Bamboo Tablet | Graphics Tablet Review

Awesome piece for anyone who wants to draw!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I just purchased this tablet and when i got it everything worked perfectly yet I didnt have use for the mouse so i left it in the box since i already got one. But this tablet works great on any art program! It will make a novice artist into a master! I am just a novice poorly at drawing but with this tablet i feel like i can draw about anything and the writing is awesome too!! The price is quite reasonable as well and honestly i m glad i had bought this tablet for future artists this is a must have!!

Not for general notes/ writing
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I thought this would be good for making notes/ hand drawings – after first couple of times, I have to say this is pretty crude and I find using my mouse better than using bamboo – perhaps more practice is needed .. or perhaps the drawing pad on this products needs a bettter smooth surface — too rough and crude .. On the plus side my 6 year old found a good use of this as a toy to play with for drawing using windows paintbrush app.

Fun little tool at an affordable price
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Within the past year, one of my good friends as turned me on to iSketch. The reason mentioning that is necessary is because 95% of the reason why I bought this tablet is to play iSketch. (If you own this tablet and don’t think you’re getting enough use out of it try [...]). I’m not a professional artist or anything like that so I can’t attest to this tablets functionality in that department, but I can tell you it’s perfect for iSketch. I do occasionally use it for projects in Photoshop or Illustrator but I see how the tablet can be a bit small and most times the mouse doesn’t work properly with the crop tool (reason for the 4 star rating). Also the pen can have a bit of a lag when drawing with it. However, on the rare occasion I do use the pen for a project other than iSketch, I’m always glad I have the option available to me and wonder what I would’ve done if I was forced to use a mouse (for example writing something on a webpage banner in your handwriting to get a certain raw effect). Also I think the price is worth mentioning; at $50 I think it’s a pretty good value brand-new.

For my purposes, I have found this tablet to be excellent. I will say that I think the black looks better (I bought my sister a refurbished black one), even though the white does match my Mac. My sister is an aspiring graphic artist so I was hoping she would get some good use out of it, but I don’t think she likes using it with Photoshop (for some of the reasons I mentioned).

So, in conclusion this tablet is great for the casual Adobe applications user and even better for the iSketch addict. And at $50 it’s certainly not a purchase I regret.

Little Investment, Big Payout
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I am an editor for a small non-profit, and needed an inexpensive way to produce high quality publications. Given my years of drawing/sketching and the sort, I decided to invest in this little device. It was more than worth the price tag. I plugged it into my ibook, and my imagination soared with new ideas. I could take a blad image, and develop a worthy layout.

The photoshop elements alone makes it worth the price!

Just what I expected!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I had been eyeballing one of these for sometime now and I had actually forgotten about it and recently remembered and looked it up and saw how cheap they were now and so I went out on a limb and bought one and I love it. I was originally interested in purchasing the medium sized tablet but this one suits my needs just fine. I’m using it with Pixologic’s Zbrush Sculpting software and Adobe’s Flash and Photoshop and it’s like drawing with a crayon(mouse) and then drawing with a pencil(bamboo tablet) for the first time. As an added plus, I am left handed so I use the pen to draw with and use the included mouse simultaneously with my right hand for zooming, navigating, and selecting options and it couldn’t be more efficient. I can’t wait to let my five year old daughter draw on this. She draws figures and houses on microsoft paint with a regular old mouse so I can only imagine how she’ll be with this. Great product for a great industry!

tablet pc touch screen and bamboo driver conflicts!!!
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I have lenovo x200 tablet pc and just got my bamboo tablet.

After I had the bamboo installed, my touch screen stoped working.

The tablet pen came with the lenovo pc also stopped working.

If you want to use both at the same time, this product is perhaps

not for you. I am trying to figure out the way to make both of them

work together. But as for now, I am quite disappointed.

Excellent Tablet!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
It is my first tablet for graphics. I am very happy with the way it works. I have made many illustrations, logos using this tablet and pen. I also got a nice Corel painter software with this purchase. I have been using it everyday for over a year and it still works fine. A good product by Wacom!

