Bamboo Tablets:

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
21

All this sounds like a bad joke. Reminds of threads on Steam about games that don’t run on end-user’s PC because end-user didn’t read specs/requirements.

Scroll way down to specs for Bamboo Pad. Read it:

Product type - Wireless Touchpad with Digital Stylus
Stylus - Cordless, battery-free, Wacom feel IT technology (read more) If you like to do creative work with advanced graphic software like Adobe® Photoshop®, please use a pen tablet like the Intuos Pen & Touch small.

Go to Intuos Pen & Touch small, down to specs, read it:

Type - Pressure-sensitive, cordless, battery-free

So no need to blame Wacom, just read specs next time.

22

Stylus - Cordless, battery-free, Wacom feel IT technology (read more) If you like to do creative work with advanced graphic software like Adobe® Photoshop®, please use a pen tablet like the Intuos Pen & Touch small.

I can’t help myself, but I simply don’t think that this is equivalent to

pressure sensitivity: no

And if you click on the “read more” link, you can read this:

  1. Accurate Pressure Detection In order to mimic the smoothness of writing on paper as closely as possible, the Bamboo Stylus feel pens were designed to detect several hundred levels of pressure

Clear specs?

23

@motorsep to be perfectly honest the purchase was a spur of the moment thing. The lovely lady wanted to buy the old man a gift and had heard me mention tablets several times. So it had been quite awhile since I had visited the Wacom site. That was the only tablet in the store and based on what I had read about ‘Bamboo’ over the years… And, there was nothing on the box to contradict that assessment.

So that being said my bitch would be leaving the name ‘Bamboo’ on something that is essentially worthless to us. And, yes if you read the ad very carefully and maybe pull up a Intuos model you would have caught it. But, there is still some confusion there.

“If you like to do creative work with advanced graphic software like Adobe® Photoshop®, please use a pen tablet like the Intuos Pen & Touch small.” Now that is a statement a first time buyer might think had always been there even when a Bamboo was exactly that. However, they do have a paragraph explaining the switcheroo that Bamboo is now Intuos and Intuos is now Intuos Pro.

Like I mentioned they’re a lot of people who didn’t catch it evidently going by the forums. And, that was my intent when starting this thread. This entire confusion thing could have been avoided by simply naming ‘The Note Taker’ anything but Bamboo. Or, as tyrantmonkey put it, I knew this would trip someone up.

It’s really no big deal to me. I have called and we will simply exchange it for a Intuos which is on their website. They will order it right from the store. But, I can imagine a young person saving up 70 dollars and change to have this happen. Anyway thanks for all the helpful comments. I appreciate it and expect maybe a few who haven’t bought a tablet yet will also.

24

Common sense?

Also, there is a native German site http://www.wacom.com/de-DE/de/ Maybe it’s differently specified in German.

There is also Wacom paper, that can be added to the pad. That product might gave pressure sensitivity.

25

Did you call / e-mail Wacom about refund? I am sure they would be nice enough to replace that with pressure sensitive tab if you press on “false advertising” :wink:

26

Thanks for the German link, motorsep. Just to make that clear: nothing is farther to me than blaming Wacom for anything. As I said I’m really happy with my Wacom pad and I couldn’t work without it!

But I just think they could be more clear in their advertising. There is nothing wrong with having entry level models. But entry level models are for entry level users ( I don’t mean you, Ghost, I know you are an experienced artist). And entry level users don’t know the difference. So every bit of plain and not “encoded” information would be helpful.

27

My old Bamboo Pen tablet that I bought several years ago cost me about $50 on Amazon. It worked pretty well for Blender, but not so much for digital painting. Yes, it had pressure sensitivity, but that was about it. I had no idea that the new Bamboo tablets are so limited for Windows. In fact I thought Wacom had retired the name in favor of calling it Intuos. I say that because last year I finally bought a new Intuos Pro, which is the replacement for the Intuos 5. At that time I noticed that the tablets formerly called Bamboo were now just Intuos. Which seems a bit confusing to me. But I got what I wanted anyway, and it is a superb tablet.

On a side note, I got tired of waiting for Krita and GIMP to join the modern world and splurged on Corel Painter 12 and PSP X6. These are excellent applications. Of course, I’ll continue trying Krita because I see a lot of potential in its development.

