http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/ Engadget Comments for Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch review http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 2:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 2:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/I have been happy with the original one for years now.. great tablet]]>Dec 10th 2009 3:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 2:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 2:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 2:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
My only complaints are:

1) the lack of three- and four-finger gestures. Exact 1:1 parity with the Apple trackpad would be ideal. Maybe this can be addressed with an update, but I doubt it. It's not a big problem, though.

2) you can't set application-specific controls for things like the Rotate gesture and whatnot. This could be addressed with a software update, of course.]]>Dec 10th 2009 2:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 4:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 5:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
I find the issue with the surface to be that it's a little uncomfortable to slide your fingers across it for any period of time. No issues about the pen though.]]>Dec 10th 2009 9:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
The reason for not having more finger gestures is probably because it's harder to differentiate between them and when you place your hand on the tablet to use the pen.]]>Dec 11th 2009 7:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 11th 2009 7:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
It does. But why doesn't it detect clicks when you put your hand on it with the pen too high to detect?]]>Dec 11th 2009 7:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 11th 2009 7:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 2:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
I don't see how you can miniaturize a Cintiq much more than it already is right now: A USB cord isn't going to be able to power a real monitor. (Try playing video on one of those USB monitors sometimes; they don't cut it as a full-fledged monitor, which Cintiqs need to be.) And even the best possible battery life on a wireless Cintiq would be a huge impediment for anybody who needs to do real, extensive work with one of them.

Lightpeak might be able to get the Cintiq down to one cable (versus three — power, DVI, and USB — into a under-the-table box and then a single cable into the tablet itself), but until then, I think Wacom's doing them about as well as they can be.]]>Dec 10th 2009 5:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
And Cintiq... yes, they are nice. But how good is their colour reproduction? And the hand is always blocking parts of the screen. I don't have any problems with hand/eye coordination, so for me a screen-less tablet is a good solution. Also as mouse replacement. For small movements I can use my touchpad.

I do agree that Cintiqs are overpriced.]]>Dec 10th 2009 8:30PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
anyway, can you customize the gestures to do something else (like pinch to zoom in opens a new firefox tab) ?]]>Dec 10th 2009 2:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/]]>Dec 10th 2009 6:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 7:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/yeah, sorry, everyone... I hadn't watched the last 30 seconds of the vid... and when I tried to reply to my comment, I endaget wasn't showing it... sorry >.]]>Dec 10th 2009 8:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 2:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
Does anyone else know any different? I'm also quite curious ._.]]>Dec 10th 2009 3:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
I just checked (I bought one of these a couple weeks ago) and it appears that you can only use it as a touchpad with multitouch gestures - unlike with the pen, you can't map the touchpad to the screen, which makes some sense as you'd have an incredibly frustratingly small amount of accuracy in control.]]>Dec 10th 2009 9:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Perhaps it's because the surface doesn't like liquids and with small kids there would be jam and goo and peanutbutter all over it and it would not work anymore as it tried to track the goo :)
]]>Dec 11th 2009 4:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
Cause they're the only game in town. ]]>Dec 10th 2009 3:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 3:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 11th 2009 3:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
Are you talking about the touch functions? They're more of a prototype. It's too risky adding them to the professional models and finding out they don't work (I'm finding some problems with them).
Also, they need to add some features to appeal to the casual market, since they won't make enough from the professionals alone and this model is a stepping stone to the professional ones.]]>Dec 11th 2009 7:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 3:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 3:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 3:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
The pen will. Don't think the touch will. The pen detects pressure and sends it to the tablet - you can press it with your finger and it'll detect it.]]>Dec 11th 2009 7:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 3:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/The Thinkpad x200.]]>Dec 12th 2009 6:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 3:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/]]>Dec 10th 2009 6:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/The one there is is fake like the one in every old synaptics touchpad, which you can enable with hacked drivers. It can only detect 2 taps very inaccurately. Or one but more or less accurately. That is why some gestures do not work - multi-touch is emulated with driver - it sends keystrokes to a program you use to zoom or rotate or anything and keystrokes differ from program to program. Windows 7 sees it as single-touch device. (but yeah, technically it can be called multi-touch. only not a cool one)
And the second problem is refresh rate. It is 50Hz. 50Hz is just too slow. The pointer jitters. It is difficult to press small buttons on screen if the pointer speed is anything but very-very-slow.
Touch thing just feels bad and broken.
Pen thing is fine, feels alright.
I bought it primarily as a big touchpad and returned it the next day.]]>Dec 10th 2009 3:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 3:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Reason it's slow in Windows is probably because Windows' default tablet driver interferes; known to have some issues.
Also, mouse/relative mode is usually a must when you're working with a small tablet and a big screen.]]>Dec 10th 2009 3:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
Intuos 3 was a nice design(no clue about 4), but honestly, I have been using my intuos 2 for almost a decade, and have never been jealous of the advancements in extra buttons and the like. With a wacom, just get the biggest one you can afford. i have never used the shortcut buttons, but as a power user, my keyboard shortcuts come built in already.]]>Dec 10th 2009 3:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
That option to not map the tablet surface to the screen also exists in Windows. At least with the Intuos 2 drivers.]]>Dec 10th 2009 4:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
Do you hold by that recommendation for a casual user? I have been doing PS work for about 2ish years now and have been looking for a tablet that I could use now and then when I feel like it. The touch gestures make this all the more appealing and it seems that the actual pen functionality doesn't suffer at all. ]]>Dec 10th 2009 4:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 5:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
]]>Dec 10th 2009 3:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 3:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10841]]>Dec 10th 2009 3:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
Wacom tablets last forever and have good precision, that's why the price is acceptable, and when logitech and razer and MS and such ask $80 to $140 for a damn mouse or a damn keyboard, then $99 for a pentablet is a steal in comparison.]]>Dec 11th 2009 5:01AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/
It's an even better bargain if you intend to buy Photoshop Elements anyway, because it comes with BOTH Win and OS X versions. Do the other ones also come with a battery free cordless stylus?]]>Dec 11th 2009 7:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/wacom-bamboo-pen-and-touch-review/Dec 10th 2009 4:12PM