Perfect Entry-Level (or portable) Tablet
Rating:5 out of 5 stars

If you need the electronic equipment equivalent of a sketchpad, or you have small, finicky touch-up jobs to do on photos, Bamboo Fun is an excellent tool. For serious work, you’ll want to (and will) graduate to one of their larger formats, but Bamboo Fun is the one you can slip into your laptop bag and take anywhere. Someone else said it already: the packaging of this product is almost museum-quality art. If you don’t have the same reaction, I’d be surprised.

A perfect match for my macbook
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have been looking for a Tablet with Pen to write Asian Characters on an interactive platform. Obviously using a mouse to write requires a lot of concentration of the mind and hand. I bought this product mainly because it could be used with my macbook as I am not very sure of the rest. The white colour matches my white macbook perfectly. Its as though they are a set. Installation was easy. I used 1 hour to learn how to use it. The guide was very useful. You just need to follow through. It’s sensitive enought to capture my hand movement. Since then I have been using it for my online classes and needless to say, every lesson has been great.

I Use It Every Day!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I love my tablet. I am a 16 year old girl who has been using Photoshop since I was 11. I got the tablet to really expand my skills and let me tell you, it sure has!

It’s design it beautifully crafted. I did get the white one but it has gotten a bit dirty. I bought the tablet two months ago with the express order. I got the tablet in three-five days as promised.

I had installed the updated Wacom drivers for the Bamboo Fun a day before it’s arrival so I was all ready. I simply plugged it in and had already learned how to adjust my preferences from some youtube videos. The tablet worked without even downloading the instructional software!

It took me at least a week to master the tablet. All I can say is DO NOT give up. Don’t get lazy. It takes practice. After two months, I use my tablet for nearly everything. Every time I open Photoshop, my tablet is plugged in.

:::Some bad things:

-Sometimes my pressure sensitivity will not work even if my paint brush is set to the tablet pref. IT IS NOT THE TABLET! Don’t send it back for that!!!! It’s the computer hardrive and Photoshop. It can be hard to switch from mouse to tablet. To fix this I restart my computer or I open Photoshop again.

-After two months the writing part is a bit scratched up. However, I do press rather hard on mine at times.

:::Some great things:

-Other than the obvious good things, the pressure sensitivity is great! I love that about this tablet. While occasionally temperamental, it’d be hard without it.

-Sexy design.

-Comes with a great bundle of software and comes with a mouse to use too.

So, I bought it and I don’t regret it one bit. I love it, it’s changed my art so much! You can see examples of drawings using the tablet below:

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Not the best choice for art
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
As an artist who does more digital coloring than ‘traditional’, I make a fair amount of use of both this and my ‘regular’ Wacom tablet, depending where I am. However it’s been my experience that the ONLY thing the Bamboo does is make me miss my bigger, harder to transport tablet.

The drawing screen is rough and the tablet itself is obnoxiously poor in response, creating ragged, crooked lines when my larger one draws smoothly. That’s assuming it decides to draw instead of assuming me -drawing lines on the touch pad- means “Zoom in.”

If I ever need another ‘Small’ tablet, it won’t be the Bamboo edition. EVER. I’d rather spend more and go for one of their superior models, because I’m fed up with this one.

good product, need some learning to use it effectively
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Good built and purpose. Needs considerable learnign to use it for all you want to use it. Its children magnet.

very impressed with the bamboo
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
i am an artist and i previously owned a wacom artz2 tablet. however this year i upgraded to a newer mac and found that i had to replace alot of my hardware scanners, tablets etc. in reviewing the tablet prices avialable i started to get discouraged until i came across the bamboo. at first i was skeptical. why was it so cheap? and what about the small size? after reading several reviews and comparing the technical specifications i started to feel more comfortable. i looked at a couple of the more expensive wacom tablets and then i looked in my wallet. suffice to say i bought the bamboo, and it works great, just as good as some of the bigger tablets i have tested through friends who own tablets themselves. and the size was no concern in fact i kind of like the smaller size now. the bamboo is a great product that is well worth more than the price it sales for. with the exception of the much drooled over wacom cintiq the bamboo is one of the best tablets out there.

