The Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch
(Credit: Wacom)Wacom's pressure-sensitive tablets have already been pretty great at what they do, but they've added a simple and appreciated wrinkle for Windows 7 and Mac OSX multitouch addicts: their new pads now double as giant multitouch pads, too.
Available in a range of sizes and functions, Wacom's Bamboo lineup has pads that are touch-only, as well as touch/pen combo pads. In our opinion, the combo is really the only way to go--Wacom's wireless pressure-sensitive pen is worth the tiny bit of extra investment, and is nearly good enough to drive would-be artists right over the edge into art dabbling themselves.
The larger Bamboo Fun ($199)
(Credit: Wacom)$69 will get you either a small black Touch pad or a small black Pen pad, but the Pen & Touch combo costs $99. A silver-colored Bamboo Craft edition comes with extra software bundles for crafting and scrapbooking. Meanwhile, at the top end of the line, the $199 Bamboo Fun is larger and has more room for its pen/touch interface. The silver Bamboo editions include Corel Essentials 4 as well as Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 WE3 and Photoshop Elements 7, while the lower-cost pads include various combinations of one or two of these programs.
It's been about five years since Wacom launched its Intuos3 tablet line. That's an awfully long time in computer years; then again, Wacom has little in the way of competition for a tiny slice of the pro graphics input device pie. And it's nice to have some products that you don't have to constantly worry about upgrading to the Next New Thing.
Still, it looks like Wacom has spent its time well, because the new Intuos4 tablet line was worth the wait. With a sophisticated design and cleverly engineered new controls, the Intuos4 is both a pleasure to use and to look at.
Read my review of the Wacom Intuos4 (watch for it on 3/25).
Axiotron's Modbook is an Apple MacBook rebuilt to become a tablet computer.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)SAN FRANCISCO--On first glance, Axiotron's Modbook is unsettling. It takes a moment before you realize it's because you've been programmed by countless Apple advertisements to expect a keyboard down there below the screen.
But Axiotron thinks its Modbook machines look just fine, thank you. The start-up, founded in 2005, just began selling its "Tablet Mac" machines the last day of 2007 and is showing them off at the Macworld trade show here.
The company hopes to appeal to artists, designers, and photographers who want to be able to draw or otherwise directly interact with the screen. That can be done with products such as some Wacom graphics tablets, but the Modbook is a more portable option.
Axiotron makes the Apple-authorized machines by rebuilding MacBooks it buys from Apple with Wacom pen-computing technology that lets people draw, click, or write directly on the screen. It has a virtual keyboard, but if you want a real one, you'll have to purchase it separately and plug it into a USB port.
The Modbooks run Mac OS X and employ either a 2.0GHz or 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 processor. They also come with a 13.3-inch, 1280x800 screen, Inkwell handwriting recognition software, a built-in iSight camera, a DVD Combo drive or SuperDrive, and GPS (Global Positioning System) abilities for location.
For a model with 1GB of memory, the price tag begins at $2,290, the company said.
Update 10 p.m. PST: Cosmetic similarities--for example the white bars on the top edge of the machine--suggest that the Axiotron system might have been the origin of a rumor last year of an Apple tablet computer.
(Credit:
Wacom)
In the next few months, markets in Asia and Europe will get a 12.1-inch widescreen tablet that plugs into a USB port and is fanless, silent and won't burn your thighs. It doesn't come with a keyboard, but it does come with a spiffy 1,024-pressure pen. And you don't even need to spend money on future upgrading because it doesn't need RAM or an operating system.
If you haven't already guessed, we aren't describing any ordinary tablet PC--we're talking about a real drawing tablet. Wacom's Cintiq 12WX is a smaller version of the 21.3-inch version that's already on the market in the United States and elsewhere. It is an interactive pen display, which means it's really high-end: Instead of penning on a tablet that's on a table while awkwardly relating your handiwork to the riffraff on the computer monitor, the 12WX lets you draw directly on the screen, all in a portable device. Now that's a cool canvas.
(Source: Crave Asia)
Bamboo Fun
(Credit: Wacom Technology)In technology circles, hitting the quarter-century mark makes you positively ancient. That may be the impetus behind Wacom's decision to update its logo at the same time as it jettisons the Graphire brand for consumer pen tablets, redesigning and rechristening them with the trendier moniker "Bamboo."
Two models launch the series. The Bamboo Fun--doesn't it cry out for an exclamation point?--targets the popular growth segment of project-oriented imaging enthusiasts largely defined by scrapbookers. It comes in two sizes and four colors--black, white, silver, and an electric blue--and features big, friendly looking programmable buttons and a touch ring for zooming and scrolling. The Fun comes with the typical Wacom bundle of imaging apps: Adobe Photoshop Elements 5/4 (PC/Mac), Nik Color Efex Pro 2 filters, and Corel Painter Essentials 3.
Wacom Bamboo
(Credit: Wacom Technology)Wacom's biz-oriented Bamboo lacks the Fun in more ways than one. It's targeted at users who want to take advantage of the enhanced ink capabilities in Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 for tasks like digital signatures, annotation and markup. The Fun-less Bamboo comes in one size (small), one color (basic black) and sans bundled apps.
Both tablets are slated to ship this month. The Bamboo Fun will cost $99.99 (small) and $199.99 (medium), while the Bamboo will run $79.99.
Bamboo. It's not just for Pandas anymore.
(Credit:
Wacom)
What a letdown. When we first heard the name of Wacom's new digital tablet, the "Bamboo," we were hoping for something like the wooden laptops and DVD players we've lusted after. Alas, it appears to be made of standard manufactured materials, attractive enough but nothing like a bamboo TV. But enough about our sylvan fetish.
The touch tablet, which Technabob says is designed for consumer use, appears to be the successor to Wacom's "Graphire" line with some updates such as four "express" keys and a familiar-looking scroll ring. It's supposed to work with Windows Vista's handwriting-recognition software but be Mac-friendly as well.
And for a relatively reasonable price of $150, we can forgive Wacom for not adding a wood finish. It's still unclear why they named it Bamboo, though.
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