Wacom Intuos Medium Drawing Tablet – Digital Tablet
Wacom Intuos Medium Drawing Tablet – Digital Tablet for Painting, Sketching and Photo Retouching with pressure sensitive pen, black – Ideal for Work from Home & Remote Learning
Corel Painter Essentials 8 & AfterShot Pro 3
Corel Painter Essentials 8 allows you to release your inner artist with a wide variety of painting styles, Natural-Media brushes and photo effects. Get the most out of your pen tablet and create an authentic, hand-painted look every time.
With Corel AfterShot Pro 3 you turn your passion for photography into unforgettable memories with powerful processing tools and presets to enhance any image from good to great.
(both are 90 days licenses)
Clip Studio Paint Pro
With natural pen strokes, quick colouring, unlimited tones and 3D figure templates, it has everything a budding comic-book artist or manga lover needs to bring action to life.
Clip Studio Paint Pro is a 2-year limited software use license, with the option to upgrade to an unlimited version at a discounted rate or to continue to use it as Clip Studio Paint Debut version after expiration of the 2-year period.
Boris FX Optics
Boris FX Optics is an award-winning collection of products for creative photo editing. It contains hundreds of Hollywood-grade filters that let you create a unique look and feed to your photos. Plus, add effects like lightning, smoke, and more with Particle Illusion from Boris FX, included in Optics.
(1 year license)
Real-time education with all the tools of the classroom
Teachers, students and virtual teams all benefit from Wacom Intuos and the new educational software bundle. Teach and learn remotely with Collaboard, Explain Everything, Kami, Limnu and Pear Deck. Wacom makes virtual learning and interaction more human, engaging and effective.
Weight: | 430 g |
Dimensions: | 20 x 16 x 0.88 cm; 430 Grams |
Brand: | Wacom |
Model: | CTL-6100K-A |
Colour: | Black |
Batteries Included: | Yes |
Manufacture: | WACOM |
Dimensions: | 20 x 16 x 0.88 cm; 430 Grams |
Works as expected, no issues, we use hundreds of this at work.
Got this for osu! and have gone up 3000 ranks since. Not saying the tablet is the reason but can’t say it wasn’t eithe
This drawing tablet is a joy to use. It works like a charm with Blender Grease Pencil. Also I like that Wacom works on Linux with zero configuration needed.
If you’re starting with a drawing pad, I recommend this. One issue is the driver this pad uses can drain the battery of a laptop but shouldn’t be an issue for a desktop pc.
To be honest, it looked rather bland. It is a black matt piece of plastic with bumps all over the drawing side. But when set up it is amazing. The pen feels a bit big to use but once you’ve got used to it you can use the software to create great pictures. You have a choice of 3 software packages to download but they are only valid for a year. I’m new to using tablets like this but it was easy to use, although a bit more difficult to master.
Since COVID and when many people started working from home, I was hearing complains of how difficult it is to do a white board presentation remotely, and it is not the same, and other excuses. I have been using tablets before, so I knew how much better option is, than a mouse for such usage.
So, since I am working from home always, I decided to get one, and try it myself.
It is the closest you can get to a marker. Needs a bit of time to get used to it, but once you do, there is no better option to avoid communing in the cold and rain, than this.
Next step, buy a better mic!
Only negative thing is that in year 2022, I was expecting a USB-C connector instead of the Micro-B it has.
I had read so many stories of driver problems with Linux, I left it sitting in the box for a while. I should not have bothered. It worked fine.
Youtube was a great help with configuration for apps like Gimp etc.
Nicely made with alot of pressure sensitivity for drawing and photo editing. Pen takes a bit of getting used to not ergonomically the easiest to hold.
Wonderful little tablet, its actually a bit bigger than I expected. I do some photo restoration and this tablet is ideal.
It’s small enough to easily put away when I’m not using it, but large enough that I don’t feel I’m losing out compared to the larger ones.
Response is great, I wish the buttons were along the side though rather than along the top. Just personal preference.
It’s a brilliant little tool if your looking to make editing easier.
