Wacom Intuos4 Large Pen Tablet Survey Originally I gave Intuos4 Large a bad review because of the nib wear. But after 2 years of heavy use, my surface is completely smooth and no longer wears out my nibs at an alarming rate. Now I'm very satisfied with this model. PROS - More sensitivity, doubling from 1024 to a whopping 2048 levels. It's a nice improvement when sketching very light construction lines, ie "ghosting". Not a huge help for painting in Photoshop, since I use opacity and flow to adjust my paint layer applications. -Scroll wheel is a nice addition and offers good control when zooming. -OLED screen for shortcuts is also a nice addition in case you forget the express key assignments. -Like it's intuos3 predecessor, the pen is ergonomic and comfortable. -Pen holder has good functionality because it now holds your spare nibs. Convenient, since you will need to replace nibs like crazy. -Widescreen formats now for all sizes. CONS - The nibs wear out to an annoying chiseled point within hours, and completely gone in days! If you continue to paint with a worn out nib, you will scratch the surface so don't be cheap. This has been the most common problem since most forums have very disgruntled artists spending extra money stocking up on overpriced nibs. $1-2 per plastic nib that costs them 1 penny to make. Just type "intuos4 nib wear" and you can read for yourself. This is due to the new paper-like friction surface, which is nice but not necessary. I've never worn out my intuos2 or intuos3 nibs in 6 years! - As a result, the surface sheet will eventually become completely smooth. Depending which area you use the most, you'll soon get uneven surfacing throughout. So while one side has the friction feel, another area is worn out smooth. So you'll have to replace the sheet within a year. I've yet to replace my intuos2 or intuos3 sheets. -The express keys on one side is a great idea, but they are TOO FIRM. They also are placed awkwardly, are too small, and sizes are too similar. I find them uncomfortable and useless since I rarely look down while working since it's about speed and productivity in the motion picture/gaming industry. Plus having wrist issues in the past, these buttons are not ergonomic at all. -Express key area is a fingerprint magnet. If you continually clean off that area, you will slowly produce little scratches. -Bad customer support for intuos4 from Wacom. The design flaws i mentioned above have been reviewed by Wacom forum reps on their Wacom Europe forums. It seems they are in total denial of any design flaws. They have offered cheap ploys that blame the customer for the nib wear and bad advice such as taping paper onto a $400-700 piece of hardware to cover up their mistakes. SAD but true. FINAL THOUGHTS -If you are thinking about upgrading from intuos2, an intuos3 or intuos4 is a must. The ergonomic intuos3 or intuos4 pen alone makes it a necessary upgrade. -The only size that I would not recommend is the Extra Large version. It's way too thick: 1. 1 inches thick vs the thin . 6 inches of the Large model. I have no idea why Wacom couldn't keep the same thickness, go figure. First of all, I must say that the only tablet I have used before is the Wacom Intuos3, so I will be drawing my comparisons mainly between the Intuos3 and Intuos4. I understand that there are a multitude of tablets/digitizers in the market, such as Genie and *forgot the company's name*, but my review will mainly focus on Wacom's line of tablets. To start off, I must say that if you are considering a tablet, then you might want to first try the Wacom Bamboo/Bamboo Fun before shelling out hundreds for a Intuos. Everything aside, I love my Intuos4, and I think it is definitely a worthy upgrade from Intuos3 (or any other tablets in general), especially if you spend hours everyday with a pen. Intuos4, instead of the gray metallic look of the Intuos3, hosts a cool black matte finish with a high-gloss black side panel. It is a lot thinner than the intuos3, a much lower profile, and a 16:9 aspect ratio. Since most of us have widescreen monitors, I think it is very thoughtful of Wacom to update the aspect ratio of the Intuos4, but be warned though; if you use a 4:3 monitor, you might experience problems with drawing ratios since the 16:9 active area will be 'squeezed' to fit into a 4:3 layout; what this means is that if you draw a tilted line on the tablet, the line will appear to be squeezed horizontally and stretched vertically on the 4:3 monitor. Of course,
you can manually limit the active area in the Wacom configuration software, but that would force you to sacrifice a portion of working area, so take this into consideration when purchasing this tablet. The biggest design change from the Intuos3 is the layout of the expresskeys. Because of the ambidextrous design, Wacom placed all the keys on one side of the tablet, so there are more keys available to the users. What I think is extremely thoughtful of Wacom is that for the Small tablet, it came with 2 USB tables, one tilted upwards and the other downwards, as to cater to both the left-handed and the right-handed configuration. Note, however, that the Small version of the Intuos4 does not have the OLED display to the right of the expresskeys, and instead of 8, you will only get 6 keys (but it is more than sufficient for me). The problem I have with the expresskeys is that in the Intuos3, the keys are shaped differently, so that it is very easy to locate a specific key without having to constantly look down; however, for intuos4, since all the keys are shaped exactly the same, it is extremely easy activate the wrong key. . . this is especially the case with Intuos4 Small, since there is no visual indication as to what function each key is assigned to, making navigation difficult. I think Wacom should have made each of the keys more distinct tactilely[sic?], especially