| Combining intuitive design and versatility, the Bamboo Pen and Touch is a powerful creative workstation that lets PC and Mac users create digital art with an organic, hands-on feel. Using an innovative tablet and Wacom's "Multi-Touch" system, users can manipulate images and navigate the Web using simple gestures and finger taps. When combined with Wacom's pen-input technology, Pen and Touch allows you to write, doodle, and embellish with ease.
Included pen features 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity for precise drawings. | | |  Large, textured work surface and customizable keys give you artistic control. View larger. |  Multi-Touch lets you scroll, zoom, and rotate your screen with simple hand gestures. | Sleek, Stylish, and Easy to Use Measuring 9.8 by 6.9 inches, the Pen and Touch is compact enough to store comfortably in a laptop case. It features a large and responsive active area, providing enough workspace for even your most ambitious projects. For added convenience, four ExpressKeys provide quick access to user-defined shortcuts. The tablet comes with a battery-free pen with an easy-to-grip design, so you can have maximum control over your drawing. The work surface is textured, providing a pen-on-paper feel. It's also reversible, so you can use it comfortably whether you're right- or left-handed. The Pen and Touch is simple to set up. Simply plug the tablet into your computer via a USB port, install the provided drivers, and you're ready to go. You'll be doodling, writing, and painting in minutes. Enhance Creativity with Multi-Touch Technology With the Pen and Touch, Wacom has implemented a new technology called Multi-Touch. Typically, tablets require you to use the stylus for navigation, but Multi-Touch provides a comfortable hands-on alternative. It allows you to quickly navigate through your computer with a single finger. You can also scroll, zoom, and rotate your screen with simple hand gestures. It's intuitively-designed and easy to use -- even if you're new to the touch experience. For precision work, you can use the included pen. When you use the pen, the screen will automatically recalibrate for more precise use. In your hands, the pen quickly becomes an all-purpose art tool. It features 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, allowing you to perform tasks ranging from fine hand-writing to wide-brush painting. You can add hand-drawn embellishments to your favorite photos, add life to your digital sketches, or provide a personal touch to your scrapbooking pages. First-Class Visual Editing Software The tablet also comes with a full suite of visual editing software, including Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 Win/6.0 Mac and Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 WE3--valued separately at several hundred dollars. Pen and Touch is compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP (Service Pack 2) and Mac OS X (10.4.8 or higher.) It requires a powered USB drive, a colored screen, and a CD/DVD drive. What's in the Box Bamboo Pen and Touch tablet, Bamboo pen, Quick Start guide, installation CD (includes driver software, interactive tutorial and user's manual), software DVD.
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Amazing tool for an artist
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| Review Date: November 6, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Macaulay Kong, |
I'm an artist. After I got my Macbook Pro, I decided to get a tablet to go along with it- some of my peers had said good things about tablets and I'd always wanted to try one.
All I can say is WOW.
Where do I start?
Well, my first impression was that this product has the "Apple effect". The packaging is very nice, everything is easy to find. The installation and tutorial is also incredibly easy.
The Pen
Then I put the pen to the pad. I was blown away. I had to check to see if I hadn't picked up a pencil instead; they're not kidding when they say it's a natural feel! The tablet feels amazingly natural; I was able to start creating art right away without a problem. The pen has a replaceable tip, a button that can be pressed two ways, and a thicker "eraser" tip. The buttons can be programmed for basic preset functions, or any keystrokes you want to program. The tip and eraser feel can actually be adjusted in System Preferences!
Navigation
Using it to navigate is fairly straightforward, and the two programmable buttons (default Scroll and Right Click) make the experience fairly smooth. However, it's much easier to use a mouse/trackpad with a keyboard than the pen plus keyboard just because you don't have to put a pen down to type.
Since I rest my hand on the sensor area while I draw, I usually turn the touch off and I keep it off- If you have a Macbook, you will find that there is absolutely no reason for you to use the touch functionality. While the tactile feel of drawing is amazing, I and my friends much prefer the Macbook trackpad. Also, three and four finger gestures are not supported.
If you're buying this tablet to draw, I would suggest keying the pen and tablet buttons to photoshop-related functions.
Software Integration
I've only used Photoshop, and the integration is amazing! The pressure sensitivity makes random sketching come out with a much more natural feel. Also, you can flip the pen around and it will become an eraser! Very useful. The handwriting recognition is also fairly nice. It works with any program and it's fairly accurate. I still find that I type much faster, but for people who don't it's worth a try.
In conclusion, for the purpose I bought it, this tablet is a definite 5/5. An absolute blast to use with, undoubtedly, the quality of a professional's precision tool. |
Little to complain, much to praise
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| Review Date: November 8, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Drew, Springfield, IL |
I bought this tablet because... well, to be honest, I had no reason for buying a tablet. I'm not a professional graphic designer (though if I were, I'm sure I'd invest in at least the Bamboo Fun over this), and I'm more than happy with Logitech mice. I merely had some money burning in my pocket and wanted to have a much more intuitive, fluid experience. I'm happy to say I had such a thing with this tablet.
To start off, I bought the Pen & Touch model intentionally believing that the addition of both was a good idea, rather than being stuck with only one or the other. Of course the control works flawlessly. There are times where I'll be holding the pen while utilizing the touch, but the pen cancels it out from being too near, but that's due to human error, not a machine flaw.
