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Great pad, great features, better than the new Bamboo!, November 27, 2009

By 

Paul Hepworth – See all my reviews

  

I just got my CTE450K today. It’s sold as refurbished but appeared to be brand new to me. It works great! I recently got the latest Bamboo pen tablet and decided to get this one, too, to compare the features and performance (we have more than one computer).

Features this has that the latest Bamboo pen doesn’t:

- The mouse. I’ve read negative comments about the mouse before. I don’t know what they mean. I like the mouse a lot. It’s comfortable, precise, and it lets me share the same space for the tablet and mouse (more convenient than using a separate conventional mouse).

- The eraser end of the pen. This lets you flip the pen over to erase instead of having to choose the eraser tool in your program and then choose your drawing tool again. Nice to have!

- The touch ring: this lets you scroll and zoom with your finger. It works well, but it’s not a huge deal to me.

- The programmable buttons: I really like having buttons to program keystrokes and functions for quick access.

- The included software: this Bamboo Fun includes Photoshop Elements and Painter Essentials (and more). With the latest Bamboo, you get one or the other, depending which model you order.

The tablet works very well, just like the latest Bamboo. The latest Bamboo has a few less features to lower the price (I assume). This previous version has all the features and originally sold at a higher price. But with these refurbished ones, you get the extra features and actually pay less than for the latest Bamboo! I highly recommend these as the way to go compared to the latest Bamboo pen.

(Note: the latest Bamboo comes in versions that support finger touch in addition to the pen functionality. I didn’t get one of those, as it didn’t seem worth the higher price for what I was going to do with it (artwork and photo editing). My recommendation of this version over the latest applies to the pen-only versions of the latest Bamboo. If you want finger touch (including multi-touch), you’ll want to go with the latest (and pay more).)

About the size: I debated quite a bit between pads with 4×6 active area and 6×8. This was before trying a tablet. Now that I’ve used the 4×6 tablets for a while, I’m quite sure it’s the perfect size. The 6×8 would have me moving my hand/arm much more than I’d prefer, and it would take up more desk space. There’s plenty of resolution in the 4×6 area for all the precision I’ll ever need.

Great product, great price! I love it, and my kids love it!

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Pentastic, December 18, 2009

This is a great product and I’m extremely happy with mine. Just a few points that others haven’t touched on…

The first thing I’d like to address is what “refurbished” means, as there seems to be some confusion, based on the general tone of other reviews, as well as having talked to many people in my four or so years of working in retail electronics. It doesn’t mean that it was an old, used item that was collected out of the trash and dusted off. It just means that someone bought it and returned it, either for a minor defect or simply because they didn’t want it. Then the manufacturer fixed the defect (if any), and then tested the product to make sure it works (because they don’t want to see it again.)

In many ways a refurbished product can be BETTER than “new” because of the amount of care and testing that it goes through where a new product might not. They make sure it works because if it gets returned again as defective that’s a lot of money down the drain. In fact I think the only reason they sell them at a discount is simply because there’s a lot of stigma attached to the word “refurbished”. Their loss, your gain. A generally better than retail product for half the retail price.

So, on to the product…

I chose this model over the newest model because of all the features, like the programmable buttons, the touch wheel, and the mouse. They thought of everything with this model, from the way it can tell when you flip the pen over to use the eraser to the pen stand. Yes, the stand! It has a hole if you want it to hold the pen upright, but it also has a groove across the top if you want to lay the pen down sideways, which is one of those little details that makes Wacom great. I find I store mine upright, but when using the mouse or keyboard I lay it down because it’s quicker and the stand keeps it from rolling away.

Another thing I like is that you can set the pen to track like a tablet, where every point on the pad corresponds to a point on the screen (put the point of the pen in the upper-right corner of the pad and the cursor appears at the upper-right corner of the screen.) OR you can have it track like a mouse, where you drag across the pad, pick the pen up and move it, and then move it along the pad again and the cursor picks up where you left off, just like it would with a mouse or laptop touchpad.

In my preparations to buy one, I’ve seen a lot of reviews for these where people complain that it’s hard to do some everyday tasks, as if they bought it solely to replace their mouse, and I would argue that it’s not really want these are for. If you do use it to replace your mouse, I would change the tracking to “mouse style” and it should make things easier as the cursor will move smoothly rather than jumping around to specific spots on the screen. But keep in mind that generally these are intended for doing digital art and digital handwriting, not so much for moving files around and navigating the internet. Not saying it can’t be done, but don’t buy one and then be frustrated.

I can’t say enough good things about it, and certainly not much more than what others have said. I guarantee that if you’ve been doing digital art with just a mouse, this will instantly double or even triple the range of things you can do. It takes a little practice, but not much. It’s really not a whole lot different than using a pen or marker on a piece of paper, except you have infinite colors, infinite shapes, and infinite redos. =o)

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Wacom CTE450K Tablet , a great deal and a great product!!!, October 26, 2009

By 

Gary Katz – See all my reviews

  

My review is on this refurbished model in particular, and I must say its great. Looks new without a mark on it. I was really impressed, was a little concerned about a Factory Refurbished item, but I was pleasantly surprised. The Tablet works just like a very expensive CAD system tablet but at a fraction of the cost. My unit came packaged just like new and worked perfectly first time.

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