Wacom

[Acert93]

I have a friend looking at Wacom tablets and he asked for my help. I noticed they have quite a few new products out so I wasn't sure what to recommend.

He primarily works in Illustrator although he uses Photoshop quite a bit as well. He is going to take a class on Zbrush soon. His budget is about $200. The quick survey I did of Amazon indicated that the Wacom Bamboo is solid, but not necessarily a professional devise. Will it really suffer for someone in that environment? Is there anything better in the $200 range? Is there a huge jump in quality at $300? The Intuos4 Small is in a similar range but he thought it may be too small. Feedback?

 

[V3]

They can last for a very long time, if he is going to work with it everyday, what's another $100. Get the Intuos and tell him to get the right size for his work.

 

[flynn]

I have an Intuos3 myself and strongly recommend the Intuos series. Mine is A4 sized but I'm sure even smaller ones you can get a lot out of.

Do not even think about getting a Bamboo unless it's a gift for your kids.

 

[Vadi]

The Intuos4 also can use the new Art Pen with "twist" sensor. Some complain about the new standard pen. It's slimmer than the Inutos3 I think and the tablet buttons are different. Also lines drawn with a tilted pen seem to be wobbly due to a technical "issue" I think (all Wacom tablets).

I'm also happy with the Intuos3 though the art pen has no buttons and is big - I haven't tried it yet.
Also painting with the whole arm requires a bigger size, I find 6x11 Wide still OK.