Awesome
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I received this item virtually the next day in the morning after I bought it! It’s everything as described. The best purchase I’ve made ever, seriously.

Excelent
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I definitely recommend this tablet. Is easy to use and at a very low cost. Completely different experience drawing (or trying to) with the mouse and with the tablet.

Awesome!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
My tablet just came in today and I was more than happy to open it!

Let me start off with that the packaging was gorgeous. In a little cover-like until you pulled out this sleek black box. I was enjoying opening it. Haha.

Inside it was all packed neat and comfortable. I pulled everything out and placed it all next to each other. I had some troubles installing which is why it gets a four, but the tutorial made up for my trouble. The pen stand needs to have something inside since it’s so light. The colour of the tablet is a very clean white. I’m afraid I’ll leave dirty fignerprints! The mouse is a bit clunky, but I use my wireless Logitech one so the mouse stays in it’s box.

I recommend this tablet for starters. It’s well worth the price.

An Artistic Autistic Kid with a Nerd for a Brother’s Review
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
We first got one of the Genius G-Pen tablets, but then found out it didn’t work, it had loose wiring. So when we were gonna send it back we discovered we couldn’t, Amazon (Or maybe it was “Genius.”) didn’t sell it anymore so we went hunting for other tablets. I also wanted PhotoShop Elements 6, but this said 5, so I went looking to see if 5 had the features I wanted, it did, sure it didn’t have the black GUI, but I could do without it. So, we ordered this, when it got here two days later I was so happy to finally get a tablet that I could use, and, when I read the box (Because I read every product I get’s box just because I like to.) to my surprise after software it said “PhotoShop Elements 6.0″, so that was big plus for me.

The CD is useless, you really only need the instructions, which aren’t too hard to follow. However the driver on the CD is out of date, always go for the driver on the website for everything with a driver, they just released a new one that I discovered just yesterday. Always check for new drivers every two weeks or so, too. The software “CD” isn’t a CD at all, it’s a DVD, so if you don’t have a DVD drive you may need a computer with one. Than just open the CD in Explorer (Windows Explorer, the window manager/computer navigator.) or in Finder to get the files off and onto the other one so you can install the software. If you don’t have a computer with one, ask Wacom, they’ll probably give you the files, they’re helpful.

Also, the best part: It’s universal! It runs on stinky old Microsnot Win-doze/blows, awesome old Mac, and the best, Linux and all the other open source OSs! And Jaunty(Ubuntu 10.4. Comes out tomorrow!!!!)will support Wacom tablets completely! Or maybe the best part is it’s plug and play… Either way, it’s universal. So if you’re a corrupted error-prone BSOD frequent Winblows user, it works, even on stinky old V[Bzz]. If you’re a safety loving Mac user, it works, if you’re an exceedingly smart to use and safe Linux user, both good for you for running Linux and you can use the tablet! PSE6 can run in Wine, too. Although I haven’t tried yet, haven’t booted Ubuntu since getting my tablet ’cause I’ve been using it.

The tablet itself is great. The textures surface greatly reduced learning time for me, I was telling my brother I’d probably have to spend hours practicing before being able to finish inking my drawing I started inking with my mom’s tablet, but I didn’t! I was fooling around in PhotoShop 5.0 (What I had before the tablet.) and was drawing fine! So the textured surface is GREAT. Now, on to the buttons. I could do with some more buttons, but I don’t need them. The tablet has four customizable buttons which work well. I have the top two on my tablet set two undo and redo and the bottom two to brush and zoom. The touch ring is also a good feature, it can zoom or scroll. (However, only up and down.) It may not zoom in PhotoShop Elements 6.0, but you can try to get tech support to help you on that. I’m trying to get it worked out right now.