Finally upgraded from my old secondhand Intuos 3 and this was a very welcome shift! Lightweight, pleasant to hold, the pen holder and buttons feel fine so far, no technical issues that I’ve noticed. The storage of the spare nibs in the end of the pen is handy, and I’m sure I’ll be glad of it and stop lightly mourning the loss of an eraser button on the end of the pen, once I actually have to change the nib for the first time.
The medium is, in my opinion, a perfect size. Although I know that’s very dependent on what surface one uses the tablet on.
The inclusion of 2 years’ use of Clip Studio Paint is very neat too! I’m personally used to Paint Tool SAI and continue to mostly use that but this has given me a good opportunity to give CSP a go and see what all the fuss is about. It seems great so far. I know a lot of people who use it as their primary art programme. I will say though to anyone unsure, this includes the version that lets you do animation, but only 1 second’s worth. But if that’s not a deterrent for you then yay!
TL;DR: does what it says on the tin and I’ve had no trouble with it so far! (Mine was no Bluetooth, and medium sized, and black.)
Currently use a Wacom Intuos Pro Medium at work and on my main desktop for 3D modelling uses. I bought this for work on my laptop.
In general, it’s a good tablet that does what it needs to at this form factor and would recommend if you are a beginner or want a small tablet. Unfortunately the small button on the pen regularly gets stuck under the frame when you press it down which is incredibly frustrating. If I adjust my hand position, it helps but that’s not ideal having to relearn a hand position I’m used to for 15 years!
I think it’s a great tablet, I like the pen a lot, it’s easy to grip and comfortable due to the soft touch rubber grip.
The included cable is long enough for my needs, and when connected with the wire there is very little lag and drawing with this is a pleasant experience.
Unfortunately when in wireless mode it begins to lag to a noticeable extent, and for me it’s to the point where I’d rather not use it wirelessly.
Overall I think it’s a good tablet, but I’d recommend picking up the wired version.
The Wacom tablet is brilliant with Microsoft whiteboard. It really helps with additional skill building and the battery less pen is a brilliant thing for the morally conscious consumer. It didn’t work for me one day which made me a little nervous that I had bought a dud however a quick Google led me to restart the Wacom tablet on the computer. It’s really a great thing to use if you’re trying to be creative.
I bought this for my nephew to use as he does CAD and Photoshop work. I had let him try my Wacom Intuos Pro prior to this and he’s more than happy with this Intuos Medium model.
There is a difference in the stated between the Pro models and this version of the Intuos. I’m referring here to the pressure sensitivity, however, in practice this hasn’t caused any problems for my nephew’s usage. Looking at the price difference between this tablet and my own Intuos Pro, it’s very hard to justify the Pro version. I think only someone doing actual painting/drawing with the tablet might find the higher sensitivity noticeable (perhaps for extremely light pencil strokes).
This Inuos Medium cost less than I paid for my Small Intuos Pro so I think that in future I’ll be unlikely to go Pro. This tablet is just very good value. It’s also about the same overall size as my Small Pro while having a working area of 8×10 inches compared to 6×4 inches on the Pro Small.
One final thing I like with this tablet is the recess on the tablet for placing your stylus. I always end up with my stylus rolling about the desk as I can’t be bothered with the standalone stylus storage that I have.
So those are my thoughts and I hope they can help you.
Compared to XP-Pen and Huion tablets I’ve tried, including their recent ones, this Intuos performs better thanks to its superior pen. Initial activation force is very low, ideal for me as a light drawer, and lines are steady. The shortcut keys are somewhat useless due to the odd positioning up top forcing you to reach your hand over the drawing surface and block your drawing hand. I ultimately ended up only using the left corner key as a quick undo. If you use a keyboard for shortcuts, this won’t matter much to you. My only real problem with this tablet is the loss of tracking accuracy with continuous strokes, which can be fixed by lifting the pen off the surface and putting it back on.
I think it’s fantastic, I waited a while before writing a review to be as informative as possible..
At first it threw me off getting used to it but I got used to it over time, you really don’t need anything more expensive then this for home office graphical work, you can mess around with the settings to make it your own and there are tutorials all over the place.
If you go for something off-brand you may not have the access to the right information on the Internet as you get with the this unless you know what you’re doing already.
