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New Pogo Connect stylus feels the pressure

For years Wacom has ruled the digital stylus market for artists, photo retouchers, and others who want to marry the worlds of pens and computers. But touch-screen tablets are rewriting the rules for digital input, and Ten One Design hopes its new Pogo Connect stylus will prosper as a result.

The company already sells the more ordinary Pogo and Pogo Sketch tablet stylus products, which are held like a pen but which a tablet or smartphone sees as a finger. The new $80 Pogo Connect, though, adds a higher-end feature from the Wacom world: pressure sensitivity.

That means the harder … Read more

Wacom debuts futuristic Cintiq interactive pen tablet

I have just one word for Wacom's new interactive pen display, the Cintiq 24HD: WANT. "Expensive" would be my alternative selection. Given its $2,499 price tag, it's out of reach for all but serious artists and designers. For those unfamiliar with the Cintiq line, they're displays with integrated pen tablets; in other words, they're the pen tablet equivalent of touch screens, so you can draw right on them.

Wacom's previous Cintiq products, the 21UX and 12WX, which remain in the product line, are certainly no slouches, but this model shows the attention … Read more

Wacom gives sketchers an Inkling of the future

When it comes to tools for integrating freehand art into the digital workflow, Wacom remains the leader. Its tools aren't perfect--and certainly aren't cheap--but it's hard to find any more respected. And when it comes to drawing, nothing yet beats pen (or pencil) and paper for fluidity and portability. Wacom attempts to combine the best of both worlds with its Inkling, a pen and receiver combo that tracks your penstrokes for up to 50 sketches and uploads them to a computer for use with applications like Photoshop or Illustrator.

This tutorial video from Wacom shows you how … Read more

iPad as sketchbook: Hands-on with the Wacom Bamboo Stylus

Can the iPad be a valid artist's tool? Wacom, maker of professional digitizer tablets and computer peripherals for artists, has gone ahead and put its vote in the affirmative, with the upcoming release of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus for the iPad. Available in May for $29.99, the roughly pen-sized aluminum stylus works via a conductive barrel with the iPad's capacitive display. We were sent an advance unit from Wacom and gave the Bamboo a spin with our iPad 2 and some popular sketch programs.

The iPad has had styli available since its launch last year, and they'… Read more

Touch pads compared: Apple Magic Trackpad vs. Wacom Bamboo

With the Apple Magic Trackpad creating ripples regarding the spread of touch across all Apple devices, it's important to regard a product that visited this territory last year, and perhaps even attempted it more ambitiously. The Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch, a combination multitouch trackpad and pen-based tablet that theoretically offers a killer alternative to the Apple's pad for one reason alone: its versatility.

After reviewing the Magic Trackpad this week, I realized that a Bamboo was still in a drawer in my cube, and I pulled it out to revisit. How did it compare with Apple's sleek square? And, more importantly, are there any areas where it's even better?

First off, the Bamboo is larger than the Magic Trackpad. The extra-wide Bamboo Fun Pen and Touch I have is a lot larger. It's similarly colored to Apple's tiny device, but made of a less sturdy-feeling plastic that's prone to scratching. The Bamboo Pen and Touch is a also a USB-wired device, unlike the wireless Magic Trackpad. It's also more expensive: while a $69 model offers only pen or touch input but not both, the combination pen and touch-pad combo that most users would want costs $99. The extra-large version we reviewed, the Fun, costs $199. The not exactly cheap $69 Magic Trackpad comes off as a relative bargain. … Read more

Wacom revamps 21-inch Cintiq display-tablet

Well-funded digital artists take note: Wacom has announced its Cintiq 21UX, a second-generation device that combines a 21.3-inch display with the company's pen-controlled tablet.

The new Cintiq is geared toward artists, designers, and others who benefit from being able to draw or otherwise interact directly with images on the screen rather than through a separate tablet or mouse. It doesn't come cheap, though, with a price of $1,999 when it ships in late March or early April.

The color LCD, with a resolution 1600x1200, can be laid flat or rotated one way or the other up to 180 degrees in its stand, or dismounted altogether, Wacom said in its Monday announcement. On the back are two "touch strips" that let a finger slide adjust properties such as zoom or drawing brush size. … Read more

Wacom takes Intuos4 wireless

Close to a year after launching its excellent graphics tablet, the Intuos4 series, Wacom releases an updated version with Bluetooth wireless connectivity. Available only in the medium-size version for about $399, $50 more than its USB-only twin, the Intuos4 Wireless becomes a great option for artists and illustrators on the go--or even sedentary ones with an aversion to wires.

The Wireless model runs off a replaceable lithium ion battery that charges via the USB connection. You have to charge it before going wireless, as well as be physically connected to install the driver. After that, Bluetooth setup is fairly typical. You switch the tablet on and press a button to initiate the "I'm here!" broadcast and wait for your system to discover the tablet, which is essentially treated as a mouse. Note that the tablet doesn't ship with a dongle, so if your system doesn't have Bluetooth you'll have to deal with that separately.… Read more

Wacom 2009 tablets

The 2009 line of Wacom Bamboo pen tablets is available in several configurations. CNET has reviewed the flagship model (the Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch), but we've listed the others are listed here for comparison shopping purposes:

The Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch CTH460 ($99 list) comes in black, and has both multitouch and pen capabilities. It has a 4.9 x 3.4 inch active touch area, and a 5.8 x 3.6 inch active pen area. It includes with Adobe Photoshop Elements and Nik Color Efex Pro software.

The Wacom Bamboo Touch CTT460 ($69) is exactly … Read more

Wacom adds multitouch to its tablets

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 … Read more