28

I feel sorry for the users that were tricked, it sucks indeed. :frowning:

I had a long time ago (at 2007) bought a Bamboo One tablet and it totally sucked. My point is that when you do art you need large working area and that of the standard A4 paper is fine. But for tablets such as Bamboo I wonder how even they are supposed to offer ease of use…

I use this Trust tablet since 2009 in Windows7/Windows8 and I am very satisfied for the money spent and also for the fact that the nibs are replaceable (I have changed 2 nibs so far at no cost at all).

29

Thanks for posting this OldGhost. I’m thinking of getting one sometime this summer and although I was looking at the Intuos, it is good to know not to get the Bamboo.

30

Well, folks with another trip to the store I now have a Intuos tablet. Which since I’m enjoying a few cold beers I will open probably tomorrow. ‘A man has got to know his limitations’ :slight_smile:

@const, it’s my understanding the folks using a small Bamboo, now Intuos, simply develop a work around for the small working area in whatever program they are in. I also understand many prefer the smaller tablets in spite of the working area. Including some who also have a bigger more sophisticated tablet but for many task simply grab the smaller one. Well, I guess I’ll find out in the coming months. Hey, it’s a personal call. I’m a check box and slider man myself. Some like to spend time in NodesVille with Cycles. Give me a panel with some sliders and value boxes and I’m a happy camper. One that can’t afford Vray by the way.

To be quite honest I know nothing about tablets. I learned to draw years ago, almost in another lifetime, with Castell drawing pencils when I could afford them. Yes, art supplies have never been exactly cheap my friends. And, I’ve noticed recently the prices for traditional artist are now obscene.

Yet, here we are in Blender completely oblivious to all that. I did three bad renders this morning for free. I have a childhood friend who uses oils on stretched canvas. I have no idea what a false start or botched renders cost him. But, from the prices I’ve seen recently for supplies I don’t even want to know.

Fortunately he’s a successful artist, a rare breed by the way, and his commissioned works start at fifteen thousand dollars.

But, my thought here is a 100 dollar tablet is nothing when compared to the prices being asked for brushes, paint, etc. that old school artist have to have. Jesus a young person in a art program could run through a hundred dollars in drawing pencils in two semesters. And, that’s with a holder where you can use it right down to the nub.

I still wonder why a company would take a well known product that had a excellent reputation and change it. Take that name and start using it for a note pad really. But, we’ve all heard about market strategy. So maybe that’s why I paid 100 dollars for what is really the Bamboo tablet TyrantMonkey bought for a fraction of that. Hey, I’m out of here. Tomorrow it’s at least twenty bad renders for me. And, they won’t cost me a dime. theoldghost

31

Well, folks with another trip to the store I now have a Intuos tablet. Which since I’m enjoying a few cold beers I will open probably tomorrow. ‘A man has got to know his limitations’ :slight_smile:

Open it today
Download a recent driver
Everything will work just fine.
(from a proud owner of an intuos 5 large)
though my old wide bamboo still works fine.

32

Uhm, as someone who has an inkling of how much drawing happens in collehe: Don’t worry, pencils can last a whole year easily, perhaps the b pencils only a semester, and the hb ones three semesters, but overall you don’t spend 100 dollar on pencils… You spend them on paper and canvas instead…

I still wonder why a company would take a well known product that had a excellent reputation and change it. Take that name and start using it for a note pad really. But, we’ve all heard about market strategy. So maybe that’s why I paid 100 dollars for what is really the Bamboo tablet TyrantMonkey bought for a fraction of that. Hey, I’m out of here. Tomorrow it’s at least twenty bad renders for me. And, they won’t cost me a dime. theoldghost

I paid 110 euro for my first tablet: a graphire, which was was eventually branded the bamboo, which in turn was branded the intuous. My best guess is that they want to seperate drawing tablets from stylus-shaped mice.

33

For my Win-Tablet I bought a XP-Pen Deco Pro . It’s compact and the pressure sensitivity is better, . On my Laptop it does the same good job. Only the tilt-recognition is not supported.

34

To anyone interested in buying a tablet, I strongly recommend to avoid small tablets. Preferably buy something close to the size of an A4 paper.

I had purchased a small bamboo tablet once and it was practically useless due to it’s size. Despite the amazing build quality and the driver support, this doesn’t count. In terms of usability even the simplest stroke could be jittery and the feel of making small and limited moves in this surface area it makes if even more bothersome.

However I could find some good uses for a small tablet to the side as a helper, for moves that do not require precision or expressiveness, such as modeling, or photo editing. But that’s all.

However if we talk about large tablet it will have to be non-Wacom (eg XP-Pen, Huion) so you can purchase it for under 120 bucks.