One thing I’ll say would be the transition from Bluetooth mode to hardwire connection. When I want to plug it into my computer, it had a hard time understanding what it is and can be finicky, Bluetooth works way better for me. That could just be me and its a slight annoyance if anything
Hope this has been helpful for anyone, would recommend
This is my first graphic tablet and it is very good since it comes with application. The shortcut buttons easy to rearrange and they are just under your hand. However sometimes it just goes only window mode, so I can’t reach some places on my screen which is a bit frustrating. I don’t know if my pc or the tablet itself causing it but when I restart my pc the it’s good again.
I must admit I was a bit apprehensive about which graphic tablet to purchase to help with my editing in photoshop and finally opted for this one. The pen and base have a great quality feel to it and work really smoothly with my iMac. My only issue was with the installation and setting it up fully within the settings of my Mac but all in all I would recommend this product to anyone looking to buy their 1st Graphic Tabley
The first thing you notice is that it is smaller than you think. The box contains the tablet, which has rubber studs on the back and four mappable buttons along the top, the stylus, and a USB cable. Software is downloadable from the Wacom website. It’s a cinch to set up – you can pretty much just plug it in and use it straight away, but the software allows you to remap the buttons on the tablet for your own chosen functionality, configure the screen size (important if you are using multiple monitors and have your desktop extended across them all, as the tablet assumes that the complete width of all your monitors is a single screen, unless you tell it otherwise in the app) and so on. The stylus doesn’t use batteries and has some spare tips inside – just unscrew the barrel and they’re stowed inside.
It takes a bit of getting used to. As soon as you hold the stylus over the tablet it works as a mouse, and if you tap on the tablet surface it registers as a click, so if you really take to it I suppose you could even ditch your mouse. Of course, the tablet works with graphics software such as Photoshop and Gimp, but it also works with the likes of Microsoft Paint, Paint.Net and Windows Ink within Windows 10. For my purposes (sketches during courses) I found that Microsoft Paint or Windows Ink were absolutely fine. Sure, these “lesser” packages don’t support pressure sensitivity whereas the likes of Photoshop do, but for me they were perfect. The hardest thing to remember is that as you draw on the tablet, nothing appears on it, just on the screen, but after a little while I found that it became second nature. Weirdly I did find that if I tried drawing in Paint.Net with the tablet some things didn’t work so well, such as if I wrote with the stylus, or tried to draw freehand circles, but it was fine in other programs.
If you’re a trainer like me and you want something that will let you doodle on the screen, present courses remotely with a virtual whiteboard, or if you fancy dabbling with photo editing, this tablet is small, light, portable, and doesn’t break the bank. Of course, bigger and snazzier ones are available, but this one was a brilliant buy for me.
I love everything about my tablet, sure, there are more expensive ones out there and I was tempted to spend a little more money but so glad I didn’t. This fits my needs perfectly and you will find that you don’t really need a huge tablet as you only actually draw on a tiny space. Whether it’s photo editing, illustrating or manga that floats your boat, this tablet will be great. This Wacom came with some free trials of software and I have been using the Clip Studio Paint almost exclusively, it’s mainly geared towards manga/anime/comics but is also brilliant for illustration and art. This tablet is a great investment for those wanting to try digital art and don’t be fooled by it’s size and price – remember that old saying “Good things come in small packages”. It’s simple to use and set up, the pen has really good pressure sensitivity and there are some shortcut buttons on the tablet but I never use them, I learned the keyboard shortcuts pretty quickly (old gamers never die) but others may find them useful. Great little tablet, you can’t go wrong with it.
I’m a designer and I purchased this tablet to create hand drawn lettering. I did consider the screen GFX tablets but felt that was going to be overkill. I opted for the non-bluetooth versions and saved around 30, since I didn’t trust the responsiveness and expected latency. For the same reason, I do not use a wireless mouse.
The build quality is good. The button are firm and ‘clacky’. The pen is light but seemingly good quality. Drawing on the tablet gives a slightly feel of friction and scratchiness, but this is a good thing. It feels like the two surfaces bode well with each other. It doesn’t feel like a thoughtless rough, plastic on plastic.
The tablet connected immediately to my 2015 iMac.
There’s 4 buttons at the top, each can be assigned a function using the software which you need to download. so too can you assign functions to the 2 buttons on the pen. So far, I’ve only assigned undo to the tablet itself.