The mouse is just like a normal mouse, and the only reason I use it is because I put the tablet where I put my mouse when I’m gonna work. The workspace is a little small for a mouse, but if you speed up the cursor it works fine.

The pen is also good and had a surprise for me, an eraser! I never even knew what the thing on the end was until Mom asked me if the eraser worked.

The software is also good. PSE6 (PhotoShop Elements 6.) is great, it works on 800×600, too! It only overlaps some options, but it works, unlike most software I’ve found. PSE6 works well with the tablet, minus the fact it doesn’t want to zoom with the touch ring. Corel Painter Essentials (CPE.) is also good, their watercolors are good, not as fun as normal watercolor, but good and take less time to use, and the acrylics are also really good, too! Although I’m not very familiar with traditional mediums, I’ve only ever used colored pencils and watercolor, which is why I got a tablet, I color digitally. (Which is also mainly ’cause I draw manga.) CPE, however, doesn’t work on 800×600, not even the thing you click to install it on the DVD. (Which we had to get the PSE and CPE folders off of ’cause I don’t have a DVD drive, I have a five year old computer.)

All in all, it’s a great tablet.

Really nice product!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This is all you need for start enjoy drawing. It’s really a lot of fun!

Awesome product
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This product is very easy to with step-by-step instructions from the tutorial CD that was included with the package. Its very small and compact to take it anywhere.

Excellent Product, Do recommend it
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a very good product. Works perfectly with the Mac, both normal and pro. For a small price you get a lot of good stuff.

Good for some activities but not all
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
At least for me this product wasn’t the panacea I was hoping for. And maybe it’s not fair that I only awarded 3 stars to the product since pure graphic manipulation was my intended use. The problem is that between reading reviews and ordering the product and actually using it I had ambitions that this tablet would replace the mouse completely — and it can’t. I also thought it would be more intuitive and satisfying an input device than a mouse for my young kids — it’s not.

Let’s get this out of the way: for graphic manipulation this product is great for drafting and sketching. If I was a professional artist or didn’t care about portability I would have purchased the larger pad. If this use case is your sole intended use then the Bamboo Fun is a fine tool.

Mouse replacement:

1) For *all* applications, consider that when you switch from mouse to keyboard input, the mouse remains stationary when your hand is lifted. With the stylus you have to re-seat it in the holder or keep it in your hand. Often times (without practice) the very act of moving from pad to keyboard moves the cursor where one doesn’t want it. I hadn’t considered this and it’s a much bigger deal than it seems when one is busy at work.

2) The cursor is moved by hovering the stylus a few millimeters above the pad. Sounds simple (and it is) but it is an act of fine motor skill removed from the gross tactile mouse experience. I’m sure with practice this becomes second nature.

3) There are (2) buttons on the stylus acting as the right and left mouse buttons. This requires the pen to be positioned in one’s hand just so.

4) A handy Pen Tablet Preference Pane is added to the System Preferences line-up that has robust customization options. There is a seemingly cool edit option that allows one to write text in most any application and have it converted to typed characters. I turned it off since it was annoying and didn’t work well though.

But as evidenced in other reviews, this device has and will be successfully used as a mouse replacement by many others. On the bright side, training software is included. For me, the mouse is too hard a habit to break. Think about it, if the mouse wasn’t such an effective input device it would have been replaced long ago. Until then I’ll wait for an inexpensive eye-tracking device to hit the market and use this tablet for drawing.

Updated at 1 year — Fun, yes, but also a powerful tool for digital artists
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I received a Bamboo Fun tablet for Christmas (2008), and I’ve put it through heavy and frequent use in the six weeks since. One of the best things about this product is that it comes with everything I could ask for right in the box. The bundled software is worth more than the price of the tablet (eg, Photoshop Elements and Painter Essentials, plus a handwriting recognition program I haven’t explored much). Be sure to find your little packet of replacement pen nibs — you’ll be wanting those eventually. The pen has two buttons and an ‘eraser’ on the back. Pressure sensitivity works well and is adjustable to your personal style (heavy vs. light).

