Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch
by Wacom, Inc
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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 |
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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: A Step Up From a Graphire3 Tablet
Summary: 4 Stars
I had an older Graphire3 tablet that I wanted to upgrade. I use a tablet primarily for editing photos in Photoshop and Lightroom. At first I was thinking about buying the Intuous4. But after thinking about my workflow and what I was missing from the Graphire3, I decided that I wouldn't use the touch wheel on the Intuous4 and the touch pad function of the Bamboo would suit me better.
For the most part, the Bamboo met my needs and expectations. The pen works very well and the touch works very well for navigating the menus in Photoshop and Lightroom.
The Graphire3 tablet had a piece of clear plastic over it so when you were drawing, there was very little friction. The surface of the Bamboo is a litte rougher and the pen nib is a different material so there is some friction when you are drawing with the pen. I have much more control of the Bamboo pen than the Graphire3 pen. The pressure sensitivity of the Bamboo seems better. It seems like the Bamboo gives you more control than the older Graphire3.
The touch feature works well for me. My main use for touch pad is navigating around the menus in Photoshop and Lightroom. The Bamboo works quite well for this. Sometimes there is a little stuttering, but I think that only happens when I am holding the pen too close to the tablet while using the touch feature. In fact, I find that I have started to use the touch pad for navigating through Windows 7 or other other program menus. But where there is the need for lots of right clicking, moving files or scrolling, I naturally go back to using the mouse. So no, this isn't a mouse replacement for me.
The software bundle is useless for me. I have no need for Photoshop Elements and the Nik Color Efex only consists of a very few filters, MANY fewer than Nik's Standard version of the software. I also couldn't get Color Efex installed on my Win 7, 64 bit Photoshop CS5 setup. It worked fine in the 32 bit version of CS5.
One minor gripe about the Bamboo... You can program a pop-up menu, but you can only access the menu from the pen buttons and not the tablet buttons. For my workflow, it would be better to access the pop-up menu from the tablet buttons.
Overall I am happy. The Bamboo was a good upgrade from my older Graphire3 tablet.
Customer Review: A Great Introductory Tablet with a Promising Touch.
Summary: 4 Stars
As a designer I have seen Wacom tablets in various shapes and sizes throughout the years. I have only used them a handful of times at colleagues offices however once learning of the Bamboo Pen & Touch and seeing the price, I decided to take the leap.
Overview:
For less than $100 you get an extremely capable pen tablet with a "rough around the edges" yet promising touch device. The shape and form factor is smallish yet works fine with my 20" widescreen monitor. The long USB cable should accommodate almost any workspace setup.
Pen:
The pen works flawlessly. Using the pen has dramatically increased my productivity particularly in Adobe Illustrator, it's a breeze to use compared to a mouse for vector work. It's also very capable in Photoshop and even as a mouse replacement for general use. The shape of the pen could be more contoured however and it's not easy to move quickly from using the pen to typing due to its shape. Overall I am very pleased using the pen.
Touch:
The multi-touch component of this device combined with the price is what sold me. I wanted a fluid experience much like other touch devices and this seemed, in combination with the pen, like the answer to a mouse-less desk. My initial impressions of the touch capabilities of the tablet were mixed, it was jittery, continually dragging items around my computer screen that I did not intend to move and frustrating. Now I have a touch pad on my laptop and am very comfortable using such a surface which made the experience even more confusing. A large portion of my problems were fixed by adjusting the preferences in the control panel as well as turning off the single finger "Drag" setting. Even after rectifying many of my issues I still feel like the touch experience could use some refinement, however I am sticking with it so far and have not returned to using a mouse.
Conclusion:
The Bamboo Pen & Touch offers a great entry into the tablet world along with a promising touch functionality. I would definitely buy this again with the strong message of adjusting the preferences right out of the box since this solved most of my initial issues.
Customer Review: So far, so good!
Summary: 4 Stars
I've seen some of the less positive reviews for the Bamboo pen/touch tablet, and they definitely got my attention. I balanced the reported negatives against the perceived positives, and ordered a Bamboo pen/touch.
I've got a Wacom Inutos at work, which doesn't have the touch capability; it comes with a sensor mouse. Didn't take a lot of getting used to, but that was several years ago, of course.
