I will warn you in advance, I’m no artist. I’ve dabbled in the graphic arts for years, but I’ve never had formal training aside from a single year of drafting in college. On the other side of the coin, I edited or revised over 35 titles on Adobe’s PhotoShop software and Corel’s CorelDRAW (back when it was still competitive). I know that sounds odd, but even though I can’t paint a Picasso or model a Mona Lisa, I know how these programs work and how they put it all together. Just try doing it with a mouse.

That’s where Wacom comes in, and they’ve been doing it very well for a very long time. A couple of years ago I reviewed their first Bluetooth wireless tablet. Let’s just say that, even though I liked it, I didn’t like the Bluetooth component. It was difficult to keep it charged and it would drop connections on occasion. Accuracy was also not so great. Wacom has come a long way on their low-cost tablets, though. Their new Bamboo tablets, while not wireless, are fantastically portable and work really, really well.

I received two of the tablets, the entry level Bamboo and the art-oriented Bamboo Fun which comes with Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 3.0 and Corel’s Painter Essentials 4.0 bundled in. The basic Bamboo comes in black and comes with a power supply, pen, and pen stand. Pricing is set at US$79 and its designed for basic pen input, text entry, annotation, and art. It does not come with a Wacom tablet mouse or any bundled software, but it works quite well with PhotoShop CS3. I also tried it with the software bundled with the Bamboo Fun and it works very nicely.

The Bamboo Fun comes in white, silver, blue, and black and comes in Small and Medium sizes. The small tablet priced at US$99 has an active area or 5.8″ x 3.7″ and the Medium priced at US$199, the one I received, has a 8.5″ x 5.3″ active area. I’ve mentioned that it comes with Photoshop Elements and Painter Essentials, but it also comes with a copy of Nik Color Effects Pro 2.0. All of the software installs on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs. Installation tests were performed on a Power Macintosh G4 (known as Mirrored Drive Door) and a MacBook Pro.

The tablets themselves are very nicely styled and quite thin. One of the nicest touches Wacom added was to thicken the included pens signifncantly. This achieves two things. First, it makes it easier to hold the pne comfortably. Second, it makes it far easier to hold the pen and actuate the button. On earlier, thinner pens it was hard to hold the pen in a way which you could easily push the button. As usual, the pen is magnetic, so it doesn’t require batteries or a leash. You can also swap out the nibs to get a different tactile feel depending on what you need. The Bamboo Fun also has an eraser at the end, and the tablet can tell which end is being used. The Bamboo pen has an eraser, but it doesn’t erase.

Overall, the tablets are fantastic and work as expected. Being artistic with them is quite easy, and anyone interested in or skilled at traditional art forms who want to get into computer-based art will find either of these two tablets a pleasant addition to your pallete. If you simply need to annotate documents or make digital signatures, the Bamboo is perfect and well priced.

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