Now, the pen works perfectly. Everything feels right and great, and the pressure sensitivity is wonderful on Photoshop. It feels (almost) like I'm drawing on paper. Of course, I'm sure we're not ever going to achieve that pencil-to-paper feel with a digital tablet--not with as consumer-friendly of a tablet as this, but for being only $100, it sure gets close; and if I'm going to be using it as a mouse alternative 80% of the time, it's not a big deal to have such a feel anyways. My only gripe would be that there's not much grip the pen, and it can sort of find some wiggle room if you're not careful. Otherwise, it works as it should, and then some. Incredible pen tablet.
When it comes to the touch, however, it falls short a tiny, tiny bit. Of course the larger surface area makes it miles better than any laptop touch pad, but it still feels a bit claustrophobic. For some odd reason, the entirety of the tablet's surface cannot be used for touch. There is a small sliver around the touch-sensitive area that is not used for touch. Why this is, I'm not sure, and it's not too incredibly annoying. I just feel like it should have utilized the whole area, but I'm just nitpicking. In all, the touch portion of the tablet is a bit... well, bad. The touch-only cues are very well done, as the tablet seems to always recognize my flicks for back and forward, as well as scrolling. The zooming is a bit more bipolar, and I have yet to get the rotate to work, though that's merely due to the lack of rotatable objects I've had to work with. Just using the touch portion for the mouse feels incredibly jerky. No matter what speed I set it to, it seems to be impossible to gauge the speed. It feels like it speeds and slows constantly, regardless of what I do. I've been able to get used to it a bit, but I always take the pen over the touch at any point I can.
The tablet is incredibly solid and incredible. The pen portion is completely flawless; sure, there are places where you could nitpick, but that's just if you REALLY want to find any type of negative aspect to it. The touch could be polished a bit, and it's definitely different from what I'm used to. I'm sure over time, any person could easily master this minuscule task. Mastering it shouldn't really be a priority, though, if it were maybe fixed up a tiny bit. Regardless, don't let these comments sway you from the tablet. The touch really isn't that bad. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a 7. It's up there, it just needs a push higher.
Really, for only $100, it's an incredible deal. It sounds like a lot, but I was honestly surprised something as nice as this could go for $100. The space itself is generous, too. It works incredibly, and is as consumer-friendly as a microwavable Mac & Cheese. Crappy analogy, yes, but it works. |
Touch not perfect, but well worth the money
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| Review Date: November 5, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Kevin Krueger, |
| As other reviews indicate, the touch feature on this product isn't absolutely perfect...regardless, it's a fantastic compliment to the pen (and isn't that the real reason someone should buy a Wacom Tablet?). In general the touch feature works just fine, but a few of the gestures are a bit shaky. They work, just not always on the first try. Honestly though, it really doesn't bother me since I'm using my mouse side by side with the tablet. And at the end of the day, it's all about the pen. The pen feels great and the slight texture on the tablet makes the transition from paper to this product very easy. At a price under a hundred dollars this tablet is a crazy good deal. The four buttons on the tablet and the two on the pen are completely programmable, so you can set them up as your favorite keyrokes. And there are a lot more customizable preferences. Lastly, if your not buying this for any particular reason, such as a mouse alternative or for graphic work, you may not find it getting the use it deserves. Much like a nice pair of running shoes...they're not exactly worth the money if you hardly ever run. Overall, if you actually need a tablet like this, it's worth every penny. |
Small, Yet Powerful
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| Review Date: December 26, 2009 |
| Reviewer: M. Meyer, Orlando, FL, USA |
I got the Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch tablet to replace my old Aiptek tablet, which had started acting a bit twitchy now and then. The old tablet had a larger active area (6"x8", as opposed to the Bamboo's 3.75"x6"), but my husband has used a Wacom tablet for years and swore by the brand.
Even though the tablet is smaller, this Bamboo is SO MUCH BETTER. It only took a day or so to get used to the new size, and now I can draw just as delicately on this smaller tablet. Plus, the Bamboo has pressure sensitivity, something I was never able to get working on the old tablet. I don't use the touch feature much, although it comes in handy for a quick flick now and then.
I use the tablet for all of my computing -- I don't have a mouse. And whether I'm playing games, drawing, editing music, or just browsing the 'net, I can do it easily. I definitely recommend getting this smaller but higher quality tablet instead of an off-brand in a larger size. |
Don't get so touchy
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| Review Date: April 5, 2010 |
| Reviewer: A. Judia, Tennessee, USA |
I ended up picking this little product up for about 93, shipping and all. I have to say it's a REALLY handy product to have. It's small, efficient, and WELL worth the money paid for it.
For my intensive purposes the software that came with it was kinda lackluster but not that bad. I wanted to wait until I had used this product fully before I wrote a review, and I'm glad I did. I was able to find some flaws here and there because of it. Mind you this tool was made and I do mean MADE for photoshop, it has uses in all programs you can think of; for example I was using it to mess about in SAI Paint tool.
This is where I noticed some weird flaws with the touch system. I tried to zoom in but it didn't work using touch (I found a work around using the tablet buttons but it was still kinda upsetting that I couldn't zoom with the gestures).
In addition to that, the Touch didn't really serve much of a purpose for photoshop either, outside of zooming in. You really can't rotate the canvas and it does take some getting used to.
overall? I'd rate this product 4.5 stars out of 5 :)
note: The pen is absolutely wonderful btw...durable as can be and able to last hours without even breaking a sweat. I love that rough surface on the tablet drawing area as well, I don't feel like I'm writing on a piece of Plexiglas with a marker lol |
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