Bamboo

Wacom has come to dominate the professional tablet market. At the pro-end its Intuos3 range is unmatched, albeit for a substantial price. While its Graphire range mops up those on a budget.

The Bamboo is clearly aimed at the mass market. But with 512 levels of pressure sensitivity, an A6 active area and battery-less pen, it could well garner a following of its own. Compared to the higher spec – and higher priced – offerings, the Bamboo Pen feels wand-like. It lacks the reassuring weight of the Intuos3 Grip Pen, but does come replete with its own stand, although this is nothing more than a hollow piece of plastic.

The tablet’s performance is pleasing enough. It lacks the Intuos’s tilt sensitivity, but being aimed at non-graphics pros, it adds a rather fiddly scroll wheel, two shift keys and two function keys. The scroll wheel is a mainstream touch but is often erratic, and proved something of a nuisance in Photoshop and Illustrator.

A further pro-end want is the ability to shortcut preferences for creative apps. Painter X, Photoshop and Illustrator all benefit considerably from these features, but here again, sadly, these features are omitted.

Most unforgivable is the need to download a driver. OS X’s Ink is the default, which is, quite frankly, useless, and even once properly mapped the Bamboo is a little too jittery for refined work.