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Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch Fun Small Tablet

Bamboo Pen & Touch Tablet combines the benefits of Multi-Touch with the comfort and precision of Wacom’s ergonomically designed pen. The result: a powerful new way to work with your computer.

With Multi-Touch, you use simple hand gestures and finger taps on the tablet’s surface. And because the active area is larger than traditional mobile devices and laptop trackpads, it’s comfortable and natural to use. Easily move around your desktop, scroll through documents, navigate the web, zoom in and out of photos, and rotate images.

Need precision? Pick up the pressure-sensitive pen to edit photos, create personal greetings, make sketches, and mark up documents in your own handwriting.

Using Bamboo is easy even if you’re new to the touch experience. The included tutorial will teach you how to use simple hand gestures to move around your desktop, make selections, and complete other tasks on your computer. You can even customize your Bamboo experience by assigning your own shortcuts to the four ExpressKeys. In the box: System Requirements – Windows 7, Vista or XP w/ SP 2 or Mac OS X (10.4.8 or higher) Color display, available powered USB port, & CD/DVD drive

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Disappointment
Just got it today; if I can’t pawn it off on one of my co-workers it is going to have to go back. I wanted a larger touch surface area than my MacBookPro’s touch pad, and one that I could sit back and use the pen when in more of a creative mode.

Pros: It is a larger touch pad and it has a pen…

Cons: Surface texture is not comfortable, buttons are awkward, tracking is slow and less accurate than touch pad, and it only supports two finger multitouch gestures. Multitouch doesn’t work especially well, especially forward and back. There was a 2-3 second delay in registering. After unplugging it, Finder crashed on me, so I have a feeling the mac drivers aren’t quite up to snuff.

The pen was a complete disappointment for general use. Anybody getting the “pen only” version is making an even bigger mistake.

I guess I am spoiled with the Mac trackpad. I’d love for it to get pen support and/or be available as an external track pad to better meet my needs, but this product just isn’t there.

First Wacom product in 15 years, so I could have given it more time to get used to, but it just didn’t offer much for me.

3 Stars Good quality product- but it may not be ideal as a replacement for a mouse.
Pros:

- The gestures for the pad are intuitive.

- The stylus is pressure sensitive and works as one would expect for a Wacom tablet.

- The package comes with video tutorials for complete novices.

- The device is stylish and is well constructed and packaged.

Cons:

- It was too easy to inadvertently click and/or drag something by accident.

- I tried both placing it on the side where one would normally place a mouse and placing it south of the keyboard where one would normally use a trackpad on a laptop. The latter seemed to cause more of the accidental catches while I was typing. I am not entirely sure how I am able to trigger the tablet in that instance expect perhaps a tiny portion of my palm might be just catching the edge of it.

- After using it for some time I started to miss the hand support offered by a mouse, and began to feel some fatigue. I am not sure how long one can sustain that kind of activity.

- The surface of the pad has some resistance to give the stylus the sensation of writing on paper. However this does not make it as ideal a trackpad since your fingers don’t glide over the surface as easily.

- Using the zoom, rotate, forward and backward page gestures seemed to introduce significant lag. As a result, for example, when you zoom in/out in a web browser it feels like you are lurching in and out. Often I find myself over shooting a zoom level.

- Sometimes you accidentally trigger the right mouse button when instead you are trying to use a 2-finger gesture.

- The placement of the cable should have been along the top of the unit rather than the side. Having it on the side means you can’t cleanly butt it up against a keyboard without the wire getting in the way.

For the price it does what it claims and it is a respectable amount of capability for what you are paying for. I’m not entirely certain however it will ultimately be a successful device to replace the mouse.

I’ll stick with it for a little longer and update my review if I feel differently.

2 Stars horrific Wacom software driver
I ordered this tablet recently and just returned it for a refund. The hardware seems to be well made; however, its software driver is another matter. Not only the performance of the touch and pen is sluggish at best, the driver manages to crash many of my programs (MFC based, I am a software developer.) The Wacom driver seems to negatively effect the existence of windows’ handle, causing the program to crash intermittently.

4 Stars Solid Device with Solid Functionality
I started developing repetitive stress injuries in college and have been using all sorts of alternative input devices, from gyration mice to tablet computers. Most recently I had a Wacom Intuous 3 which I thought was the solution, except I started transferring what used to be wrist strain to my shoulder. I bought the Bamboo hoping for an alternative and it pretty much delivers on all of the areas I expected it would. The touch is intuitive (and the clicking, scrolling, right clicking, back, forward commands are all very functional) and offers a solid replacement to a mousing device. What’s nice is that you’re not just limited to using the tips of your fingers – you can use your knuckles, your pinky, or whatever part of your hand you want to so you can alternate positions and help reduce the repetitiveness of computer input. I had some issues with installation, but it resolved when I plugged the device into one of my computer’s back USB ports instead of front (which seems to solve a lot of issues with a lot of computers I’ve noticed). It may not work for everyone, but for what the device is intended to do, I think it performs solidly.

4 Stars A Great Introductory Tablet with a Promising Touch.
As a designer I have seen Wacom tablets in various shapes and sizes throughout the years. I have only used them a handful of times at colleagues offices however once learning of the Bamboo Pen & Touch and seeing the price, I decided to take the leap.

Overview:

For less than $100 you get an extremely capable pen tablet with a “rough around the edges” yet promising touch device. The shape and form factor is smallish yet works fine with my 20″ widescreen monitor. The long USB cable should accommodate almost any workspace setup.

Pen:

The pen works flawlessly. Using the pen has dramatically increased my productivity particularly in Adobe Illustrator, it’s a breeze to use compared to a mouse for vector work. It’s also very capable in Photoshop and even as a mouse replacement for general use. The shape of the pen could be more contoured however and it’s not easy to move quickly from using the pen to typing due to its shape. Overall I am very pleased using the pen.

Touch:

The multi-touch component of this device combined with the price is what sold me. I wanted a fluid experience much like other touch devices and this seemed, in combination with the pen, like the answer to a mouse-less desk. My initial impressions of the touch capabilities of the tablet were mixed, it was jittery, continually dragging items around my computer screen that I did not intend to move and frustrating. Now I have a touch pad on my laptop and am very comfortable using such a surface which made the experience even more confusing. A large portion of my problems were fixed by adjusting the preferences in the control panel as well as turning off the single finger “Drag” setting. Even after rectifying many of my issues I still feel like the touch experience could use some refinement, however I am sticking with it so far and have not returned to using a mouse.

Conclusion:

The Bamboo Pen & Touch offers a great entry into the tablet world along with a promising touch functionality. I would definitely buy this again with the strong message of adjusting the preferences right out of the box since this solved most of my initial issues.

Buy/More Info