Graphics Tablets
 

So, I've been thinking about getting a tablet for... Well, years. Never got to it, though. Well, I'm at it again and I'm wondering, as I'm sure there are people here who have much experience with them, if you have any suggestions or advice regarding them? I have no experience with a tablet, and I'm on a budget.

First of all, is it hard to learn to use a tablet, and should I try it out somewhere first? Also, where do you think the line goes at what price the tablets are just not worth it? Are there any cheap ones that would be good and any ones that have excellent price-quality ratio? And what about the size? (And won't somebody think of the children?!)

And so on, any kind of advice is much appreciated :)

Wacom is the best, isn't it?

Wacom is the only tablet.

The type you want depends on your needs. If you can get a second hand Graphire3 those are cheap but good, but avoid the Graphire4 line as they made some bad choices with materials causing the grip on the pen to wear really fast. The Bamboo Fun seems to have replaced the consumer-oriented Graphires and from what I understand is pleasant to use and adequate for most purposes...

Towards the pro end there is Intuos or Cintiq. Intuos are tablets like the others but with higher precision, customizable buttons and tilt sensitivity. Cintiq is a tablet screen. Some artists swear by them but they are really expensive.

For size it depends on your purposes, but for general use A5 is a good fit. It's small enough to fit on your desk without too much hassle and big enough to be fairly accurate. Bear in mind that the size listed is the active area so the entire tablet is much larger (which is why I find the A4 rather unwieldy)...

Personally I have an A5 Intuos3 which I use for Photoshop, Plastic Animation Paper and even 3D software and general windows navigation. In fact, I'm browsing with my Intuos pen right now. :D

The only thing I don't use it for is games. It's much more comfortable than the mouse and I do not exaggerate when I say it single-handedly saved my wrist in college...

I use a medium-sized Bamboo Fun. Works for what I need it for, but then, I'm far from a professional artist.

So what price range are they in?

I remember reading about some that cost less than 100€, while some seem to cost hundreds (and then there's of course the tablet screens, but they're another story, albeit very interesting).

That would be the A6 (Small) Bamboo. If you just want to try out tablets and you don't care about accuracy, A6 is fine - my first tablet was an A6 Graphire3 and it served me well - but if you want to do any serious art with it you'll want to upgrade to an A5 eventually...

Intuos3 A5 at 289 euros

Bamboo Fun Small at 99,90 euros

I would go with either of those two depending on your budget, or something inbetween.

I'm partial to the Intuos, but if your needs are not super high-end a Bamboo is probably enough.

Right... So I see.

Thanks a lot for the advice, and of course if anyone else has anything to say (or just agree with something said), please go ahead :)

Oh one thing I forgot: If you have a widescreen monitor you will probably want to get a widescreen tablet or the proportions will be all screwed up (remember the tablet maps directly to your screen). You can adjust the software on a 4:3 tablet to use only part of the active area to match your screen proportions, but it's very inconvenient, so it's better to get the right tablet for the right screen.

As far as I'm aware Intuos is the only range with widescreen tablets, other than Cintiq.

Oh well, I don't actually have a widescreen (unless I've gone silly), so that's no problem for me.

But then, out of curiosity, how does a widescreen tablet work on a normal screen? :)

Bamboo's got 'em too.

I stand corrected.

@Uptimist: if you use a widescreen tablet on a 4:3 monitor and try to draw a circle it will come out as an oval. Again, you can set the software to compensate for this, but that changes the size of the active area and it's annoying having to remember that the physical border is no longer the real border...

Wacom has just announced the Intuos4.

Not sure how it compares to the last generation as I have not had the chance to try it, but it seems to have all kinds of fancy new features. May be worth considering if you want to go high end.

I use a Wacom one, it's rather small but owns HARD. The price was 80ish euro, I got it for 20 something cause it was the last one and noone would buy it. I'm very happy with it.

More on the Intous 4

I used to own a Wacom Graphire3, which was a nice little tablet, but I couldn't get comfortable enough with it to do any real drawing. These days, I have an Adesso Cybertablet 12000. It's alright. Larger and easier for me to use, but my current desk setup just isn't optimal, so I'm still not using it the way I'd like to. If I had the money, I'd gladly get a Wacom Cintiq. That I could get comfortable with, I'm sure. I wouldn't have to worry about eye-hand coordination issues, though my posture issues would still limit me until I could afford to change my desk setup.

Back with the same again! :P

Now I'm seriously going to get one, and there's an Intuos 3 A5, demo used for 219€... Good deal? Should I just get it now?

All I have to say is that I'm very happy with my Intuos 3 A4, that I've had for several years now.

Yeah, pretty much what I was looking for. One of the more reliable models, with a pretty good functionality, right? I went and ordered it already, actually... You know, I was going to get a Bamboo, but then I thought "what the heck, in the long run the difference isn't that big, and you can't get the A5 Bamboos that cheap anyways". It was 40% off too, for an apparently very little-used item.

'ey Up, what are you going to be using your tablet for? It's just that my girlfriend is an Illustrator and she's just finished her first digital commission using a cracking package called ArtRage and it's just superb for more textural and tangible work. It's very cheap too and trumps many of the heavy weight apps out there. I highly recommend it.

Oh and she has a Bamboo A5 and it's been fantastic even on this widescreen we're using! :P

You mean like, what program am I using or what am I going to be doing?

On the program, I'm not sure. the only proper art program I have is Paint Shop Pro 9, which I got for free way back in the day for some reason. I'm not sure if and how that works with the tablet, so I might as well be getting some other program, though I'm thinking I'll go free...

And why I'll be going free is that I'm really not going to be using the tablet for anything professional, just as a hobby, and some design competitions online that I'm doing only semi-seriously.

Yeah both, if you're going to be doing arty things then I'd recommend that ArtRage I mentioned for the price/quality. I think at some point the Wacom tablets came bundled with it. My gf tried a few freebies out and they all had too much of a clean, texture-less 'MS Paint' quality rather than the tactility of real hand rendering. Anyway, it was only a quick query because I'd seen you'd mentioned art and history on another thread.