Pressure sensitivity (something which I oddly forgot about) was surprisingly effective. There feels like no movement in the pen nib or the tablet and literally works by ‘squeeze’. IAt default, it’s not too light nor strong. I spent a great deal of time experimenting with this and I produced some satisfying results.
The pen position on the tablet is relative to the screen, so you can’t attempt to reposition the cursor on the screen elsewhere with the pen on the same spot as the tablet. The 7 inch diagonal area of the tablet represents the actual areas of the screen. so if you want to go to top right of the screen, you will always have to move the pen to the top right of the tablet. This means that there is quite a bit of arm movement. With that in mind, a graphics tablet (of this type) would never replace my mouse, since a mouse requirement minimal movement, however the tablet has a definitive and effective use in my graphic design work.
Recommended!
I had no prior experience using drawing tablets before buying this but wanted to pick one up as a novelty to use for online classes and trying to make some digital art.
The pad itself has been great, very accurate and consistent while using both bluetooth and being plugged in.
The battery life is amazing one charge lasts around 18+ hours of use for me.
And the included 2 year clip studio paint licence is amazing value and one of the main reasons that i opted to purchase this version of the intuos as oposed to a wacom one or non bluetooth enabled intuos
Overall very happy with the purchase as it has allowed me to do everything i wanted with this single purchase.
I purchased this primarily so that I could do my online live lessons to my class and I needed a way to draw on my whiteboard as I would in class. I could have got the cheaper version but went for this one as I wanted to have a bluetooth connection to my Macbook Pro.
It was easy to install and connects quickly when I use it. It takes a bit of getting used to in terms of where it is on the screen and sometimes the lines can be a bit jerky but that may be one of the applications I am using as much as the pen.
Overall may very happy with it and of course, I can now use for a bit of image editing as well so win win.
I needed a graphics tablet to help me with online teaching and I was looking for a cheap option. However, after having a bad experience with a different manufacturer, I thought I might have to splash out on something pricey like an Ipad pro. Then, I watched a review of the Wacom Intuous S from the NY Times and I decided to give it a try. After a fortnight’s use, I am very pleased with my purchase. I decided to go for the slightly cheaper wired option as I thought there might be a bluetooth lag. Setup was easy on my MacBook Air. It takes a while to get used to writing with it as you look at the computer’s screen while writing. The pen has a hover function that allows you to easily locate it on your computer’s screen. Writing is accurate, although there is a rough feel which is supposed to imitate real paper. I disabled the pen keys because I kept pressing them at the wrong moment. The Wacom Desktop Center allowed full customisation of the express keys and I find these really helpful. I use mine to toggle between pen, marker, eraser and text. I still haven’t downloaded the free software as I don’t really need it.
The bluetooth version can be use wirelessly or connected using the USB cable included in the package.
other than the software that were suggested for downloading, it can also be use for other programme such as adobe photoshop, onenote for note taking and many others are also supported.
The tablet can be seen as a replacemtn of a keyboard and the pen is a mouse. Once get use to the feeling it is very simple to control.
The pen nib can be wear out quite quickly if you draw a lot but there is 3 replacement nibs included which will last for a long time. Extra replacement nibs can also be purchases with a reasonable price. When i draw, i tape the nip of the pen so it doesn’t wear out too quickly. and it doesn’t feel much difference from not taping.
The screen synced well with the table without delay and everything run smoothly.
I am a tatal beginner for using graphic tablet and i found this tablet very friendly for beginners. For the free software i chose Clip Studio Paint and Corel Painter Essential, CSP works fine and looks professional but Corel Painter Essentials was unable to download on my macbook as it was not supported by mac version 10.12.6 which is a bit disapointed.
Overall this is a very nice graphic tablet, easy to carry around but needed to connect to a laptop/computers before it can be used. It is very suitable and friendly for beginners like me and i highly recommend this product.
I’ll be honest I bought and use this for something way way WAY below its capabilities and target use. I use it to write on MS whiteboard in virtual meetings and to quickly build out flow charts and the like.
I usually do such stuff it on my touchscreen with a stylus but my home computer doesn’t have one and I thought what the hell one day and bought this. (I blame coronovirus lockdown for the near daily queues of amazon delivery folk just about managing to keep 2 meters apart while piling up boxes in front of my door. Anyway I digress.)
