Graphics tablet for £100

[DDY]

I've never used a tablet in my life and I'm considering buying one, what will make a good 'first' tablet?

Here are some of the tasks I plan to complete with a tablet which I currently do with a mouse:

- Inking over scanned images
- Free hand drawing
- Photo editing

Less importantly:
- CAD
- CAE
- Ink Ball

After a bit of research I think the Wacom Bambo fun medium at £120 is a good bet, it's A5 sized which should be an advantage over smaller ones when free hand drawing.

What do you think?

[Salazaar]

I saw this review the other day which I passed on to a mate who's a graphic designer so I put it here as well... I don't know much about them but he said it looks like quite a bargain.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/digita...-Pen-Tablet/p1

Verdict
For a remarkably low price the Genius G-Pen M712 offers attractive and efficient design, good build quality, decent performance and a useful range of features. For about 25 percent of the price of a Wacom Intuos3 it offers about 90 percent of the features, and even adds a few unique features of its own, which is pretty spectacular value in my book.

[Funkstar]

The Wacom Bamboo seems to get a lot of praise.

Advice on tablets
Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet (A6)
Tablets
Graphics Tablet £50-£60
Recommendations for a mid-range Graphics Tablet

[Webby]

Check the Wacom Webshop they have "Used" products at kncked down prices both my Graphire 3 A6 and my GF's Graphire 4 A5 have come from their they were both in immaculate condition no marks and still have the full 2year warranty.

Worth a look anyway.

http://www.wacom-shop.net/cgi-bin/wa...9/Catalog/1020

It updates as and when they get more used stock so no real timetable on it.

Oh also worth making sure you get the right aspect ratio if you have a widescreen monitor a widescreen tablet is preferred or else you will lose a bit of the active area off the bottom.

I believe the Bamboo Fun and Bamboo are widescreen ratio.

As to if you need A5 or if A6 will be big enough, I find A6 fine it just takes a bit of gettng used to or you need to zoom in if you want to do detailed work (the tablet area refers to the screen not the canvas size) my GF findds her A5 fine but as she has a WS monitor a portion of the tablet is not used, A6 wide (which has absolutely nothing in common with A6 paper ) may be a reasonable meddle gground and will be cheaper than A5 Wide.

[Pob255]

Depends on amount and level of work

If this is your first time and it's just personal/hobby, I would consider one of the cheap trust/genius/Aiptek/whatever.

If your looking at professional use Wacon Intous3 is the way, simply because there is nothing else of that quality. ( or price )

Size tends to be a bit of a personal thing, I know some people who don't like a large A4 tablet and much prefur A6, but at the same time I know people for who the reverse is true. (by people I mean professional and semi-professional graphic designers, comic artists and colourists.)

The difference between cheap and wacom tends to be in the pen.
Cheap one are far more stiff and require more pressure, also they may need a AAA battery in pen which is a real pain, as the battery get low pen can randomly cut out (always keep a stock of batteries handy if you have this type)
Wacom's are far more sensitive and need a far lighter touch.

The Bamboo is in nice mid way step, between a introus3 and an el-cheapy.
I'd look at the Bamboo or even the bamboo one rather than the bamboo fun off hand. (hope I got that around the right way) but it can be hard to sugest these, simply because for most peoples usage you're ether better off buying a cheap one or spend the extra on the better Intros3


One final note the massively expensive Wacom Cintiq these have an LCD display built into them, I've not used one personally, but I know one person who owns one.
He could never quite get on with a tablet and being able to see directly what he's drawing on was a big improvement for him.
But the cost is very high really only for full time Pro's or people with too much money.
the final one

[tigerboyce]

I use my trusty old Graphire4 A5 which is great imo. But I would also highly recommend the Bamboo too, used them before and there brilliant


I would really stay away from the cheaper Trust etc models, even for less money they really are quite a pain to use. 'You get what you pay for' really applies here and the bamboo is the sweet spot

[DDY]

Thanks everyone.

To further my search and to pin down the one I want,

- I work on 16:10 wide screen
- "A4" is a bit too big, it won't fit on my desk
- I'm not doing professional, yet. All the 'work' I do is for my degree, everything else is for fun.
- Upper limit £150
- I'll go for a battery-less option
- I'm considering smaller sizes now

With all that in mind, I'm totally split between the Bamboo and the Bamboo fun small & medium. The fun has an eraser, how useful is it?

[pollaxe]

I have a Bamboo (I think a Fun, A6 widescreen) and an A3 Intuos2 tablet (oh and an ancient A5 Art Pad II somewhere.) I find I invariably end up using the Bamboo most out of them. It's a great little tablet, around the £50 mark, I never use the eraser though, I just hop over to the eraser button instead.

One day I'd love a Cintiq but can't justify the price!

Edit - It's a Bamboo I have - nothing about it being a Fun model on the packaging (which is here at work with me.) Regardless, I've found the Bamboo to have been a great little tablet.

[tigerboyce]

Yeah eraser options are bit of a gimmick, for the effort to flip a pen over its far easier just to move your keyboard hand to the eraser short cut key.

I would go for the standard bamboo, loads of people I know use them and recommend them.

[Pob255]

Arrrrgh just lost a big post thanks to firefox crashing

As pollaxe, just posted, the eraser is a nice feature but never actually use it much.
Basically the other end of the pen also works and automatically selects the erase tool in photoshop or simular, always find it easier to select the tool or I forget.

Size is a tough call, it is down to the user more than a bigger tablet being better, I'll add that people who have started off directly drawing on a computer seem to prefur a smaller tablet and people who use paper a lot tend prefur larger tablets (but this is very much a personal thing)
One thing that is very important is the correct aspect. (I'm finally going to have to retire my old serial A6 Aiptek tablet because I've now got a wide screen monitor )

Really must say don't discount the cheapo tablets depending on how much you plan to use it.
As I mentioned above many years back I picked up a serial A6 Aiptek tablet for £15, later on I got a cheap A4 USB tablet from Aldi for under £20, they both use identical AAA battery pens.
Both are fine for the small amount of use I normally do with them (small textures for 3d models)
But I just never got on with the A4 one, so now sits in a box (I really should sell it) but at least it didn't cost me much to find that out and also helped my otherhalf decide she prefurs an A4 tablet before she went out and spent a load on an A4 Introus3.

One last thing to mention, Wacom do do educational discounts so look into that as well, think you can only get them directly from wacom (like with applemac's) and you may need to send a copy of something to prove you're in some form of education (on a degree in your case)

[DDY]

Thanks for all the input

I've made up my mind. This *could* be a mistake, so... Please stop me ordering the Wacom Bamboo by midnight if you think it's a bad idea.

I've just won a £20 amazon voucher which I'm going to use for the Wacom Bamboo tonight, unless of course you stop me.

[pollaxe]

^^Go for it, I don't think you'll regret it - for the money, I think they're crackingly good tablets. Let us know how you're getting on when you get it.

[Pob255]

I've just won a £20 amazon voucher which I'm going to use for the Wacom Bamboo tonight, unless of course you stop me.

Nice for £33 that's a very good price

trustedreviews giave it good marks
http://www.trustedreviews.com/periph...hics-Tablet/p1

[DDY]

Best purchase I made in a while, don't know why I didn't get one earlier!