Into My Intuos4

Posted by Crispee | May 10, 2009 | Filed under freelance, gadgets, intuos4, mouse tablet, pen tablet, review

When it comes to input devices that I’ve set aside – I could start a museum of bad decisions.  As a designer your connection to your work is your mouse or tablet so it’s extremely important to have something that satisfies you.

I had previously used a Wacom Intuos3 and then last year invested in the Graphire Wireless tablet.  Both of them were the 6×8 size.  While frankly this is great for the mouse, I found using the pen with a 24″ monitor was a little challenging for me. I really wanted to let it fly and more often than not I ran out of real estate.  The Graphire Wireless had other deficiences as well—the main one being that the bluetooth constantly disconnected even though it was 2 feet away from the laptop. Not sure if this is a common problem, but it happened often enough to make it annoying.

When the Wacom Intuos4 Large Pen Tablet
was announced, I calmly rationalized to myself why it would be a “smart” decision to upgrade. Even though the Graphire was less than a year old.

Well, I’m here to say that I am very pleased with the new Wacom Intuos4 and to give myself the added bonus—I opted for the “large” size.

And large it is. Mainly due to the mini-led display on the left (or right as it is changeable) that takes up a bit of room, but this thing really provides a nice drawing space.  Frankly, with the 6×8 I felt it was really more of a mouse pad, but with this – the tablet takes center stage.
Everything about it feels better than the Intuos3 and the Graphire.  It is well-constructed, nicely packed, beautifully designed. The Grip Pen has a weightier feel and the stand acts a a nib holder so you can change them out when you want rather than hunt in your desk.  It has also been updated with new Tip Sensor technology that allows near-zero grams of starting pressure and delivers 2,048 levels of pressure (double the 1,024 levels of the previous generation), giving you smoother, more precise strokes.

The hotkeys and scroll pad are nicely implemented, although my keys look a bit haphazardly placed in.  Not sure if that is normal or not.  It does take some getting used to having it there as old habits die hard and I tend to stick with my left-handed key shortcuts.

It also comes with a nice selection of software that is actually useful in its own right.  I actually like Corel Sketchpad more than Painter for some reason.  It’s just nice and simple and stripped of anything that gets in the way.

The only negative I’ve really found is that the mouse sometimes takes a harder ‘click’ to register on the Mac for some reason.  The clicking sound is very responsive but it sometimes clicks when the mouse doesn’t actually send the left click.  Again, no idea if this is just mine or a feature or a defect (hardware or software).

So this one gets a ‘thumbs up’.  It’s more than just a name change and version increase.  I would highly recommend it as an upgrade to an old tablet.  But… if you are a strict mouse user, then it definitely won’t wow you as much and frankly you’ll be wasting its best qualities.