If you haven’t used a tablet before, expect a short adjustment time (it took me a couple days before I could use the tablet as easily as pen and paper). There are tablets with larger surface areas, but I find that the Bamboo gives me plenty of work space, and is easy to hold in my non-drawing hand. The four buttons are programmable (I’ve got mine set to undo, redo, save, and select all). If I had more buttons available, I’d program them, too. However, the two pen buttons can be used to pull up menus that help take the place of other “short key” buttons.

I’ve found the tablet to be durable, comfortable to use, and much easier to control than any mouse. Wacom got it right with this product — they must have put some thought or research into what would make a complete package for the consumer, what would allow the user start taking advantage of the tablet right off the bat, and then included accessories and software that make this tablet an unusually good value. It should be noted that the software only comes with the Bamboo Fun (as opposed to just the Bamboo product).

**Update 12/09**

After one year with the tablet, it’s still fantastic. I’ve learned that for use in Photoshop Elements 4, it’s best to have the tablet’s pressure sensitivity on medium. I had it on the most sensitive setting, as I have a light hand, but Photoshop wasn’t giving me full control over the line that way (I was wondering why I wasn’t getting the range in line-width of other artists). The places on the tablet that I use the most (lower left corner), have completely lost their texture (the tablet surface is initially textured a bit like paper). I really doesn’t affect my use, however.

A bit of advice for the new user: make sure the tablet is lined up with the desk/computer. If you rotate it at all while you are drawing, your line angles will become unpredictable, and it will be difficult to draw precisely. It sounds obvious, but I hold my tablet in my right hand and draw with my left (I sit on the couch with my lap top), and occasionally notice I’ve let the alignment of the tablet drift. I generally figure this out after having to Undo a few times….

Can’t recommend this product enough! It’s improved my digital art ten-fold over those I did with the mouse!

Great Purchase
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I received the larger one for Christsmas from my sister, but I bought this one for her at the same time (neither of us knew the other was buying for each other). I love it!!! It has been so much fun, I draw with it, I use it on my Audio Workstations, and just plain use it as a mouse now. I haven’t written with it yet in a text program, but I have experimented to make sure it worked easily. It is a great product for anyone who uses a computer and is willing to break old habits of a mouse. There is a quick learning curve of the pen, but like I said it is quick.

Just know that a point on the tablet is a fixed point on the screen. Meaning, when you have the pen in the top right of tablet, that is equal to top right of screen…or middle of tablet is equal to middle of screen. So if you are like me and use 2 screens get the larger one, because the left half of the tablet is the entire left screen and same for the right.

Aptly Named! So much fun!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I’ve always wanted to try using a tablet. When I bought this one I had really only planned to use it for digital doodling. It is definitely wonderful for that. It feels almost as natural as sketching on paper and using it was very intuitive. The bundled software is great for someone like me who just wants to play but would be useful to more advanced users as well. What I didn’t expect was how much I’d use it when not sketching. Using the pen as a mouse is just about as much fun as any person ought to have with a pointing device. Taking advantage of Vista’s handwriting recognition software is fun too.

I’m glad I bought the small sized tablet, although someone with more professional plans might do better with the medium sized. I would advise anyone with more professional leanings that the pen on the Bamboo Fun doesn’t recognize twisting it, so angled brushes don’t change thier angle. This isn’t a problem for folks who just want to write or sketch for fun, though. And this product is definitely fun. I’m very glad I bought it, even though I may decide to upgrade to the one of Wacom’s higher-end versions at some point in the future.

