The LapDawg O-Stand: The Most Versatile iPad Stand Ever?

Wacom has been making their Bamboo tablets for several years, they are the introductory line-up of tablets for PC and Mac users.

The Bamboo tablets come is several models, the main product which is what I reviewed, the Bamboo Pen and Touch, ($99 list) comes in black, and has both multitouch and pen capabilities. It has a 4.9 x 3.4 inch active touch area, and a 5.8 x 3.6 inch active pen area. It includes with Adobe Photoshop Elements and Nik Color Efex Pro software.

The Wacom Bamboo Touch ($69) is exactly the same form factor as the Pen and Touch, but only has touch input.

The Wacom Bamboo Pen ($69) comes in black, but only has pen input. It has a 5.8 x 3.6 inch active pen area, and the package includes Corel Painter Essentials 4.

The Wacom Bamboo Craft ($129) is designed as a bundle for arts and crafts and scrapbooking types. It has the same size pen and touch tablet, but in silver instead of black. It also comes packaged with painting and photo editing software as well as scrapbooking tutorials, a subscription to Scrapbooking & Beyond magazine, and a library of craft embellishments.

The Wacom Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch ($199) also has multitouch and pen input, but comes in silver and is larger (7.5 x 5.1 inches for touch input, 8.5 x 5.4 inches for pen). It’s packaged with Corel Painter Essentials 4, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and Nik Color Efex Pro software.

As the name suggests, the Pen and Touch allows you to control your Mac via a Pen interface or a Touchpad type interface. The older Bamboo tablets came with a Pen and a mouse and the tablet was a tablet when you used the pen and a mousepad when you had the mouse in your hand. I liked that set-up a lot. This was a bit different.

The Bamboo pen input is a great option for graphical work such as drawing, painting, and photo retouching. The included pens now have 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity. That’s double the sensitivity of earlier models, and valuable for creating subtle effects in the bundled apps and other software that supports pressure sensitivity, and also the inking that the pen allows you to do with compatible apps. I could really tell the difference in the update to the pen from older models.

With Multi-Touch, you use simple hand gestures and finger taps on the tablet’s surface. The active area is larger than a mobile device or laptop trackpad, so it easily allows you to move around your desktop, scroll through documents, navigate the web, zoom in and out of photos, and rotate images. Using the Multi-touch to get around my apps was fun and simple, and the gestures worked well in my tests. The tablet can be used by either right or left handers. The Multi-Touch allows you to Navigate, Click, Double-Click, Right-Click, Forward & Back, Scroll, Select & Drag, Rotate, and Zoom. If that isn’t enough flexibility for you, the Bamboo has four ExpressKeys that you can program to do anything you can do with a mouse or keyboard.

Unfortunately, I’m an old-timer and still feel more comfortable with a multi-functional mouse in my hand then using the Multi-Touch or even a trackpad. Although I tried the different touches available, I went back to a mouse. But, I love the pen, it’s gotten better and better over the years and it now rivals some of the best tablets and pens out there today. I use the Bamboo with the pen and would love the option to use a multi-functional mouse with it too. Maybe one day soon.

You can see all the wonderful tablets that Wacom provides us Mac users at www.wacom.com, and the Bamboo model can be found on their Web site at http://www.wacom.com/bamboo/bamboo_pen_touch.php. Over the years, the Wacom line has gotten better and better while the pricing has gotten more and more affordable. If you looked at Wacom in the past, do yourself a favor and check them out today. You’ll be pleasantly surprised, I was.

Continue reading about Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch