Good graphics tablet?

BuToNz

BuToNz

BuToNz

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Joined
18 Jan 2007
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Eastbourne, East Sussex
Hey guys,

Can someone recommend me a good graphics tablet? Its for someone who will be off to uni to do a childrens illustration course and i thought it would be a nice present to go along with a copy of Photoshop :)

I have no experience with them at all (Ive not even used one) but i assume they are a very valuable tool for anyone doing digital art?

Any advice or recommendations?

Many thanks
 
What is your budget?

I've just got a Wacom Intuos 4 Medium (a5) and I can honestly say it is the best piece of kit i've bought. it's got so many features.

if your budget is slightly lower, have a look at the Wacom Bamboo range, bamboo fun pen and touch is where the low end meets the high end really. you can perform gestures on it ( like i phone) and use the stylus also. It does lack the refinement of the intuos 4 though.

it may be worth hanging on a little bit, as once he is in uni he will be able to get Wacom tablets at student prices. I got mine much, much cheaper than retail. Loads of online stores do educational prices hardware and especialy software. look there before you look anywhere else. just google for student software type sites.

you dont really need anything bigger than A5 for art. bigger tablets can lead to your arm quicly getting tired (I went from an a4 cheap tablet to this A5 intuos and it is much more comfortable to usee.) not sure about the bamboo, but this intuos has a precission mode, which when pressed it makes the whole drawing area on the tablet into a much smaller area on the screen, so you can use the whole tablet to draw small detail on the screen, and release the button to go back to normal.

The drivers are excelent, very customisable, the keys with and touch ring are priceless (especially since they have little screens next to them telling you the funcition of the button) within the driver you're able to assign profiles for different software. Whichever software is active at the time (whichever is the active window) it changes all the keys instantly to perform the tasks for that program. flick onto the internet for a moment, it will change the whole profile instantly to what ever profile you have set for that etc.

Photoshop is fantastic, and if you can get it at an educational price, even better. You could look at artrage too, a new peice of software that has been designed from the ground up. it's very good.

hope this helps, I've done a lot of research over the past couple of months int he leadup to buying mine, so let me knwo if there are any other questions.
 
Wow, thankyou for your detailed reply.

She will have the below requirements (Well im guessing, its a surprise present!)

Needs to work on Windows 7
Easy to setup/use
Not too big (A5 will be perfect)

I have a budget of about £50 but i can easily stretch to £100 if needed, im a firm believer in best bang for buck so if a £100 model is well worth the extra i dont mind paying it.

She wont be leaving for uni until October this year but i will be giving it to her a few months before so she can get used to it.

Regarding the Wacom Intuos 4 how much did you pay for yours?

Many thanks again
 
I would also recomend any of the ones by Wacom. Got my Bamboo last year and was stunned by how good it was for the money. Almost saved up enough for a Cintiq now. :)
 
yea, I got a shock too...

I paid £258 delivered for mine, educational price (I'm a student now too) they will be coming down in price I reckon though.

you can get these for less that £150:
http://www.wacom.eu/index2.asp?pid=294&lang=en&spid=4
Bamboo fun pen and touch

I'm not sure on their marketing tactics, calling it a 'bamboo fun' They're anything but toys to be honest. They're very good.

If she is really going to be going into it I'd consider the Intuos4 for many reasons, but the first being that it is the best tablet you can buy and it will still be for the next few years (they dont bring new intuos models out very often)

I'm doing a degree in special effects, so I use, or will be using my tablet for Zbrush (3d modeling) and painting in photoshop / art rage. I use it for general browsing, video editing and other general windows tasks too.
It's the secret to farmville on facebook too ;)

Our uni has just bought in a shed load of Intuos 4 mediums, and it is likely that her uni will have them too. if you're going to wait until she is in uni to take advantage of the discount, it might be worth waiting to see what they have, and test them out to see what she needs.

hope this helps.

p.s loads of reviews on youtube.
 
