Help me choose a graphics tablet

Roman79

[H]ard|Gawd
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Oct 2, 2000
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I'm trying to decide on a tablet and I was hoping someone here might have some advice.

I'll be using it to do technical drawings, but nothing really complex. The level of complexity would be roughly about what you could sketch on a medium sized white-board (with a marker) in about 30min.

Most of my coworkers do these drawings on fine graph paper the old fashioned way, but I find that takes me FOREVER since I'm a perfectionist.

Right now I'm trying to decide between a

- Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch Small for about $80CDN, and a
- Wacom Intuos4 Small for about $220CDN

Right now I'm thinking the Bamboo might do the trick, but I'd appreciate any advice!

EDIT: I'd also take some advice on the best software to use for this application
 
I had an older bambo.. It worked for what it was capable of.. then found a wacom3 on fleabay for cheap and have been rocking that out since.. a way better upgrade and I don't have claw hands for dealing with such a small area!
 
I have a Bamboo too, and while it's small, it's pretty accurate and nice for the $60 a paid last year. Also, I'm going to school overseas (Korea) and I travel a lot, so having a smaller tablet is perfect for taking with me. I can use it on my MacbookPro and my netbook.
 
Well I'm glad to hear that the Bamboo works ok. Size was a factor too, as I'll be traveling with mine as well. That and I figured I could take a gamble on the Bamboo at 1/3 the cost of an Intuos4, and upgrade if needed.
 
Someone on CG Society mentioned buying a Motion Computing table on ebay for around $400 and using a drawing program on it.
 
I bought my wife a Graphire4 a few years back, the 8x10 sized one was like 1/3 of the price of the smallest Intuos3 (3x4?). I use it from time to time as well, but for our use, it's definitely good enough. I also figured to buy the biggest one I could for the money, so that's why I bought the 8x10 one. Even though you can really drag your hand quite far on the tablet to go border to border on the screen, it was definitely worth buying a bigger size one. ;)
 
The 4x6 bamboo I am staring at in the corner of my room was good enough for a long time... but my 6x8 wacom3 is quite a bit better.
 
If you're feeling spendy ($1,000!) you could look at the Asus EP121. It's not a drawing tablet - it's an actual 12" tablet PC with a Wacom digitizer (plus other goodies like an IPS screen and beefy enough specs to run photoshop while watching HD videos).
 
If you are using it for technical drawings you'd probably be better off with a mouse and a suitable CAD software relevant to your domain.
 
Bamboos are nice for something small and cheap. A buddy of mine has one and I've given it a go a few times while I was staying with him. It really doesn't hold up to a graphire or intuos though.
 
If you're feeling spendy ($1,000!) you could look at the Asus EP121. It's not a drawing tablet - it's an actual 12" tablet PC with a Wacom digitizer (plus other goodies like an IPS screen and beefy enough specs to run photoshop while watching HD videos).

My original plan was to get an HP TM2 (which is pretty much the same by the sounds of things), unfortunately you can't get them customized in Canada with a discrete video card. So I ended up buying slim 13" notebook instead.

If you are using it for technical drawings you'd probably be better off with a mouse and a suitable CAD software relevant to your domain.

Yes I agree, and that's what I'm used to using. However at the end of my term I have an oral exam where I need to draw these schematics on a white board from memory. I just figured this would help me remember them.

The Bamboo seems to work fine, I just haven't found the right software yet.
 
bamboo is good enough for tech drawings, as a photographer, i prefer the control and build quality of the intuos
 
I'd much rather have one of these:http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10841&cs_id=1084102&p_id=6814&seq=1&format=2, than a bamboo. Spec wise, they are practically an Intuos. The shortcuts and zoom wheel on the Intuos are better shortcut options compared to the monoprice tablet, some will say. For the price though, a Bamboo just doesn't compare.

I will say though that if you ever get the chance to try one of the Wacom Cintiq tablets (that have the LCD screen as a drawing surface), watch your wallet. They are spendy but so much fun!
 
I can vouch for the monoprice tablet, I have this one and its not so bad, sometimes pressure levels in various software like inkscape stopped working, the software is shit, and drivers are a pain (by the way do NOT try and use this with 2 displays, it will track fine, but when you draw, it shows up 5inches off and my computer shit a brick)

when it works, it works great
 
well i just ordered the 10X6.25 inches monoprice tablet for kicks. I mean 60 bucks, worht a shot. See how well it works with Artrage/CS5 etc.
 