I found it tricky to get used to watching the screen while writing on the tablet and the bluetooth was at first a hindrance as id be picking it up, moving it about and trying to find something that immediately worked instead of learning first. Once I ‘got it’ however (a few days of writing with the pen) I actually prefer this, you dont have your hand over the screen, its much lighter, your cant scratch up your laptop screen and testing using both together it lets you write and switch brushed with the touchscreen at the same time. its probably going in my laptop bag after being a purely impulse buy.
I dont like giving up five star reviews as there’re always some flaws with stuff but I cant find any on this thing (it’d be cool if the surface pro pen and the stylus were interchangeable I guess, but I never expected them to be), admittedly I’m using it for maybe 10% of its capability.
I have a 3 year old laptop and had a 10 year old genius tablet with it. I needed to reinstall my windows on it, because my program was constantly lagging and could not make more then 4 brush strokes until it freezed for minutes. It was really annoying. When I redone my windows it still had the same effect so I decided to get a new one as I was thinking of it anyways. When THIS came, it changed my workflow, no lagging, nothing! I am so happy to have this! Though the price, it is reaaaaaallly expensive, so I was crying blood. But I think it is really worth it!
I’ve been using Wacom brand graphic tablets for my job (graphic design) and at home instead of a standard mouse for over 12 years now and they really are the industry leaders. Even this small sized one is perfectly capable of handling any project that I undertake. The functionality and customization options are excellent as are the ergonomc benefits (I originally started using a graphics tablet after years of mouse clicking started to give me repetitive strain injury). I got the wireless version, which was straightfoward to connect via bluetooth. The internal battery life isn’t spectacular (I get about a day and a half of solid work before it prompts me to recharge) but you get a USB cable and can continue to work while charging. All in all, if you’re thinking of getting a tablet, don’t go for the cheap options, spend a bit more and treat yourself to a Wacom.
The tablet is great, it definitely saved me so much time! I can’t believe I didn’t buy this a long time ago. The only problem I had with it was using photoshop, if I click on a button either on the tablet or on the pen, it gets stuck and doesn’t draw curved lines for a few minutes. For someone who is used to sketching with a pen and paper, it feels like the pen has ran out of ink, so it’s not too much of an inconvenience. During the first week I think my laptop had to get used to the drivers installed and this would break sometimes too, but now that works perfectly.
This is a perfect tablet if you are just starting out with them! I used to have a Wacom Bamboo but unfortunately they have been discontinued I believe. I upgraded to an Intuos Pro Large but found that it was cumbersome to set up and use with my small desk, so I figured I would buy a smaller tablet.
I wasn’t disappointed! The tablet is a perfect size for someone with limited desk space, and anyone who also uses their keyboard for shortcuts etc, and their mouse all at the same time. The desktop range seems to be good and installing the drivers was a piece of cake! If you don’t enjoy having wires attached to your computer accessories there is a Bluetooth version.
Note: Some windows 7 users (like myself) may experience permissions errors if the tablet isn’t connected and the drivers try to run, this isn’t an issue with the tablet at all but a general windows 7 error which can be easily fixed with a simple google search of said error.
I had been looking at iPad Pro. But i can’t afford it. I do have an old Mac.. I also have no artistic skill set whatsoever.
I already owned clip studio pro, which I’d been trying to use with a mouse. Bad. Specifically i need to take fuzzy company logos from websites and make them sharp and pretty so i can make airport greeting boards with them. Not art from scratch, i know i am useless.
Given that these sell on fleabay for nearly the same price as new with warranty on Amazon, thought it worth a gamble. Plus the 2 bits of free software offer.
OK so out of the box. Simple USB to device cable. Needed a thunderbolt to USB adapter – done. Easy. Registration – easy. Updates downloaded – all good.