I got the wacom bamboo pen (with tablet) for christams arround £50 just google it :)

its verry good and i would avoid the bamboo touch as apparently people get annoyed that when you draw it picks up the pen movment but also your hand that you rest on it :(

the bamboo pen (comes with a tablet) is great it has pressure sensitivity and works fine with photoshop and i am using windows 7, considering how cheap it is really compared to many others its such a good make and has plenty of support and should last years.

i used to be rubbish with them but after 3 hours use i picked it up quite quick.
 
Temi_D said:
DO NOT BUT A WACOM!!!They are simply overpriced....Get the trust one instead http://www.trust.com/products/group.aspx?coll=TABLETS. I've got the TB-6300 one. They have MASSIVE working spaces compared to the wacom ones and are much cheaper. Just check the great reviews.
Click to expand...

Have you used a Wacom tablet before? I've just gone from an A4 trust tablet (granted, it was not branded as 'trust', it was a generic tablet which trust took and branded (like they do with a lot of gear) I used the trust drivers.
iirc the OEM was either Waltop (http://www.waltop.com/product.asp?lv=0&id=2) or Aiptek, or perhaps someone higher up the manufacturing ladder I can't remember how far I looked when I was looking for drivers)

The active area of the tablet is personal preference, but I see absolutly no need for mamoth tablets. A6 is too small, A5 is just right, and A4 is pushing it. the large and extra large tablets are made with specific uses in mind. for art purposes though, A5 is fine. When I was using my A4 tablet my arm would be killing by the end of the day.

Wacoms are generally far more accurate, their stylus don't require batteries either. It's all in the small details too, like the two parts that make contact with one-another - the stylus nib and the surface of the tablet. Intuos tablets come with an array for different nibs from hard, felt, rubber and sprung nibs to give different feels, and different tails to lines. the quality of these 2 parts can be the difference between being able to translate your intended actions, into what you see on the screen.

The trust ones are decent, don't get me wrong. but only regular Wacom users will know the advantages of having a wacom tablet. There is a reason that they are pretty much the industrys standard tablet.

I'd never say that Wacom gear was over priced, but rather, you truly do get what you pay for. It's the same with most things, especially artistic materials and equipment.
 
I've never seen a bit of kit by Trust which was good, I doubt their tablets compare to Wacom. Wacom pretty much dominate the field for a good reason.

I like with a 2 2D animators and a digital illustrator and they all use Wacoms. Through them I have met load of 2D and 3D animators and they all use Wacom to the extent where they dont say "what tablet have you got?" they say "What Wacom do you use?"
 
I had a trust one before a wacom, the trust one felt cheap and tacky and didn't compare to the wacom.

But it's about your price range, the more you spend on these it seems the better they are.
 
Thanks for the huge amount of feedback in this thread. Went for the Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch after looking at prices and specs, i heard the Touch function isnt all that but features a eraser on the pen which i feel is a must.

Hopefully she'll like it! :D
 
didn't you see my post :S

the wacom bamboo pen and touch is apparently annoying to use as when your writing with the pen it will also pickup for hand movement at the same time which will make a mess and confusion of work in photoshop :(

if it ends up not behaiving try and DSR it if you bought it online.
 
When using the pen it overrides any touching of the pad, ive seen many a video demonstrating it. Seems very good to me.
 
Good choice Buzz, sure she will be very happy with it, they are absolute quality items.

The touch element of it makes up for the lack of the touchring on the intuos... it means you can zoom, rotate and scroll with touch. pretty invaluable really.

good luck!
 
im a Graphic Designer, i currently use the Wacom Bamboo - The pressure sensitivity is not the greatest and sure it's minimal on features, but great if you new to using tablets and a great stepping stone before paying it big bucks on something hardcore. I will at some point be buying a fully fledged beast of a tablet, but for now i am pleased with the 60 odd quid i spent on this, for the money i believe its a good return.

Mat
 
Temi_D said:
DO NOT BUT A WACOM!!!They are simply overpriced....Get the trust one instead http://www.trust.com/products/group.aspx?coll=TABLETS. I've got the TB-6300 one. They have MASSIVE working spaces compared to the wacom ones and are much cheaper. Just check the great reviews.
Click to expand...

dont buy a trust because they aren't any good. Simple really. Pay for quality, and this is where quality is needed.
 
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