Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch
by Wacom, Inc
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch
Customer Review: Updated driver helped,but not enough...Get the Magic Touchpad.
Summary: 3 Stars
Update: After 9 months using it, although I liked it better than a mouse for my Mac iBook, I continued being frustrated by many of the problems mentioned by other users since I posted this in November 09. Just a week ago I bought the new Apple Magic Touchpad and I wholeheartedly recommend it for those who have a Mac and want a multi-gesture touch controller. It works SO much better than the Bamboo. I don't want to take the time to describe all the differences here because this review is now so buried that it wouldn't be worth the time since so few people would read it. Just get the Magic Touchpad if you have a Mac. You'll be glad you did.
I've edited my old review below, leaving in mainly the info about marking the sensitive area. If you mainly want a tablet, you may want to get the Bamboo for that reason:
The Driver was updated on November 12 and the touchpad now works better. They have fixed or at least improved some of the bugs that people have been complaining about in these reviews. You can find a link to the driver update download (and links for other countries) in the User's Manual, which you can get to (on a Mac) by clicking on the Help button in the System Preferences Pen Tablet page. It is near the end of the manual on page 64.
(It is still way too prone to inadvertent clicks and drags.)
As for other non-driver complaints my main one is that the tactile edge of the tablet is well beyond the actual area that is sensitive to touch. This makes it very easy to try to make gestures that are not responded to because you are too close to the edge. I have found a simple solution for this. I split some 3/4" vinyl red electrical tape down the middle to make it into 3/8" wide strips and laid the tape down around the sensitive area of the touch pad. This gives me a visible AND tactile border so I always know my fingers are in an area where they will get response. (I left gaps in the tape edge by the buttons to make them easier to find.) (I have added a photo to Customer Images to illustrate this tape layout.)
Oddly, this touch sensitivity border is located where it is faintly marked on the top and bottom of the pad, but on the right and left it is about 3/8" inside the marked border. This means the 3/8" wide tape should be laid above the top line and below the bottom line, but inside the two side lines. (The pen, though, works all the way to the faint lines on the sides. If you use the pen a lot you may be bothered by the tape, although it will still work with the tape there, but you will run into it. If this is a problem you may want to just use tape on the bottom and optionally the top. I found that the tape on the bottom is the one that helps the most.)
I like a multi-gesture touchpad better than a mouse, but if you have a Mac, and don't need the tablet for art, get the Magic Touchpad. (I haven't used the pen tablet so read other reviews for that function.)
Customer Review: Great Mighty Mouse replacement!
Summary: 5 Stars
I use the Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch with a late 2008 iMac 24". I replaced my Mighty Mouse that came with my computer with this tablet. This was my first Wacom tablet.
I love this tablet! I mostly use the touch and not the pen, but I got the pen and touch because it was only a little bit more and it saves space to have one device that can input two ways rather than two different devices. I also plan to use the pen for more precise things like Photoshop and image editing. Like I said, I never had a Wacom before. The last Mac laptop I had was an iBook which was before they got the fancy "trackpad" with the multi-touch gestures. But I've read a lot of people saying that they love the multi-touch gestures so much they never want to go back to a regular mouse.
I have been having major problems with my hand and wrist hurting from too much mousing. The Mighty Mouse is really too tiny and painful and not at all ergonomic, and the buttons are a real pain to use. I got the Bamboo so that I could give my wrist a rest. I also got a gel wrist rest which I rest the heel of my hand on while I use the Bamboo.
The Pad is really big if you are used to using a trackpad, which is really nice. My iMac is also really big, so I can't drag something from one corner of the screen to the opposite corner - the Bamboo just isn't big enough. But how often do you need to do that anyway?
I love the multi-touch gestures. Before I used the Bamboo, since like I said I had never used multi-touch gestures on a trackpad before, I watched the Bamboo tutorial video. It was helpful, and taught me a bunch of gestures I would not have otherwise found on my own. I would say it took an hour or two for me to really get used to using the multi-touch. Scrolling, dragging, right clicking all work beautifully. You can even pivot in certain programs. Being able to scroll in all directions is really nice, and I use the forward and backward swipe all the time. The right click took a little getting used to, but now it's natural and I don't have to use my left hand to hold down the ctrl button as I used to with the Mighty Mouse.
The surface is matte, which I really like. I'm glad it's not a glassy surface since for touch that would mean that the oils on your fingers could mess up the tracking. (I put a matte screen protector on my iPod Touch and it made using it so much nicer!)
One thing I noticed that you might not think of if you never had a tablet before is that it can get dusty, and dust can confuse the device if you have a lot of it or really big pieces. I recommend covering your tablet when you're not using it, or wiping it clean with a clock. Your hands should also be clean (no eating!) so as not to get residue on it.
This tablet is such a joy to use, I'm thinking of asking if I can get one for work. I don't even mind having to pay for it myself. My hand will appreciate it!
Customer Review: Amazing tool for an artist
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm an artist. After I got my Macbook Pro, I decided to get a tablet to go along with it- some of my peers had said good things about tablets and I'd always wanted to try one.
All I can say is WOW.
Where do I start?
Well, my first impression was that this product has the "Apple effect". The packaging is very nice, everything is easy to find. The installation and tutorial is also incredibly easy.
