, you get a pen and multi-touch enabled tablet along with Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 Win/6.0 Mac and Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 WE3 photo software.
The next model in the line Wacom Bamboo Craft costs $129, is the same size and has no upgraded hardware features except for being a different color. It has some extra software included (Corel Painter essentials 4 and some scrapbooking software) If you need the extra software, go ahead and spend 45 dollars more but if you don't need scrap booking software or Corel Essentials 4 - save your 45 dollars and buy the Bamboo pen and touch. There is no difference in the hardware between the two models except for the color.
The final model in the Bamboo pen and touch tablet line - Wacom Bamboo Fun sells for $165 to $170 , is also silver in color but has a larger active surface to work on. Which depending on your work requirements, could be important. It is also more comfortable to work on because of the larger active area. I own this model also and use it for the times when I'm at my desk and have to work on media for an extended period of time.
If you have to choose between these 3 models I would say look at the Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch Fun small tablet for portability and a value for money buy or the Bamboo Fun for the larger active area and comfort factor.
Don't bother with the Bamboo Craft unless you really want Corel Essentials 4 and the scrapbooking software.
Hope this helps!
Customer Review: Couldn't really ask for more!
Summary: 4 Stars
So I was on the hunt for a new mouse. Due to an unfortunate accident, my mouse button on my MacBook Pro is damaged. Just the button, not the track pad, but trying to reconfigure my trackpad AND my memorized actions to accommodate no button was proving to be stressful.
I had some VERY specific features in mind when I began my search. It had to be portable (meaning not bulky or have to be in a cramped "button-will always be depressed" position when in my laptop case. It also had to have programmable, multi-function buttons-- as I am a gadget geek and just love things like that. Lastly I was looking for something bluetooth, not USB. I rarely utilize my bluetooth, and now knowing I would ALWAYS have to be using an external mouse, I thought that I'd like to keep my 2 USB ports available for whatever they might be needed for in the nurture..
Now I had been keeping my eyes open for a tablet for some time. For the most part I found them too expensive. I had been given one years ago and loved it, but it is a large one (12 x 12) and not practical to take mobile. So when I came across this, I had to stop and reconsider my criteria! It is a graphics tablet OR a track pad! It has four customizable buttons down the side to satisfy my "gadget geek" craving. Plus two on the pen and an eraser. It is small and flat, so it can live quite comfortably in my laptop bag. It wasn't bluetooth, but hey... I get a graphics tablet that I'd been wanting forever, and my trackpad was about to get 6x bigger than the original. I think I can cave in on the bluetooth thing!
Basically it has lived up to all my expectations. The buttons being down the side stead of across the bottom are not really practical, as you have to use two hands to depress a button and move the mouse at the same time. And you can't customize what the "eraser" on the pen does. The pad is supposed to disengage its touch sensitivity feature when the pen is on or within an inch of it, but it can be a little ticky on that. And when using the touch feature that can be over-sensitive, as well. But I'm sure I just need to play around with the settings and I'll find something that I like.
And one final little gripe: Since my mouse button is broken, and I intended this to be somewhat of a permanent fix, I wanted to be able to lay the tablet over top of the trackpad so it would make transferring my hands between mouse and keyboard almost the same as if the trackpad was still fully functional. The good news is that the tablet is actually small enough to fit there and not slide off. The bad news is that there must be something magnetic in the trackpad, or the mouse, or both, that it renders the unit useless if they are that close to each other. So the table must live an awkward distance from the screen and it does make normal movements and actions a longer "Trip."
But for the money? If you have ever used a graphics tablet and just love it? Very very very worth it, recommended, signed and sealed!!!