Yet another 'help me buy a graphics tablet' thread...

Started by Ali, Thu 20/03/2008 15:58:32

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Ali

Hello gentlefolk of the AGS woodland,

It's my birthday at the end of the month, and I thought I would finally buy myself a Wacom (or any other brand). I've never owned one before, and I'm sick of drawing with a mouse! I would like your advice regarding what would best suit my needs and price range. I'd particularly like to know if I can trust second hand/ebay, and how cheaply I can get one in the UK.

My priorities would be:

1) In the £50-£150 area (could go a little higher, but will feel guilty).

2) Sufficient range of resolution / sensitivity for drawing/illustration.

3) Reliable and hardwearing (because I don't want to have to buy another for ages).

I'd be very grateful if those of you who use a tablet could offer your thoughts,

-Alasdair.



LGM

My friend swears by the Bamboo line by Wacom, which is inexpensive and apparently quite responsive. I just bought their small one for $60USD
You. Me. Denny's.

Privateer Puddin'

Two of my house mates have recently bought Bamboos and have had no problem with them and are happy with the purchase. It's their first tablets aswell.

I've got an Intuos 2, had it for 6 years now and it's still working great and it's been dropped a lot and had a lot of drinks spilt on it :)

I'm going to get an Intuos 3 soon, perhaps the smallest size could be achievable with £150? Not sure, haven't really looked at prices yet.

I haven't used any tablets that aren't Wacom but often see Trust tablets about, sometimes in Tesco? I don't know what they're like, maybe someone else has tried them.

ildu

Dude, seeing Nelly Cootalot and some of your 3D stuff, I can see that you're no hobbyist artist anymore. Therefore, you need something that is a bit higher-end than the Bamboo, which is specifically targeted to amateurs and hobbyists. I'd heartily recommend getting either a Graphire or Intuos model, preferably in A5 size, especially if you want it to sustain your future artistic development.

Graphire:
I think Graphires in Europe are almost extinct, but the Wacom original price for them is 250e (£194), which is probably pretty high bogus-wise, since I bought mine a couple of years ago for like 150e. A quick price check from Amazon reveals the price as $200 (£100) for an A5 bluetooth version and $167 (£84) for an A5 non-bluetooth version. Amazon UK doesn't sell the Graphire, and those prices are probably not comparable, because everything seems cheaper in the US :).

Intuos:
The Wacom original price for an Intuos3 A5 wide 400e (£311) and for non-wide 360e (£280), which is probably bogus again, because they seem insanely and unnaturally expensive. Amazon UK prices them £264 and £214, respectively.

Check the selection out for yourself:
http://www.wacom-shop.net/cgi-bin/wacom.storefront/47e37d4200848100273f50f33619063f/Catalog/1019


Used/new:
The only three things that can really be compromised when buying a used tablet are a broken stylus, scrathes on the cover and cuts on the wires. A broken stylus is the most prominent issue, but a new one doesn't cost much extra, if in fact it does break. Scratches can be a bit intrusive, especially if they're deep cuts that your stylus gets caught in. Nevertheless, with the material used on the cover, you'd have to cut it with a knife on purpose to create such wounds. Let's just say that if a used tablet has such, the previous owner has been using it for something else than drawing :D. Cuts on wires are problematic on any wired electronic device, suffice it to say. I've never heard of dead areas on tablets, like they have on monitors with dead pixels, so that shouldn't be an issue. With that said, I would actually recommend searching for a used one if you have a strict budget. You'd be saving the earth as well by holding off that particular speck of electronic waste :). And since you'd be a second owner, the resell value pretty much drops to zero, so you don't really have to think about the newest wacom version with their slightly tweaked case colorings.

Durability:
In my experience and what I've heard from other people, Wacoms are very durable. I've personally never had any issues, so it's difficult for me to assess. What people mainly complain about is the stylus breaking, but even then that's usually because of carelessness on the part of the user, dropping it or leaving it on the floor and accidentally stepping on it.

Priorities:
In my opinion, the priorities in determining what tablet you should buy are as follows:

1. Size - Usually bigger is better, and if you have a wide monitor, you should consider the wide/non-wide aspect of it as well.
2. Price - With the right size set for you, it matters less what version of tablet you have. There are certain customizing issues and spec differences, but in practice it's not that picky. Still, I would recommend not settling for anything under the Graphire, quality-wise.
3. Pressure levels.
4. Bluetooth/non-bluetooth.
5. Buttons/no buttons on the tablet.