The Pen
Then I put the pen to the pad. I was blown away. I had to check to see if I hadn't picked up a pencil instead; they're not kidding when they say it's a natural feel! The tablet feels amazingly natural; I was able to start creating art right away without a problem. The pen has a replaceable tip, a button that can be pressed two ways, and a thicker "eraser" tip. The buttons can be programmed for basic preset functions, or any keystrokes you want to program. The tip and eraser feel can actually be adjusted in System Preferences!
Navigation
Using it to navigate is fairly straightforward, and the two programmable buttons (default Scroll and Right Click) make the experience fairly smooth. However, it's much easier to use a mouse/trackpad with a keyboard than the pen plus keyboard just because you don't have to put a pen down to type.
Since I rest my hand on the sensor area while I draw, I usually turn the touch off and I keep it off- If you have a Macbook, you will find that there is absolutely no reason for you to use the touch functionality. While the tactile feel of drawing is amazing, I and my friends much prefer the Macbook trackpad. Also, three and four finger gestures are not supported.
If you're buying this tablet to draw, I would suggest keying the pen and tablet buttons to photoshop-related functions.
Software Integration
I've only used Photoshop, and the integration is amazing! The pressure sensitivity makes random sketching come out with a much more natural feel. Also, you can flip the pen around and it will become an eraser! Very useful. The handwriting recognition is also fairly nice. It works with any program and it's fairly accurate. I still find that I type much faster, but for people who don't it's worth a try.
In conclusion, for the purpose I bought it, this tablet is a definite 5/5. An absolute blast to use with, undoubtedly, the quality of a professional's precision tool.
Customer Review: Very sleek and cool graphics tablet... with touch!
Summary: 4 Stars
I am a graphic designer. I've used a touchpad instead of a mouse for years so this is just what I've been looking for! I am now ditching my tiny old Alps touch pad and an old tablet for this sleek one-piece solution which, by the way, gives me all the surface area I need so I won't run out of scrolling room again! The quality of the device is great and the tablet is aestheticly beautiful. The thing is even beautifully packaged... like a gift from some alternate past in a futuristic oriental universe.
Technically, the 1024 levels from the pen is more than enough for all of my work in Photoshop and everything works just fine in Illustrator as well! There are a very few times in some programs where a certain gesture isn't supported but it's not too often. The best features for my use are the extended two-finger capabilities, gestures and the swipe-scrolling which saves me a ton of time looking for the scroll bar, since there was no wheel area on my old Alps.
There are only a couple of negatives in my estimation. First, the little red pen-holding cloth loop looks nice, but is inconvenient for regular pen users. Second, the little "chalk line" that indicates your active area fibs by nearly 1/2 inch on the sides. There may be a technical reason, and it made no difference in my actual use, but it just bugs me that they gave me a fence line but failed to tell me that my property doesn't go all the way to it. I will say that it makes the usable area look a little bigger on the photos as well. To show what I mean, the actual usable surface area is 3.4" x 4.9"...smaller the Graphire CTE-430 Wacom Graphire3 4x5 USB Tablet (Graphite Gray, CTE430GR) But the "active area" designated on the tablet by the white line measures 3.625" x 5.875". That bugs me. I checked the specs before I bought but I could see how some buyers might be TICKED OFF when they buy by sight alone.
Anyway, it's STILL a fantastic item and I'm happy with my purchase. To those who know they have a reason to invest in this item, I don't think you'll be dissatisfied. To those who have no idea why they would want this, read the reviews FIRST and if you want a new way to mouse, a way to convert handwriting to text (in Vista and Win7), or just a really cool new toy, and you've got $90 to blow, by all means, get Bamboo!
Customer Review: Defniitely Not an Intuos
Summary: 3 Stars
I have a big 9x12 Intuos 3 which I put away about a year ago because it just didn't seem to like Win 7 & Vista. I bought the little Bamboo because it is small and handles both pen and multi-touch according to the advertisements. It was a trade-off on upgrading to a smaller Intuos 4.
I don't do a lot of graphics though I have fun with Corel Draw X4 and Corel Painter X. However, I wasn't expecting to use the Bamboo with these programs. In the few minutes I tried, it worked just fine in pen mode with both programs. Of course, the space you have to work with is much smaller but for what it is it does an good enough job in a pinch.
Most of my use is with MS Word and OneNote for marking up documents and keeping handwritten notes on the fly. This is where I judged the Bamboo just OK at best. In pen mode, it tracked OK though handwriting was a bit jittery. In touch mode, it was not very good at all. It was pretty unresponsive to both single and multi touch and accuracy was lacking. Trying to grab a scroll bar on a window was next to impossible for me.
Now I have to say one reason the Bamboo might have been so touchy is that I use it with two 23" monitors. So all that monitor real estate translates down to a small writing pad. A smaller screen setup might work much better, at least in pen mode.
The Bamboo has some buttons on the left (right handed). I kept hitting them and causing crazy things to happen including locking up the mouse a couple of times. I did find one setting on Windows 7 which is an absolute must. If you get the Bamboo - go to your control panel and select Pen and Touch. Click Press and hold and then the settings button. Disable this. You will find, if you hold the pen to the tablet for a very short time it goes to Select mode and then quickly to right-click. This means, while you are writing on your tablet you'll sometimes see a round circle then the menu pop up briefly. This often de-selects the pen. Turn that setting off and your good. You'll also want to play around with some of the other settings in this dialog along with the Bamboo settings to get things working better.
I am happy to say that I pulled my Intuos 3 back out and loaded the latest drivers. Though it is still a little jumpy in OneNote 2010 it works perfectly in MS Word 2010. The Bamboo is sitting in the storage box... just in case.