Wacom Bamboo - Good, bad, or ugly?

[LurkerPatrol]

Hi guys.

So I'm thinking of taking web design/photoshop classes or just learn to draw and paint and whatnot on my own and want to get a nice cheap tablet to start me off.

I had entered this realm before and got myself an aiptek which broke and failed under all parameters. The other option at the time was to get a Wacom which was more expensive but I'm sure would have lasted until now.

I can't afford the drool-inducing Wacom Cintiq (which is a wallet-breaking $1500), and so I thought I'd head for the cheapest of the bunch, the Wacom Bamboo.

I've seen great reviews from people with poor spelling and grammar on newegg and then I've seen even better reviews on Amazon from people who have passed the 4th grade, so I wanted to get a 3rd opinion.

Anyone use this tablet before or know someone who uses it and likes it?

The link for the tablet is here: http://www.wacom.com/bambootablet/

It's $79 on Wacom's site, $69 on newegg and like $55 on Amazon (so I'll probably get it from there).

Thanks for any advice you can give.

-Lurk Pizzle fo shizzle

[SirSmash]

They are nice, just a bit small for my liking. Wacom makes good products. I used them since the Graphire 2 days and like how their tablets power the pen, mice, pucks... rather than others who need batteries in everything thus making the pens decently heavy. For a beginner a bamboo would work, remember that bamboo is wide though so you probably want a widescreen display with it.

If you really want the cintiq, or something like it, you can pickup an old tablet pc... geeks.com has one for 499, you might find even cheaper as a old one would work for this, then install windows and a program called maxivista... that would turn the tablet pc into a second display over a network. Thus your left with whats basically a cheap cintiq.

[LurkerPatrol]

Thanks for the advice sir smash. I have a 20 inch widescreen for my desktop so the Bamboo should work with that I hope. The aiptek I had before was a very large 11 inch by 600 billion inch model and I found that hard to work with because of desk space and the pen (which ran on battery). The tablet itself wasn't working properly when I tried it recently so I'm thinking smaller might be better.

I just wrote about the Cintiq because it's awesome , but I wasn't looking to get one or something similar, that's a bit much. Even the geeks.com $499 tablet PC is a bit too much.

[Hidden_Hunter]

my brother has one, not a bad piece of kit.

[ChaoZ]

I've heard of some issues with Wacom's bamboo line. I use an Intuos myself, but I suspect a Graphire will suffice. Get the largest you can afford otherwise you will be doing a lot of zooming in and out.

Wacom is the definitive brand of tablets - nothing, to my knowledge, comes close.

[SirSmash]

Originally Posted by ChaoZ

I've heard of some issues with Wacom's bamboo line. I use an Intuos myself, but I suspect a Graphire will suffice. Get the largest you can afford otherwise you will be doing a lot of zooming in and out.

Wacom is the definitive brand of tablets - nothing, to my knowledge, comes close.

Graphire was replaced with Bamboo (except for the bluetooth one, which really sucks; you get this odd delay from the pen/mouse. Work bought 12, returned 11 of them; one was kept for powerpoint presentations)... The old Graphire 2 can be found for ~ $20, but I wouldn't buy it when a bamboo is $79. I like having some physical buttons myself, and ChaoZ has a widescreen display so working with a 4:3 tablet on a 16:9 screen can get irritating.

[Nabster]

Bought one from Amazon a while go. For the price, it's nice I think. I've not much use for it, but I wanted one to have to play around with. It's easy to use, has nice features, and works well.

If you're wanting one to do some serious work with, save up and get a better one, but for just playing around in the mean time, I'd say it's a good place to start.

[bafranksbro]

I got a Graphire 4 6x8, I have to detach it while I'm not using it since it really doesn't fit on my desk well but I got it instead of an Intuos since it was way cheaper than an Intuos and had to save money at the time. It works well for when I need it, I really like how useful it can be at times and it definitely saves me time on some things that would take ages without it. I haven't gotten it setup correctly for 3D modeling and I find it hard to nagivate when I do try to 3D model with it.

[LurkerPatrol]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I think I'll start out with this and then work my way up towards the higher-end models once I get some practice, and some cash in the bank.

Went ahead and placed the order for the bamboo on Amazon, $54 and $9 shipping

+Repped you all

[La Chaton]

Good choice. I'm using my Wacom Bamboo right now (as it's the primary mouse on my computer) and I love it.

The only problem is that I hate when other people touch it because they don't know how to use it and I paid all $130 (I sprung for a slightly more expensive version) and that is almost half of my yearly money.

[Viper007Bond]

Wacom stuff is f'ing awesome. You can't go wrong with a Wacom product.

My sister has an Intuos3 9x12" that she uses for school (she got it via a friend's Best Buy employee discount, so she paid a lot less) and it's really awesome.

[LurkerPatrol]

La Chaton: Nice! A fellow bamboo user! I'm definitely going to keep curious hands off the tablet. Maybe my parents or my aunt if they really really wanna draw something.

That's a great find for your sister there Viper. Awesome tablet. I'm going to move up to an intuos once I get used to tablets in general and learn a few things.


I just got my bamboo today. The company shipped it out within a day and UPS delivered it in a day as well. This was amazing considering I didn't even get expedited shipping.

So here's a small something for all of you:

[emil_t]

i bought a bamboo fun for christmas, and i have to say that it was really worth it,

no lag
no batteries
precise

only i have to say this, it's rather small, something you really have to get use to, rather spending some +400 $ on a intuos A4 you should get use to it, you just need patience

and go for the fun it has more features

[La Chaton]

^ Yeah, it's ridiculous that like 4 square inches is like $100 more or something crazy like that.