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Great Tablet with A Questionable Touch, September 30, 2009

By 

S. Shin “Bluescreen” (San Jose, California) – See all my reviews

  

First of all, I’m not a native English speaker, sorry for you reading my broken Engrish.

Bamboo is Wacom’s lineup for light-users.

This is the second generation of this line, which features multi-touch.

# What’s in the Box

A Tablet

A Pen

Three pen-tip replacement

A pen-tip extractor

No more mouse offered. (No one uses Wacom’s mouse anyway…)

# Pen

It features Wacom’s typical technologies:

No battery needed, No cable, and an eraser-programed tail.

New Bamboo pen has just OK grip. Just OK.

However, if you own an Intuos, it might be little rough for you.

Unlike beautifully curved and rubber gripped Intuos pen, it is simply a plain circular cylinder.

It is about the size of three AAA batteries lined up.

From 2nd generation, Bamboo line features 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity.

The higher level allows you to draw more pressure-sensed line.

This is significant, because Intuos3, one of the professional ones, features 1024-level as well.

(You can draw thicker line when you put more pressure, and vice versa.)

In fact, this is doubled level from 1st generation. This is simply great for the price!

# Touch

The biggest reason I bought this product, despite the fact I own an Intuos4, is the multi-touch.

I had a doubt that how useful it is gonna be, but a tablet with touch-sensors made me sooo curious

that I had to order one right away.

The stinky feeling was right; it wasn’t that useful.

For navigating, using the pen is wayyy faster.

For editing pictures, my keyboard works better.

Also the touch does not offer good precision to work with those Adobe programs.

Even though it is not-so-useful function with those professional programs,

it may be useful with scrapping and album-making programs, such as Shutterfly.

# Working Surface

Working on this new surface made me feel like I’m working on an actual paper.

With 1st generation, it was a bit too rough that the pen-tip wears away too fast.

One the other hand, Intuos3′s surface was too slippery.

But this new Bamboo line’s surface is less rough than the 1st gen, and is rougher than the ice-slippery Intuos3.

I think Wacom found just right roughness.

# Driver

The driver is a little bit disappointing.

I don’t really get many options for customizing this product.

I could still program the pen and express buttons, but I couldn’t program the finger gestures.

I hope Wacom update the driver, and allow users to add some custom gestures.

# Appearance

The specification of ‘Bamboo Craft’ and ‘Bamboo Pen and Touch’ are identical, just different designs.

Also Craft comes with a tutorial DVD, and some more deals (e.g. magazine subscription, Shutterfly, etc.) and picture editing programs.

I didn’t want to get those extra stuffs, but I paid 30 more dollars for this design. (The recommended price of P&T is $99.)

I’m satisfied with the design, but I’m still not sure if it worth to spend extra $30.

# The bottom line

The 2nd Gen Bamboo is great product for those who are first to tablet, and those who need a decent tablet for leisure activities.

Though the specification is doubled up, the price is same from 1st Gen. So I would say it is a great bargain.

Though the touch is not that functional, this new technology is fun to play with.

For the tablet’s original purpose, pen mousing, I would say it is one of the best.

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Bang for it’s buck! These Wacom Bamboo tablets are awesome! Easy to use!, October 20, 2009

By 

Dennis A. Amith (kndy) (California) – See all my reviews

  

  

I have been an avid user of Wacom products for almost a decade now and for digital artwork, I still use my Intuous 3 Graphic Tablet. But now I have a new Wacom tablet known as the Bamboo Craft, part of Wacom’s latest line of budget-priced Bamboo tablets (from lowest to highest in price: (all black) Bamboo Pen, Bamboo Touch and Bamboo Pen & Touch. And over the $100 range are the Bamboo Craft and Bamboo Fun in metallic silver).

The Bamboo Craft are for those who want a tablet for their Mac or PC and all that is required is that you have a USB port and the room/table space to place your tablet.

The Bamboo Craft is about 9.8 x 6.9 (with the active area at 5.8 x 3.6). For those that need something larger, the Bamboo Fun is about 13.3 x 8.8 (with an active area about 8.5 x 5.4). Note: This is very important, it’s great to have more active area space (I believe the bigger the better) but having owned several in the past, what I’ve learned is that it also comes down to your desk working area and sometimes having something too big may not be practical. Also, purchase a tablet that works with your budget.

I. INSTALLATION & TRAINING

Install of the software on both the PC and Mac are quite easy. After install, you can partake in a few training lessons on how to use your fingers (aka Multi-touch) and use the tablet like a mouse. You can click on the pad, like you would click on a mouse to achieve point, click and move. You can also use your finger to navigate and use the buttons to click. Two fingers to zoom or right click. Motioning your hands clockwise or counter clockwise to spin and rotate an image. And of course, a pressure sensitive pen which you can do the same thing but also take part in making handwritten notes via ink (or your graphic design software) and also for your artwork. Also, the buttons and movements can be customized via control panel or system preferences (via PC or Mac).