It might be wise to check the earlier thread by MashPotato:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=27494.0


P.S. I'm actually thinking of maybe getting the Cintiq 12WX as a second tablet. I know it's a bit over-the-top, but I need a second one for the coming number of months (old one for my parents' house, and the Cintiq for my apartment). I'd be selling my Graphire for a few bucks shortly, as well. In case someone doesn't know, what's different in the Cintiq series is that they're portable and they are monitors at the same time, so you're in fact drawing directly on the screen. The only thing I'm worried about is getting too comfortable with it and actually not being able to draw with a normal tablet anymore.

The Cintiq 12WX is the newest portable drawing-pad style one with a wide 12" screen, and it's considerably cheaper than the earlier 20" and 21" versions. In europe, it currently costs about 1200e (according to Wacom's site), but if I buy it from the US, it's less than $1000, which comes out to about 600-650e. So effectively, I'd be getting it for half the price, because of the plummeting US dollar. Hurray for the recession :D!

ThreeOhFour

Awesome - I've been thinking about getting a tablet myself lately, and was wondering what to go for. Thanks for the tips!

Layabout

If you only have £150, i'd get a bamboo fun A5. Personally, I have an A6 of the same variety, and if I were buying again, i'd get an A5. They are just missing the tilt and stuff, pressure sensitivity is fine. The Graphire is extinct.

The bamboo fun has 4 buttons (yay) and a zoom/scroll thingy.

The only downside is the sheer whiteness of it. They get grubby really quickly. Especially if you smoke around it and are useless and drop ash.
I am Jean-Pierre.

tube

As Layabout implied, the Bamboo replaced the Graphire line as the "cheap" Wacom series. Though it seems they don't actually market the Bamboo as an artist's tool as opposed to a gadget "to spruce up your documents" or something. Personally I have little experience with tablets, but my wife swears by her six-year-old Intuos 2 A5. To get a decent size Intuos for that kind of money you'd indeed have to settle for second hand. A tough choice.

Wikipedia has some good info on the various Wacom product lines.

Layabout

The Wacom Bamboo Fun they market as an artists tool... They include Photoshop Elements 5 and some other art program i never use. The bog standard cheap ass bamboo, they market as a way to spruce up documents.
I am Jean-Pierre.

CaptainBinky

The first tablet I ever bought (aside from my C64 Koala Pad ;)) was a Wacom Ultrapad A4. It cost £350 at the time (some time in 1996 I think) and having played with smaller pads I can honestly say that I'm glad I went for the bigger one. Since then, I have never bought smaller than A4 - at the moment I'm on an Intuos3 A4 Wacom pad, and quite frankly, it's the bees knees. If I had the cash, I'd have a Cintiq right now, but I don't :(

So my advice - do what I did with my first pad: buy the biggest and best that you can possibly afford because you won't regret it. Yeah, a cheap pad will be better than none, but when you're working in Fractal Painter with pad with 1024 levels of sensitivity, tilt, buttons on the pad that you can configure... you won't look back. That first pad is gonna last you - my £350 investment lasted me about 6 years (a measly £58 a year)  before I finally upgraded to an Intuos2 (purple - woo!), and this funky grey Intuos3 will keep me going until I can raise a grand or two for the Cintiq :D

CB

A Lemmy & Binky Production

Ryan Timothy B

I've got a Wacom Intuos 3, 6x11.  I bought the wide version because I use a wide 27" lcd tv as my monitor.  (i'd recommend you getting a wide tablet, because no doubt, in a few years you'll have a wide screen monitor, or you already do have one).  You can always set the drawing area of the tablet so it's the same as your aspect ratio on your monitor, if you still have a 4:3 monitor.

The wacom tablets, from what I have noticed, are very durable.  I already chucked my xbox remote (VERY HARD) at it by accident, it cracked the face of the tablet, very small crack, but it's no where near the drawing surface.  Hasn't affected the performance at all.

If you buy used, the only thing you have to worry about is if the surface is smooth and scratch free, but it's very hard to scratch the surface (it's a hard flexible and thin layer) all the wiring for the magnet pen/mouse are actually cased in the plastic casing, like a 1/4 inch away from the flexible thin drawing surface.  So if the drawing surface is still smooth and undamaged, there is No way you can damage the internal guts of the wacom tablet (without dropping a sledge hammer on it. haha).

And BUTTONS!! Get buttons on your tablet!  Unless you are a keyboard junky, and like to have one hand on the keyboard, while you draw.  I use both though.  I use the tablet for quick functions, and the keyboard mainly for undo (ctrl+z).

Ali

Many thanks for all your feedback. I bought an intuos3 and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'm sure you'll see an example of my work with it before too long.

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