Best Deals drawing mouse for the computer

A good tablet for a cheap price., December 26, 2007

By 

J. Decelles (North Chelmsford, MA United States) – See all my reviews

  

I own the Aiptek Hyperpen 12000u graphics tablet, which is the exact same item as the Adesso CyberTablet 12000, only it is sold under the Aiptek brand.

I went to school for Graphic Design and in 2006 I graduated with my bachelors in that field. I currently work full time for at an in-house graphic design department for one of the world’s largest printing and marketing companies.

I bought this tablet in about 2003 because I felt that it would help with my projects in school. I originally was looking at the Wacom Intuos 6×8 graphics tablet, but the price tag for that particular item was far outside what I could afford while paying for school, my car and other bills. I had used the less expensive Wacom Graphire 4×5″ tablet but I was not impressed. The build quality was good, but it was too small to really do any kind of detailed work with it.

A friend of mine who does a lot of artwork on the computer turned me onto the Aiptek 12000u (which is again, the same unit as the CyberTablet 12000) which he paid about double the price here for at a local brick and mortar hardware chain. A 12×9 tablet for about half the cost of the Wacom Intuos I was looking at caught my attention so I looked online, found the tablet on Amazon and did what any college kid would do, asked my parents to buy it for me.

The build quality of the Hyperpen is good. It is a solid unit over-all. I have dropped mine dozens of times and it still works flawlessly. The pen feels a little flimsy, but no worse than say a bic pen. Mine lasted for about 4 years before I had to recently replace it (replacements available on the Aiptek website). A replacement pen cost me only $10 plus shipping, which is a great value considering a replacement pen for a Wacom tablet costs in the $60 range. The pen requires a AAA battery and because of this is a little heavier than a Wacom pen, but almost all of the weight is the battery itself, and I am one of those people who prefer a pen with a little heft to it. For me the vast savings over the cost of a Wacom tablet outweigh having to use a slightly heavier pen.

The mouse of my tablet was basically useless. But I didn’t buy a tablet to use the mouse. I have a very decent optical mouse that fulfills all of my mousing needs, as I am sure most people who are considering this tablet do.

I use this tablet nearly every day at work and it performs flawlessly. I use it mainly with Adobe Photoshop CS2 and 3, and Adobe Illustrator CS2 and for those programs it is worth its weight in gold. It has full pressure sensitivity for CS2 and 3 (contrary to what some reviews say) and works well with Illustrator. You have to install the drivers (the drivers on the Aiptek website, which I believe are v3.15 will work well with this tablet) in order for Photoshop to detect the pen pressure sensitivity, but that is no big deal.

Also this tablet has only 512 levels of pressure sensitivity as compared to 1024 levels on the Wacom Intuos line. But I have used both tablets (12000u and Intuos 6×8″) at this point, and there is no real world difference between the two. As in, you won’t really notice any difference in pen pressure sensitivity.

Also this tablet is very accurate. I have it set up with “Absolute” positioning so that where I place the pen on the tablet directly relates to where the cursor appears on the screen, and with my 20″ monitor using this tablet is very intuitive. I got used to it in a week, which is something I cannot say of smaller tablets.

Aside from the crappy mouse this tablet comes with, I only have 2 other negative things to say: The programmable function keys are practically useless. You cannot program them to Photoshop keyboard shortcuts or macros. I have only been able to use them to open programs. The other thing is that this tablet doesn’t detect pen tilt, which is something the newer Wacom tablets do. It’s not a major feature, but it is a nice one.

However the extra $300+ dollars that I have in my pocket make me feel better about not having tilt sensing on my tablet.

I would as always recommend this tablet to anyone who thinks they might want one, but cannot or will not spend a lot more money for a Wacom Tablet. If you have a lot of money to spend, definitely go with the Wacom, they are nicer, but if like most people you have to budget how much you spend, this Adesso CyberTablet 12000 is an incredible purchase for the money.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (9)

Not as good as my 8 year old Wacom, February 22, 2006

I wanted to get back into digital painting recently and so I planned on buying a new tablet and upgrading to Painter iX. Along the way of researching what new tablet to buy I ran into this brand and after seeing all of the positive reviews on this page I decided to give it a try. I was very disappointed. I have an 8-year old Wacom Digitizer II (its so old that Wacom doesn’t have a single reference that it ever existed), but I assumed that my Wacom was less sensitive compared to the newer models even from non-Wacom makers. The real catalyst to buying a new tablet was that my new computer doesn’t have the serial port that the Digitizer II uses (I told you that it was old.)

I plugged in the Cyber Tablet and played with it for a while and I just couldn’t get into it. It doesn’t have as smooth a surface as the Wacom, plus the pen is almost twice the thickness. The worst part by far is the sensitivity differences between the two; when you lightly drag the pen across the surface it doesn’t always create a light line, instead its very inconsistent. I adjusted the sensitivity levels for a long time and never found a setting that solved this problem. The construction is reasonable, but it certainly doesn’t feel as quality as the Wacom.

At this point I am sending back the Cyber Tablet and keeping my Wacom Digitizer II, even though it is a little banged up and I have to buy a USB-to-Serial converter to make it work. I was really excited about this lower-cost tablet after reading the previous reviews, but I am not convinced that any of them have used a Wacom before or compared them side-by-side. A Wacom tablet from 8 years ago (think 486 processors, floppy disks & serial mice) far exceeded the quality, sensitivity and usefulness of the new Cyber Tablet 12000.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (2)

Not for current photoshop, August 23, 2005

This works with some applications, but so far drivers do not support use with Photoshop CS2. Support is non-existant.

The stars I give are because it has a large surface area and I can draw with big flowing lines. It’s also 100′s of dollars cheaper than the “other” tablet. This tablet is the same as many other brand-name tablets if you take a look at their home sites and look at photos, so finding one where the company has better support might be an idea.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comment (1)