I hoped I’d be able to use the free software to get me photo editing for mac and clip studio for pc but – yeah software you have to select ONE platform so that knackered me. And the photo software is for working with raw images, not jpg’s etc so pointless for me though i didn’t know that (and clip studio limited to 2 years). Had i known what i know now, I’d have chosen pc and taken clip studio offer
Anyway. On mac. Wacom desktop lets you set what the buttons on the tablet and on the pen do. Clip studio recognised it straight away – the whole screen space maps onto the little tablet but that’s not too bad, hovering shows on screen where the pointer is. I found it necessary but easy to go into clip studio and change preferences for pen pressure, i don’t want to press hard. Sorted.
Oh, initially connnected with cable to set up and charge – then i went to blue tooth so i have tablet on my lap in front of mac, all good, no wires. Whereas the more expensive versions with built in screens also need wire connections as far as i can tell (i was going to buy the Xpen items, but to have a screen big enough for me to see am looking at 16″ / 300 for the pro – hence why i thought this worth a gamble. If i didn’t like it could ebay and lose max 10)
For my use and my complete lack of artistic ability, this does exactly what i want. It seems accurate, if i could stop my hand shaking i am sure it’d draw smoothly. What the xpen has over it is tilt on the pen but i don’t need that.
It’s great for beginners like me who usually draws on paper or paints on canvas. The software that comes with it is handy. It’s just a handy tool to have when you feel like doodling on your laptop or computer and even great for design work. It defeats having to use the mouse on software such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.
The size is also easy to store and bring with you to places. The drawing surface is large enough. I would recommend getting the size that resembles your screen. It comes with spare nibs which seems to last long.
Bluetooth works well and you don’t need to worry about the range since you need it near your computer or laptop for obvious reason. You can still use it plugged in.
Finally, I’ve seen some complaints that the pen scratches the surface. It’s meant to do that as it leaves white chalky residue which wipes off but it’s not permanent and very trivial.
I have always used Wacom and have never been dissapointed with the overall feel and build quality of thier products. Thier pens are always accurate and thier pressure sensitivity has always been spot on. The battery on the Intuos is amazing. Can easily sit through 2-3 drawing sessions of 3/4 hours at a time before needing to charge it. Not having the cable there is much more comfortable. My only bug bear as will all drawing tablets is the fact they continue to use plastic pen nibs which inevitabley end up marking the tablets surface after a peroid of time. If like me you move your drawing around and tend to use the tablet very centrally the wear does become more noticble quicker. But overall great drawing tablet and would recommend.
I am a Linux Mint user. I got a Wacom tablet because I had read these are the only ones that have native linux support. One thing I want to clarify is that the maker itself does not provide linux drivers, however it does redirect you to the github page that provides these. Linux Mint does in fact have pre-installed the drivers, however I had to update one or two of them in order to get it to work. However, after trying for several hours, I could not get the tablet settings to recognize the buttons, and I had to change the settings for them manually from the terminal.
All in all, it will work, it is a good product, but you might find it is not as easy to get it to work on your linux distribution as you might have expected.
I love using small tablets like this instead of using a mouse. I’d highly recommend every heavy computer user to buy one.
This Wacom is as good as any other I’ve had. It’s as sensitive as you need it to be, fully adjustable and super responsive. The drivers are great once setup, but they have their issues. I disconnect the tablet sometimes to take with my laptop. When I reconnect I loose mouse mode and have to either reboot or re select it in preferences. Sometimes it randomly looses mouse mode and sometimes touch mode gets stuck on for no reason. All driver issues and not hardware related. Sort it wacom. Other than that, it’s perfect as mouse replacement or for drawing.
I had rsi from using a computer too much for my job, the movement of a mouse constantly over a day took its toll. Using a pen like this solved all my issues. After 10 years using a pen instead of a mouse I can confirm it helped me massively. It’ll take time to get used to the change but persevere with it.
I’m a training instructor and as well as running courses in classrooms in our centres and at client locations, I sometimes need to deliver classes over the internet using conferencing software and hardware. One issue with this is how on earth do you use a whiteboard? I decided to buy one of these tablets to see if it was any use.
The first thing you notice is that it is smaller than you think. The box contains the tablet, which has rubber studs on the back and four mappable buttons along the top, the stylus, and a USB cable. Software is downloadable from the Wacom website. It’s a cinch to set up – you can pretty much just plug it in and use it straight away, but the software allows you to remap the buttons on the tablet for your own chosen functionality, configure the screen size (important if you are using multiple monitors and have your desktop extended across them all, as the tablet assumes that the complete width of all your monitors is a single screen, unless you tell it otherwise in the app) and so on. The stylus doesn’t use batteries and has some spare tips inside – just unscrew the barrel and they’re stowed inside.