for the Small version. However, I think this should not be much of a problem after some time of getting use to (I only had it for a day). The Touch Ring is what I think the biggest innovation in the Intuos4. The touchstrip was great, but you can only assign one function to the strip, but with the new touch ring, you can assign 4 different functions, switchable with the press of the central bottom. What this means is that you can assign Zoom/Rotate/Brush Size/Opacity/Flow/etc. all to a single touchring, which greatly boosts productivity, and makes the tablet more intuitive to use. This is especially true with the new 'Rotate' feature in Photoshop CS4, but I have noticed that there is a significant latency delay (lag) when invoking the rotate function with the touchring, but it may just be me. The new rubberized grip pen also features the cool black finish akin to that of the tablet; the weight of the pen is almost perfect, and the rubber grip makes using the grip pen more comfortable than ever before, but the rubber grip also attracts dust and lint, so it may be subjected to constant cleaning. The pen supports 2048 levels of sensitivity, and since I have a light stroke, the penstrokes register a lot better with Intuos4. The rocker on the pen, however, has a very poor travel, and a bit awkward to use. But all in all, I prefer the Intuos4 grip pen over the Intuos3 version for its comfort and usability. The new improved tablet surface is perhaps as close as you can get with real Pen-on-Paper experience with a digital tablet. Intuos3's surface is extremely 'slippery', and drawing on it feels like plastic-on-plastic; however, the Intuos4's surface makes me really feel like drawing on paper with almost perfect travel and traction. The different nibs offer different levels of friction, simulating different mediums. This concept was attempted in Intuos3, but I think Intuos4 has really perfected the formula, making drawing on the tablet feel almost the same as drawing on paper. I don't usually talk about the pen-stand, but the pen stand for Intuos4 is definitely worthy mentioning. A high gloss black finish, the pen stand can be twisted open, revealing a nib storage compartment with slots to store 10 extra nibs (a All the product info is on the Wacom site and there are plenty of reviews here to give you an idea of what people may or may not like, though honestly the intuos4 is your best choice for a tablet at this point in time (but you probably already knew that. ) So what I'm going to do is talk a little about the things I wish someone had been friendly enough to talk to me about years ago before I bought my first Intuos. I'm an artist, freelance photographer and web designer, why should you care? Well if you're doing the same things I am then maybe I can help you decide what size tablet you should buy. If you really want a Wacom tablet chances are no one is going to change your mind and all that's left to decide is what size to get and how you're going to justify spending so much money (until the tablet arrives and you can only think about how cool it is. ) I do a little digital painting and sketching, usually just for fun, the majority of my painting and drawing is done with traditional materials. I'm not a digital artist, but all the best digital artists I know have a really strong background in traditional painting and drawing, so if you're a budding digital artist don't dismiss what I have to say just because I'm getting old and prefer pencil and paper, those are still valuable tools, and they're cheap! I do a LOT of photo editing and web design, that's the primary reason I have a tablet. I do a lot of detail work so I prefer to draw using my wrist as opposed to using my whole arm
to make big sweeping strokes. When I first decided to buy a Wacom tablet I did a lot of searching around the internet and asked for opinions at art forums I was a member of. Most of what I found was people complaining about how "stupid art n00bs" constantly ask for advice about tablets when they shouldn't own one and the occasional comment from a professional digital artist about how they prefer the XL size, none of that helped me. So I bought a large Intuos2 because I thought that sounded like the right choice, it was huge. I loved the tablet but I found that I always ended up mapping a much smaller work area onto it, so all that extra space was usually wasted. I don't think it takes all that long to get used to using a tablet in general, but what did take some time was getting used to moving my stylus 3/4 the distance I wanted my pointer/brush to move. You see, a small mouse movement usually equals a large screen movement, but when you have a big tablet you have to make larger movements and it can feel a bit awkward at first. So recently I decided it was time to upgrade and I bought the small Intuos4, for me it's perfect. The tablet is about the size of a standard clipboard, it's thin and very portable. I can feel all the buttons and they're slightly tilted so as long as I remember which button is for what (or if I push the first one to see the on screen display) I can easily find the button I want and push it. I don't need the OLED display, I never look at the tablet while I'm using it. I never find myself running off the tablet or wishing I had more room. I have absolutely no problems with this product, it's exactly what I wanted, it's perfect for the work I do. My advice: give the small tablet a try. It's cheaper and if you buy a refurbished unit you'll get one that's practically brand new for around $50 less with a one year warranty, that's not a bad deal. You can take that $50 and buy a Belkin Nostromo game pad, program it with keyboard shortcuts for your favorite image editing program and cut your work time in half. There's no shame in having a small Wacom (giggle if you have to) a lot of people