I just ordered a Monoprice as well. The 10x6.25 has better specs than the Bamboo on paper.

However, I don't think the Monoprice tablets use Magnetic Induction since the pens have batteries (I'm assuming no tilt response), they don't have an eraser or an assortment of nubs either but, that doesn't really bother me. I've used an Intuos4 and loved it but, can't afford it, my Bamboo doesn't work near as well as it feels rough, less responsive, and lags but, it's still sort of decent and it's very portable. Based on the specs the Monoprice should be better but, I won't know until Friday.

Bamboo Fun/Craft: 1024 Pressure Levels, 2540 Lines Per Inch and, 133 points per second

Monoprice 10x6.25:1024 Pressure Levels, 4000 Lines Per Inch and, 200 points per second


There's also two versions. I'm not sure what the difference is other than one has extra function keys. Both appear to be made by UC Logic
 
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Definitely uses the wintab driver, no surprise there. Had no issues getting it running with 5.02 drivers that came on CD with windows 7 x64.

Tested in CS5, Artrage Studio Pro, zBrush, Lightroom, Paint.net. I had no issues with anything other than getting used to have no eraser end. The hot buttons on the tablet are nicely placed. Sensitivity is at least as good as the bamboo i had, so just out of the box i feel like i got a steal for the money spent. I havent gotten to spend more than 3-4 hours just putzin around with it, but im hopeful this will be a very nice bridge between the smaller bamboo and a more expensive comparably sized wacom.

Definitely worth it based on initial out of box impressions.
 
Definitely uses the wintab driver, no surprise there. Had no issues getting it running with 5.02 drivers that came on CD with windows 7 x64.

Tested in CS5, Artrage Studio Pro, zBrush, Lightroom, Paint.net. I had no issues with anything other than getting used to have no eraser end. The hot buttons on the tablet are nicely placed. Sensitivity is at least as good as the bamboo i had, so just out of the box i feel like i got a steal for the money spent. I havent gotten to spend more than 3-4 hours just putzin around with it, but im hopeful this will be a very nice bridge between the smaller bamboo and a more expensive comparably sized wacom.

Definitely worth it based on initial out of box impressions.

I just got mine today and I must say it feels much better than the Bamboo I have. I will not be going back to my Bamboo.

Based on my initial impressions I'd put the sensitivity around that of an Intuos3. The pen is my only real complaint, while I actually like the feel of it better than my Bamboo pen it's a little awkward when you are putting in the battery and it doesn't really feel like a very sturdy piece of equipment. However, once you have the battery in and you start using then pen you get used to it pretty quickly. The pen doesn't have an eraser either, which isn't really a big deal to me since I don't use pencils that have erasers anyway. I'd much prefer an Intuos3 or 4 pen to the monoprice one but, I still prefer this pen to the Bamboo.

Hmm, what else? Well the size of the tablet is fantastic and it lines up very nicely with my 16:10 monitor. I really like the driver software for windows as it's very easy to set the tablet up for your screen, unlike a Wacom on a Mac where you need to adjust a bunch of junk and then if someone else comes in behind you and readjusts it you have to do the whole thing again. The Monoprice tablet driver sits in the system tray so it's easily adjustable.

The surface of the Tablet is very smooth and paper-like. Whereas, the Bamboo always felt rough to me and I never really liked it.

So yeah, I paid around $150 for my Bamboo tablet and around $50 for the Monoprice/UC-Logic and I'm keeping the Monoprice and selling the Bamboo.

This thing is not a replacement for an Intuos 3 or 4 but, I definitely see it as a nice upgrade from the Bamboo.

I'm going to do some more research on pens, I'm willing to bet I can find some kind of higher end replacement from UC-Logic or somewhere that will work with this Tablet. I think with a slightly better pen this Tablet would really be a poor mans Intuos.
Maybe something like this http://www.manhattan-products.com/en-US/products/5315-graphics-tablet-replacement-pen
 
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Yeah this is a good tablet guyz. . . Dont forget you can raise up the plastic sheet that the pen makes contact with, so you can slip in paper and trace a drawing (like a circle) to make sure your aspect is mapped correctly
 
Yeah this is a good tablet guyz. . . Dont forget you can raise up the plastic sheet that the pen makes contact with, so you can slip in paper and trace a drawing (like a circle) to make sure your aspect is mapped correctly

Thanks for the tip about the plastic sheet. I'll keep that in mind.
 
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