Bamboo Fun OMG PROBLEMS!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Okay, I have had about a month with this, and I was okay with knowing that one note had handwriting problems, because I was going to upgrade my computer to vista ultimate. After upgrading my computer with vista ultimate, I quickly figured out that it’s not just one note, IT’S EVERYTHING that I bought the bamboo in the first place for, the line quality is HORRIBLE! Word, journal, and the tablet pc input panel. Shaky, ugly lines. In journal and word, it smooths itself out, but it still has “shakes” in words and looks really “jagged”. Plus, when you are writing, it looks like you cant control your hand or something, and it’s really frustrating. I mean, it’s legible, but you can notice how wobbly it looks and it really looks quite UGLY! I feel horribly cheated because wacom’s website even has pictures of how the handwriting should look like, which I suspect are fakes because that is not how it looks like in real life! This is a known problem, not only on bamboo fun, but on intuous and cintiq! Just check this link for pictures about what I am talking about. http://www.gottabemobile.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5823&PN=1 I am not going to elaborate on the good aspects of bamboo fun because there are plenty or reviews that do that. In corel painter, bamboo fun shows clear, precise lines and it is definitely good for art. But for those who bought this for school, like I did, think twice. The line quality is ugly, unprofessional, and unreliable. Shame on you WACOM, for not fixing this problem, and ‘hiding’ it in your advertising! I can’t change my rating from 4 stars anymore, but if I could I would give it 3 stars, because it is good for drawing, but not for office use.

Wow! I Love this Mouse
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I damaged the tendon that goes from the tip of the thumb all the way down past the wrist over a year ago. It was so painful I couldn’t use it and wound up in a brace for over 8 months. Still during that time I was working- and I work 5 days a week, 8 hrs a day on a computer. And my hand was not healing. In May I finally took 2 months medical leave from work so that it would finally have a chance to heal. When I came back to work, it was 85% better but I was terrified to use the mouse with my right hand. So I started mousing lefty. That wasn’t very comfortable and terrible for my posture. Then a coworker showed me a tablet mouse he had from years ago. I immediately did some research and found this Bamboo Fun tablet mouse and ordered it. I’ve been using it now for a couple of weeks and I love it- it actually makes working on the computer fun. I don’t need to do graphics or use any of the software that comes with it… to me that’s just icing on the cake… I do powerpoint pitches and excel spreadsheets and calendaring… all I use it for is the normal stuff most office-workers need a regular mouse for. But there is nothing like this.

It took me two days to get used to it, but now it’s like second nature. It is soooo much faster than a regular mouse and it feels so natural holding the pen. It’s wonderful. Now everyone in my office that sees me use it, they want one too!

For ANYONE who has carpal tunnel or Dequervian’s Syndrome or any of those hand/wrist tendon problems, you have got to get this mouse! You’ll be so thrilled that you did. (the only thing I’ve got to figure out is how to type and hold the mousepen at the same time! I’m getting there!)

wayne
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Great tablet …just getting started but it installed easily, does what it said it would …

cool product
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I bought this to do some photo editing on my Mac and for some note editing on MS Office 08. It works very well and is a lot of fun, although I have my computer in my living room set up wirelessly so if there was a way to get rid of the usb cable to the pad that would be even better. For now I just plug it in when I want to use it. Still a really cool product.

Wacom Tablet. 5 stars
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a very nice product.

Once you get it, it is very hard to learn how to use it.

I got white, because it is white, dirt shows up on it. So

don’t get white unless you are getting it for your Mac.

I love the touch effect for drawing on Corel. It is good with animation

too.

I recomend this product to all who are wanting it.

Works Well With OS X Leopard and Photoshop Elements 6
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The Wacom® Bamboo Fun graphics tablet is easy to use. Since I am running Mac OS X Leopard (v10.5.2) on an Intel Mac mini, I downloaded the latest drivers from the Wacom website. The driver version is v. 5.08-2 as of this writing.

I did a few test drawings in Photoshop Elements 6 for the Mac. It worked wonderfully, with the pressure sensitivity of the pen working. The eraser also worked as described.

The function keys are programmable and so are the mouse and pen. Since I am left-handed, I kept on accidentally pressing on the pen buttons — I disabled them to avoid this.

Now, I just have to work on my “artistic” skills.