So far I like this pen/touch combination. The gestures do take a little getting used to, but I expected that. I haven't encountered anything that's particularly counterintuitive, but I will echo others' suggestions that you get into the Bamboo tablet control panel pretty much immediately after installing it (before disconnecting your mouse), and tweaking the settings. Out of the box the tablet was about 80% right for me; after altering a few of the settings it's much closer to 95% right. The rest, I suspect, is down to learning curves and fine-tuning.
I suspect I'll come back later and revise this review as necessary, but I can say this for now: It's more than a large trackpad -- which is good, since I really don't care for trackpads -- and I find the multitouch capability both intuitive and usable. Don't hold back on purchasing because of the one- and two-star reviews, unless you believe you're going to be too frustrated by learning to use a device that does, in fact, take a little while to learn to use. (For me it was about ten minutes, but your mileage will probably vary.)
Oh, and I can quite strongly recommend getting a silicone wrist support pad for use with the pen/touch tablet. It will definitely help keep you from accidentally resting your palm on the surface and hosing a click or drag operation when the tablet misinterprets the gesture as a second touch.
Finally, kudos to Amazon for shipping the tablet a week before their expected ship time, and for delivering it so quickly. It came from a distribution center less than 200 miles from my home, and arrived at least five days ahead of schedule. That was a nice, ahem, touch.
Customer Review: Good quality product- but it may not be ideal as a replacement for a mouse.
Summary: 3 Stars
Pros:
- The gestures for the pad are intuitive.
- The stylus is pressure sensitive and works as one would expect for a Wacom tablet.
- The package comes with video tutorials for complete novices.
- The device is stylish and is well constructed and packaged.
Cons:
- It was too easy to inadvertently click and/or drag something by accident.
- I tried both placing it on the side where one would normally place a mouse and placing it south of the keyboard where one would normally use a trackpad on a laptop. The latter seemed to cause more of the accidental catches while I was typing. I am not entirely sure how I am able to trigger the tablet in that instance expect perhaps a tiny portion of my palm might be just catching the edge of it.
- After using it for some time I started to miss the hand support offered by a mouse, and began to feel some fatigue. I am not sure how long one can sustain that kind of activity.
- The surface of the pad has some resistance to give the stylus the sensation of writing on paper. However this does not make it as ideal a trackpad since your fingers don't glide over the surface as easily.
- Using the zoom, rotate, forward and backward page gestures seemed to introduce significant lag. As a result, for example, when you zoom in/out in a web browser it feels like you are lurching in and out. Often I find myself over shooting a zoom level.
- Sometimes you accidentally trigger the right mouse button when instead you are trying to use a 2-finger gesture.
- The placement of the cable should have been along the top of the unit rather than the side. Having it on the side means you can't cleanly butt it up against a keyboard without the wire getting in the way.
For the price it does what it claims and it is a respectable amount of capability for what you are paying for. I'm not entirely certain however it will ultimately be a successful device to replace the mouse.
I'll stick with it for a little longer and update my review if I feel differently.
Customer Review: Great Value, Needed Tweaking, Works Great
Summary: 5 Stars
Unless you really like writing with a pen over typing on a keyboard, this product is only for digital artists (the touch feature does not replace a mouse). I got this for my girlfriend who couldn't use her old serial port Wacom tablet in conjunction with her new laptop PC (Windows 7). She's an artist and likes doing a lot of digital work. For a low price this gave her everything she wanted.
The pressure sensitivity and resolution this tablet offers are identical to the professional tablets that Wacom offered a number of years ago (the Intuos2 series), but its price is much lower. This tablet is a great value for an artist on a budget since it offers more than you'll need (and even offers touch navigation if/when you want it).
(On a related note, I would suggest that artists stay away from the pen-only bamboo tablet. It doesn't offer the same pressure sensitivities and resolution. It's currently cheaper on Amazon, yes, but you'd be losing too much for the price. Save up for the pen-AND-touch tablet.)
The only problem we had with the Pen and Touch involved the Windows 7 tablet settings and the Wacom tablet management settings. I don't recall what we eventually had to change, but the tablet lagged horribly and stuttered across the screen when when the pen came into contact with it. We fiddled with the response times and turned many features on and off. In the end we got it to work flawlessly and smooth, but I'm not really sure what we did to accomplish that. Be warned, you might need to do similar tweaking. :)
As for closing comments, I thought the little strap to hold the pen was cute and functioned well. Also, the "touch" feature is a nice thing to have in theory, but neither of us have really tried it enough to decide if we like it or not. The little bit we have used the touch feature we thought it was functional, responsive and easy to use, but the touch pad built in to her laptop worked well enough for the most of the same actions.