prefer the small because of how they work and the size of their workspace. If you buy a small and don't like it you can always return it and buy a medium instead. I hope all my rambling helps somebody. . . :D After writing this I was afraid of TLDR issues. Here is the short and sweet - if you are going to get a Wacom tablet, and you know you are going to use it, save your lunch money and get the Intuos4. End of story - if you get a Bamboo and later try an Intuos4 you'll kick yourself, I guarantee it. Higher accuracy, higher resolution, higher sensitivity, tilt recognition, higher data rate (more responsive), better construction, better warranty. If you want to know how I came to this conclusion, read on. Please keep in mind: I have worked in the IT industry for over 13 years. However overall I am not a pro user of these products. I have about two weeks of use on each. I used the tablets on a Mac Pro with photoshop, corel, and sketchbook pro 2011. I spent close to two weeks trying to decide on a Wacom tablet for Christmas - Bamboo Fun vs Intuos4 Medium. I kept reading about the pros of each. I could not find a comparison review, nor a single product review that pushed me solidly one direction or the other. Should I spend the extra money on the professional level product? In the end, I started with the Bamboo because: I didn't want to waste money. The Intuos4 medium was another $150 - almost twice the cost of the Bamboo. I am not a professional and people said the Bamboo had the same levels of sensitivity as the previous professional model (Intuos3). I wasn't 100% sure the kids would keep using it or get full value from it. If I didn't think it was for me, I could always trade up and try the Intuos4. Initially we were very happy playing around with the Bamboo. There is nothing blatantly wrong with it at all. It has deservedly positive reviews. People make wonderful works of digital art with it. After playing for about 10 days, and watching youtube vids of people using Wacom tablets, I ran across a comment against the Bamboo that finally broke me. Someone pointed out that the USB cable was attached to the tablet, and cannot be replaced if it breaks. Toss it straight into the trash. Hmmm - bad news. If you look closely at the construction, you can also tell it would be very easy for the cable to wear out. I cannot believe I hadn't noticed that flaw myself. We have two lefties and two righties in the house and we are constantly rotating the tablet. I don't want to be replacing a 200 dollar tablet over a 10 dollar cable. I boxed her up that day and returned it for the Intuos4 Medium. Let me tell you what people, the Intuos4 is worth more than the extra $150. Any day of the week. Even removing it from the box was a pleasure. USB Interface: Bamboo - Cable is attached, thin shielding, and not replaceable. Intuos4 - Cable is removable, very well made, thick and several feet longer than it needs to be (2. 5 m). TWO USB inputs on the tablet,
so the cable can always be situated at the top. Also provides a spare port in case one breaks! As an IT guy, this alone was worth an upgrade. Well played, Wacom. Buttons: Bamboo has 4 buttons. One button is used to turn the touch functions on and off. Touch Pad functions can be used to pinch zoom, rotate, scroll, etc if the app supports touch. Intuos4 has 8 buttons with LEDs plus a touch ring wheel. The touch ring can be assigned 4 functions for all applications. Fully programmable. The kicker - the touch ring can be used for all the touch pad functions that the Bamboo did, and does them better. Rotate, Zoom, Scroll, Undo, change your pen size - you name it. Spin the ring with your off hand while drawing. Another upgrade that was easily worth the 150 bucks alone. Pens: Bamboo accuracy . 02 inch. A very light, plastic toy feeling pen. There were a couple extra nibs in a plastic bag. Intuos4 accuracy . 01 inch. Pen is noticeably heavier. It reminded me of picking up a very well made tool after using some crap made in China and getting that sudden realization that you've been doing it wrong all this time. The pen recognizes tilt - the angle you hold the pen at. The cool "ink well" stand is classy and holds 10 extra nibs and the nib replacement tool. You suddenly start signing your name with a flourish. It just feels right! The Intuos4 also includes a wireless mouse that can be used on the pad if you are not using the pen. Pressure levels: Bamboo 1024 Intuos4 2048 People said you can't tell the difference, but let me tell you I could, and so did my wife. It may not be the ONE thing you need to upgrade for, but it's one more reason to spend the extra cash, for sure. Resolution: Bamboo 2540 lines per inch Intuos4 5080 lines per inch Software packages: Are basically the same, Intuos4 software package must be downloaded though - Bamboo has physical media. Tablet itself: Basically same review as the Pens, the Intuos4 is heavier and feels much sturdier and like a professional tool. Warranty: Bamboo - 1 year Intuos4 - 2 years USA and Canada I use the tablet for sketching. I love the 2048 levels of sensitivity, because the pencil feeling is closer and also the multiple functions on the tablet make it a very functional and versatile tool. However, I use sketchbook pro which is a very simple program, but very practical and agile, and in this program I found very disappointing the delay shown in the wireless tablet. It make the tablet useless, due that this delay disturb the sketching and you can't sketch as agile as you normally do on paper. I have to use it wired to be able to have the quick response I expected. If you use this tablet on Photoshop or Illustrator, you have no problem with it. Is wonderful, but if you use, sketchbook Pro, Corelpainter, ArtRage or some sofware similar, wireless tablet is definitely not the choice.
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