Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch
by Wacom, Inc
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch
Customer Review: A very nice tablet from Wacom
Summary: 4 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I have the Pen + Touch version of the Wacom Bamboo Tablet, so I'll review both aspects here:
The Pen: I really like the sensitivity and feel of the pen, and this is the best feature of the Bamboo, I think. It took me a little while to get used to the pressure sensitivity, but once mastered, I thought the results were amazing. I also like how the back end of the pen acts as an eraser. I know Wacom has had pressure sensitivity and an eraser on their tablets for a long time, but this is the first time I've used it, and I was impressed.
The Touch: The touch aspects of the Bamboo are also impressive. You can use the Bamboo as a touchpad to replace your mouse, and it can also rotate, scroll horizontally and vertically, zoom, etc. through easy to perform gestures. If I had used the Bamboo a year ago, I would have given the touch aspects of it 5 stars. However, I just upgraded to a new MacBook Pro, and the gestures supported by its trackpad are far more impressive. Whereas the Bamboo only supports 1 and 2 fingered gestures, the MacBook Pro supports 1 - 4 fingered gestures. So, while the Bamboo does have impressive capabilities through the gestures it supports, they could be better. Having said that, the Bamboo IS a lot better than other trackpads out there, and it is very comfortable to use.
Another aspect of the Bamboo experience that I feel could be improved upon was the training program. It is a bit quirky, unnecessarily repetitive, and seems like it was rushed to production.
Nonetheless, I am happy with the Bamboo, use it frequently, and would recommend it to anybody looking for either a small tablet or a mouse replacement.
Customer Review: Good tablet
Summary: 4 Stars
This is my first tablet, got it for my Mac. I use it for graphic design and occasionally for interacting with the computer instead of the mouse.
While I have nothing really to compare it to, it does a good job and really is a great product. It has four buttons on the side which I was able to program, and the pen seems pretty accurate.
Probably a deficiency of my own, but I haven't been able to get Adobe Illustrator to draw based on the pressure of the pen. Pressure works fine in Photoshop though.
It is really convenient for me to be able to use a pen and a large trackpad, both of which work well, up on my desk. Overall I think they are great, but there are some downsides:
The pen: To move the pen, instead of click/drag, you hover the pen over the tablet. I find that it's hard to keep the pointer in the same position on the screen as I move the pen from hover to click position.
The touch: This is multitouch, but it doesn't function as well with OS X as I would like. It doesn't have gestures for more than three fingers, like the MacBook trackpad has, so functionality is limited there. The zoom function gesture increases the zoom in Photoshop/Illustrator (not very smoothly however) and in web pages, but what I really wanted it to do is set it to scroll in the screen like the Mac ctrl+scroll function. Even when I tried holding control and doing the two finger scrolling gesture on the track pad, again it only interpreted it as increasing the size of the text in the web browser. I also tried the multitouch in Google Earth. It's okish, but certainly not the sort of thing you would see on a multitouch demonstration of Microsoft Surface running Google Earth.
One final note, I wish the area for holding the pen would be more like a solid cup instead of a tag that you have to slide it into. I don't like taking the extra time every time I'm done with the pen.
Customer Review: Great multi-touch pointer too!
Summary: 5 Stars
My wife wanted a tablet for PhotoShop, but I wanted the Apple Magic Trackpad. You can read my review of the Apple device and my negative experiences syncing it. In a nutshell, the Apple Magic Trackpad is not really a standard bluetooth device. It didn't work with Mac OS X Leopard. That might sound like a negative review for Apple -- but this was my motivation to try THIS device (the Wacom).
I could not be happier with the Wacom! The pen is a bit weird to get used to -- but I don't use PhotoShop, so that's understandable. As a touch device, this works great! It has a comparable feel to the Apple trackpad that I *intended* to buy -- very similar to my MacBook Pro's touchpad. However, the Wacom area is larger than Apple Magic Trackpad and the Wacom is just as responsive as Apple Magic Trackpad.
Wacom drivers were VERY easy to install. I unwrapped it at home and forgot to take the box into the office with me when I installed it so I had to download the driver online. It was a VERY simple experience. I even connected it through a 4-port KVM and installed a Windows driver for my XP machine. It worked seamlessly on there too. All my Linux runs headless (command-line only) so I can't say for sure -- but I'm told this will work with a GUI Linux environment.
This device plugged right in and worked *without drivers* right away on XP, Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.8), and Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.3). The driver was only necessary for the ability to customize the buttons. I believe the driver also added some multitouch capabilities.
If you LOVE the Apple Magic Trackpad but you only have Leopard, this is your best alternative. Apple Magic Trackpad's incompatibility with Leopard is what drove me to purchase this item, and I am so glad I did.
Customer Review: Gestures Not That Easy...
Summary: 4 Stars
The touch capabilities demonstrated seems like it would feel natural, and easy to use. Out of the box you would find the default settings for touch a bit difficulty to use. So here are some of the problems I've ran into.
For starters moving the mouse pointer with Touch sometimes registers as a click & drag selection. This is because the click & drag selection is a double tap and drag, it can be easily mistaken for just someone quickly trying to move their pointer.
However, this can be easily fixed by adjusting the double tap sensitivity and can be overlooked.
The biggest challenge is working with the gesture. The one I'm having trouble with the most is the click and drag with index finger and thumb. It is an unnatural movement which is squished into a small working space. First you would need to select with a single tap first, before applying your thumb to use it as a drag movement. Most of the time the first tap won't register as a selection tap, which then renders your whole gesture pointless. This usually lead to frustration and taping again, which leads to the mistake of registering as a double tap! Even if you manage to clear that hurdle, you'll find yourself dragging it off the active area of the tablet most of the time. You can avoid these gestures of course by just using the side buttons for left and right clicks if you feel like it is too difficult to accomplish.
In the end it is something you would have to tweak with in the settings to get it working for you. However, most users would most likely just give up working with the gestures overall.
On the bright side though, the pen is great. As advertise you have the pen to paper feel when using this product. Even the eraser feels like you are actually erasing something instead of gliding over.
Customer Review: Decent product with flaws
Summary: 3 Stars
Okay, so I was looking to add some type of touch ability to my new laptop. All the mods were either too difficult or bulky and a waste of money. So I thought this tablet would do just great. The main purpose for me getting this would be for use with MS OneNote which I use during class to take notes. Sometimes in class I need to make graphs... etc. and thought it would be nice to draw them... I tried this tablet and it worked fairly well, but was a little bulky to have on your desk next to your laptop. Also to move the pen around you have to hover the pen a couple of mm above the surface to move. This can be a little difficult. Also the tablet is different when using a pen then when using your fingers. When using the pen the tablet acts as a 1 to 1 screen port. So the top left of the tablet is the top left of your screen. Meaning if you're using the pen to right something in the middle of the screen you're in the middle of the tablet. The problem arise when your hand gets tired and you move it a little, you know have to hover over the tablet to find the exact spot you left off. It does not save your spot. This was a problem for me as it took time to locate it. Other than that it has a great potential use for Photoshop and other image manipulation software. However I do not recommend it for MS OneNote.
In regards to quality, the unit is very sturdy and the writing surface feels like a hard piece of slate. Though I did not have the item for a long time the quality does seem very high. The pen feels a little cheaper but of decent quality. The pen seems light for its size but fits comfortably in your hand. Once again, I cannot recommend the product from my experiences but then again I only really bought and used it for OneNote. Others might find it useful for OneNote, but not as a traveling companion.