Product: Wacom Intuos 4 (Medium)
Manufacturer: Wacom
Pricing:

• Small (6.2” x 3.9”, no LED display) – $250    Find Lowest Price @ PriceGrabber
• Medium (8.8” x 5.5”) – $350     Find Lowest Price @ PriceGrabber
• Large (12.8” x 8.0”) – $550     Find Lowest Price @ PriceGrabber
• Extra Large (18.2” x 12.0”) – $800     Find Lowest Price @ PriceGrabber

Author: Bill
Date: June 22, 2009

Over the years, I’ve owned a number of WACOM tablets. It started with a relatively inexpensive Graphire 2 (small) USB tablet, and I still use it to this day. I take it to classes and use it as a lightweight note-taking tool, but its lack of extra features beyond pressure sensitivities keeps me from using it for extended Photoshop use. I have recently reviewed the Intuos 3, which offered a number of additional control surfaces alongside the tablet area. The Intuos 4 is the next progression in WACOM’s line, offering a number of advancements in its extraneous controls, and an upgrade to the main tablet sensitivity. Let’s take a look!

Packaging

The tablet was packaged in a decorated box similar in size to most laptop packages. It features extensive artwork and decoration, and a carrying handle on top. If it wasn’t so bulky, I would hang on to it to transport the tablet. Inside is the tablet, a USB cable terminating in a mini-a connector, a compatible mouse and pen, and a pen stand with some hidden functionality.

Devices

The tablet itself differs greatly in appearance from its predecessor. It’s sleek and black, with a symmetrical side panel featuring revamped controls. It features a removable USB cable (included). Flipping the tablet 180 degrees offers the same functionality for left-handed users. The main coating is a matte black, which is a welcome change from the drab blue/grey of the Intuos 3. The side controls are sheathed in a glossy black that attracts fingerprints and dust obviously. Interestingly, the glossy material from the Intuos 3 did not do this.

The pen has been upgraded to support the new sensitivity steps, and is physically shorter than the surprisingly elongated Intuos 3 pen. It matches the black style of the tablet perfectly. The mouse operates in the same way, but sports a more rounded and ovoid form. The thumb switches have moved to the top face, and are positioned to the front and back of the wheel.

Top: Intuos3 Pen Bottom: Intuos4 Pen

Left: Intuos3 Mouse    Right: Intuos4 Mouse

Major upgrades have taken place in the most diminutive of the accessories: the pen stand. It’s now less conical than the previous model, but still has a decent weight to keep it from toppling over. It is still contoured to hold the pen sideways, but now opens to reveal the extra nibs, and a nib-extracting tool. This is awesome. My previous tablet sported the extra nibs scotch-taped to the side of the stand, and I needed to use a pair of needle-nose pliers to remove nibs from the pen. This would invariably scratch the nibs while removing them. I’m glad to see WACOM creatively integrated this into the pen stand.

Controls

The new tablet technology allows for twice as many sensitivity levels as before, but this renders previous pens/mice incompatible. I would have enjoyed being able to use my previous accessories on the new tablet to take advantage of the extensive customization available in the driver. Different pens/mice can have their controls and settings customized separately. In this way, one pen can have a soft feel, while another can be stiff and have its buttons mapped to different functions. Pens are expensive accessories, and I will not be purchasing additional pens to take advantage of this.

The new control surface to the left (if you’re right-handed) is the most significant upgrade to this tablet. Instead of vertical control strips, a round touch-wheel is seated at the center of the console. It has four modes, which can be toggled between by pressing the center button. Four buttons above and below the wheel are completely customizable in the driver, and can be different depending on the active application. All but the small sizes have LED displays to the right of the buttons to indicate their assigned functions. If that isn’t enough, you can assign one of them to display an on-screen guide to the controls and their functions. Initially, I used this quite a bit to keep from having to look down at the tablet, but eventually remapped that button to an additional function as I got the feel of things. The LED displays have different intensity levels, and turn off after the tablet is idle for a time.

Driver

The driver functions similarly on both Windows and Mac platforms, embedding itself in the Control Panel or System Preferences respectively. In addition to being able to customize the functions of the different control surfaces, the driver supports a “radial menu” which can be invoked using any of the ExpressKey buttons. This menu is completely customizable, and offers an on-screen display of user-defined functions. Wedges of the menu can be assigned to invoke sub-menus with additional options. You will need to upgrade the driver to the current version to take advantage of the Intuos 4’s functionality, but it is backwards compatible with other WACOM products.

Testing

Like all of the WACOM products I have owned, this tablet functions as expected, without error. It offers pressure and tilt controls, and another pen offers an additional rotational control. Different nibs offered varying feels on the tablet surface, and were easy to remove and store (thanks to the new pen holder). I thoroughly enjoyed using it, and found that the new ExpressKey controls were much more useful than the previous controls on the Intuos 3. Consolidating them to one side was a smart move, and the detachable USB cable furthers left/right hand operation. The touch dial was much more responsive than the previous control strips, but the buttons lacked quality feedback. They felt mushy and would float in their mountings, sometimes appearing crooked. This is an unfortunate step backwards from the satisfying buttons on the Intuos 3. The tablet looks sharp, and turned heads around the office, but the glossy coating on the ExpressKey section attracted fingerprints in a way that the Intuos 3 did not.

Conclusions

In all, the tablet was a solid upgrade from the Intuos 3. The new functionality is a solid plus, as is the upgraded form and style. Graphics professionals will love the new sensitivity levels and the enhanced workflow provided by the ExpressKey enhancements. Casual users can benefit from this as well, but the price point for the medium size tablet of $350 may be too steep for non-professionals. It provided me with enough usable area, but needs vary from user to user.

Pros

+ New ExpressKey controls (software and hardware) are a great improvement
+ Slick looks, improved ambidextrous design
+ Upgraded pen, mouse, and pen-holder are excellent improvements
+ 2048 pressure levels double the sensitivity of previous tablets

Cons

- ExpressKey buttons are disappointingly mushy, out of alignment
- Glossy black material attracts dirt and fingerprints worse than the original chrome iPod backings

Tags: Intuos, Intuos4, Tablet, Wacom