Product: Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch
Supplier: Wacom
MSRP: $99      Find Lowest Price @ PriceGrabber
Author: Bill
Date: January 24, 2010

Wacom is the undisputed leader of pressure-sensitive tablet interfaces, and they are expanding their entry-level line with the latest Bamboo tablet, the first tablet to offer multi-touch input alongside the traditional stylus. As a Mac user, I consider myself lucky to be using one of the best multi-touch trackpads available. It took a month to get used to, but my MacBook Pro trackpad seems to respond to my thoughts. I’ve discovered just how to touch the surface to elicit a response, and multi-touch gestures are seamless. It’s a real time-saver, and it’s incredibly comfortable because of its large size. The Bamboo Pen and Touch looks like a large trackpad, which could be an even better experience if implemented properly.

Packaging

As usual, Wacom spared no expense packaging their product in a stylish and protective display box. Included are the tablet, pen, replacement tips, tip removal tool, and documentation.

Background

I’ve owned Wacom tablets for years, and have reviewed the Intuos 3 and 4 tablets for MaximumCPU prior to this review. My old Graphire tablet and the Intuous 3 tablets use Wacom’s older pressure-sensitivity system that allows for 1024 levels of sensitivity. The Intuous 4 line debuted the new inductive response system that allows for twice the sensitivity. This also prevented pens/mice from different system from being interchangeable. The Bamboo uses this older system of 1024 levels, but does not seem compatible with my Graphire or Intuos 3 tools.

Wacom is the only company offering an inductively coupled measurement system, which ensures passively powered pens and mice. There are no batteries in pens or mice. As long as the tablet is powered up, the accessories will work when proximal to the surface of the device.

Physical Properties

The Bamboo Pen and Touch tablet is styled along the lines of the previous Bamboo products, and the newer Intuos 4 line. Matte and glossy black components create clean lines and a diminutive look to the instrument. The pen is not padded like the more expensive models, but offers a comfortable weight and shape. Like the higher-end products, the pen has interchangeable tips for varying textures. Two replacement tips are included, but are both of the standard variety.

Top: Bamboo Pen & Touch     Bottom: Intuos4

The tablet has an integral USB cord; something that was present on the Intuos 3 but made removable on the Intuos 4. The cable is quite long and comfortably flexible. Four push buttons and an activity light sit to the left of the active tablet area. Tablet behavior is fully configurable in the driver suite.

Drivers

I updated my tablet drivers from the Wacom website and expected the Bamboo to operate, but it did not. As it turns out, the “Wacom Tablet” settings pane does not cover this product. I then installed the “Pen Tablet” pane and was back in business. Initially the settings pane was a 32-bit application and required System Preferences to restart in 32-bit mode in OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) but was quickly updated to 64-bit.

The driver suite operates in a similar way to the original system, allowing for the pen behavior to be changed and the pushbuttons to be mapped. Multiple pens and application-specific settings are not supported.

Pen and Touch, Together

This is the first Wacom product so support multi-touch technology. If you put down the pen and use your finger, the tablet functions as a large trackpad. In this way it works well. Two-finger scrolling was smooth, but coasted to a stop (like the iPhone) instead of stopping immediately (like my Mac). This felt awkward until I realized what was going on. Tapping and two-finger-tapping (right click) are smooth. Pinch zoom and rotate need some help. Both seem to operate in quantified ‘steps’ as opposed to being seamless and smooth. Rotating jumps to 90-degree increments, and zooming suffers a similar jumpiness.

Gestures using more than two fingers are not supported yet. While I am used to three-finger swipes for page up/down, home and end, there is no such implementation on the tablet. Swiping two fingers to the left or right acts as page up/down, but sometimes scrolls horizontally. Four-finger gestures were new to me when I upgraded to Snow Leopard, and are also not possible on the Bamboo.

As a traditional tablet, it performs as expected. Pressure-sensitivity is accurate and reproducible. Where the tablet fumbles with gestures, it succeeds in interpreting pen-based input smoothly. While using the pen, it’s most comfortable to rest your hand on the surface of the tablet. The tablet will ignore touch input if the pen is detected in any way to prevent this from being a problem, but sometimes your hand will be interpreted alongside the pen. I mapped one of the pushbuttons to disable/enable touch functionality.

Conclusions

As its first attempt at a multi-touch tablet, Wacom has some work to do but is on the right track. Because I have such high expectations from Wacom, I felt let down by the sometimes jittery performance of the touch component. As a traditional tablet, it offers a great experience for the price. The driver situation was perplexing and disappointing, but can be fixed. The tablet is physically wonderful. I’m hoping a few driver revisions or a firmware update can bring this product up to Wacom’s existing quality level.

Pros

+ Absolutely beautiful product

+ Pen input mode

+ Basic touchpad operations

Cons

- Spotty gesture support

- Inelegant driver solution

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Tags: Bamboo, Pen, Tablet, touch, Wacom