It takes a bit of getting used to. As soon as you hold the stylus over the tablet it works as a mouse, and if you tap on the tablet surface it registers as a click, so if you really take to it I suppose you could even ditch your mouse. Of course, the tablet works with graphics software such as Photoshop and Gimp, but it also works with the likes of Microsoft Paint, Paint.Net and Windows Ink within Windows 10. For my purposes (sketches during courses) I found that Microsoft Paint or Windows Ink were absolutely fine. Sure, these “lesser” packages don’t support pressure sensitivity whereas the likes of Photoshop do, but for me they were perfect. The hardest thing to remember is that as you draw on the tablet, nothing appears on it, just on the screen, but after a little while I found that it became second nature. Weirdly I did find that if I tried drawing in Paint.Net with the tablet some things didn’t work so well, such as if I wrote with the stylus, or tried to draw freehand circles, but it was fine in other programs.
If you’re a trainer like me and you want something that will let you doodle on the screen, present courses remotely with a virtual whiteboard, or if you fancy dabbling with photo editing, this tablet is small, light, portable, and doesn’t break the bank. Of course, bigger and snazzier ones are available, but this one was a brilliant buy for me.
I’m a beginner, and I chose the medium size, which I’m more than happy with. It’s very slim and lightweight, but feels well-built for the price. On the Wacom UK website, the price for this is 179.99, but on Amazon, I paid 109.99 (new) which is a steal.
It connects via BT to my Dell XPS (Win 10), and charges fairly quickly. I can also use it via USB although I wish the USB lead was a bit longer as I prefer to use the port on the other side of my laptop (the far side, because my laptop is hooked up to an external monitor, which it’s sitting to the side of… anyways), but I use BT instead.
The colour is pretty cool. Would be nice if they came out with other colours, but that’s not the most important thing here to consider.
The pen feels nice in my hand and it comes with 4 standard nibs (one’s already installed and the other 3 nibs are inside the pen, revealed by unscrewing the top of the pen. The nib tool is built into the top of the pen too. It has a nice weight, and feels natural to hold. The two buttons don’t get in my way but is easy to reach with my thumb because I place my thumb just below the bottom button, normally. Drawing on the tablet feels natural. Looking up at the screen whilst drawing takes a little practice but feels quite natural.
Online registration was fairly straightforward, and I was able to claim all 3 software that’s on offer. I haven’t installed them because Illustrator and Photoshop serves my needs.
Wacom’s software + driver were very easy to install and setup. You can customise your tablet and pen settings for both general use and per-app use, which is very handy.
The only thing I would ask for from Wacom at this point would be to release a Paper version (like Intuos Pro Paper but without the hefty price tag) in Medium size. It kinda frustrates me I can’t lay a piece of copy paper over the tablet and trace over it with the pen, even though there are other ways around that.
This is a game changer when it comes to editing images, and I guess (since I don’t really use for that) drawing. It is insanely precise, it works perfectly fine with both Lightroom and Photoshop. If you own a recent laptop that has ditched all USB-A ports (such as the new MacBook Pros or DELL XPS 13) the bluetooth version is a must, but I don’t mean this in a bad way; bluetooth connectivity is superb and also being tethered is so 20th century, there is no latency and the battery last for various sessions of editing. You can charge the battery with any standard micro usb (the same one that you already use to charge other devices) so no issues there. Included with the tablet is a micro usb to USB-A cable, so if you need a USB-C you will need to pick it up separately (or if you don’t already own one a dongle) but it really isn’t a big deal since you probably won’t need it (I have only connected the tablet to laptop once, when I was setting it up).
Make sure you download the drivers that come with the tablet so that you can personalise the buttons and functions to your liking. I for instance only use a portion of the pad since I feel 7 inches is a bit too much, but then again it is all personal preference. That tablet also comes with some free software but I personally can’t comment on it since I have not use them.
TIP: if you are into drawing of want to get into it, Sketchbook Pro is free and totally compatible with WACOM tablets