I tested this on my Mac G4 with OS 10.5 (it will work with 10.4.8 or higher) and also my iMac (10.6) and it worked fine. Tested it on Windows XP (w/ Service Pack 2) and it works fine (it also works with windows 7 and Vista).

For those who suffer carpal tunnel, mouse finger or tendonitis, a Bamboo Craft (or lower device like the Bamboo Touch) can definitely make things easier on your hands. And it’s not hard to use, the training on how to use the Bamboo tablet is comprehensive and easy.

II. Ink and accompanying software

For those who want to leave sticky notes, a hand recognition and art software known as Ink is included. But this software may be a bit basic for some people and so the good news is that if you don’t own Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter, the Bamboo Craft comes with Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 (Windows) and 6.0 (Mac), Corel Painter Essentials 4.0) and Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 WE3. And for many people that don’t need all the other advance parts of the more expensive software, this software is all they need.

You also get a DVD with 26 scrapbooking lessons from Jane Conner-ziser and a library of digital craft embellishments. A free 8×8 photo album from Shutterfly, a free online store from Cafe Press, a free one year subscription to Scrapbooking & Beyond Magazine and free online training with [...].

III. TESTS

I managed to test out the Bamboo Craft on the web and scrolling, going back, cut and paste were easy using the tablet. The pressure sensitive pen is also easy to use. I tested it on Adobe Photoshop CS3 and also on Corel Painter 8 (and I’m sure they work perfectly on CS4 and CP10). Pressure sensitive pen works perfectly.

It’s important to note that learning a pen for digital painting or work, takes some time. Learning how to use a tablet and the pen to use more paint and less paint takes time, so don’t expect to paint something incredible the first time using the pen if you are a beginner. Be patient and practice. If your main drive is to paint, I highly recommend with a larger tablet such as an Intuous but for basics, the Bamboo Fun may be all that you need since its larger than the Craft but if you don’t have the room, the Craft may be perfect for you. Of course, if you want to go hardcore and want the best (and very expensive in the $1000-$2,000 range), Wacom offers the Cintiq which has the actual digital screen display on the tablet and are magnificent.

And there is no need to worry as it won’t conflict with your keyboard, mouse or any other device.

JUDGMENT CALL:

For a budget device and for all the bells and whistles it comes with, the Wacom’s Bamboo Craft is a wonderful device for multi-touch, writing, creative artwork, painting, etc. I truly believe those with hand problems such as carpal tunnel, tendinitis or mouse finger will find these Bamboo touchpads much to their liking and…

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Very, Very Cool!, October 18, 2009

By 

C. Huddleston – See all my reviews

  

I was a little skeptical about this tablet, since I’m not really fond of gimmicks or excessive gadgetry, but thought I would give it a try, as my old Wacom Intuos is getting a little long in the tooth.

But I love this tablet! It’s the perfect size to go with a notebook computer, and the touch pad is so much more comfortable than that little one on most laptops. I was already very familiar with the pen from my old Intuos, and it works just the same, exactly like a normal pen would. You can either use a little button on the pen to double-click, or just touch the pen to the surface. It’s a wonderful invention that I love.

As for the multi-touch part of the tablet, I actually like that part as well. I watched the tutorials to get the hang of it, but it was pretty easy. The only gesture that was not intuitive for me was dragging a file or folder. I had to look that one up, and at first I couldn’t get it, but after using the tablet for an hour I felt like a pro. At first I thought the tablet wasn’t sensitive enough and was pressing too hard, but after a while I got the hang of how to touch it. If anything, now I would say it’s a little too sensitive and I have to be careful not to touch the screen excessively or rest my fingers on the screen.

The thing I love the most about the multi-touch, and what I use it most for, is browsing on the web. The scroll gesture is very intuitive and so easy, and the gesture to move to a previous web page is genius. It really is cool and easy to use. It feels like you’re flipping through actual paper pages.

This product comes with bundled software like Painter Essentials and Photoshop Elements, which are perfect complements to the tablet and pen. I already had similar products on my computer so didn’t download these. I don’t think the pen is as sensitive as that on the beefier Intuos tablets, but I don’t know how important that would be if you’re just using this tablet for casual use, as I intend to.

This tablet definitely exceeded my expectations, I’m very happy with it. I do have one thing I wish was different — I wish that I could resize a window by dragging the corner. I wasn’t able to do that (or at least, I couldn’t figure out how), yet that’s something I constantly do on my computer screen.

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