Wacom Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch CTH661 user reviews

3.5 stars

"A Good Choice for Digital Art Newcomers." on June 27, 2010 by knelsenn

Pros: 1. The slim design of the tablet and its pen;
2. The pen pressure quality is as good as any tablet for pros;
3. The customizable keys for shortcuts are very useful;
4. The multi-touch feature can be very useful to those who dislike using a mouse.

Cons: 1. The USB cable cannot be disconnected from the tablet.
2. Using the multi-touch function can be very annoying and might even make you give up on it.
3. Only 3 extra nibs.
4. That flashing light between the 2 middle shortcut keys is annoying.

Summary: I've been a Wacom user for about one year now. At first I got myself an Intuos4 Large, but a couple months later, after buying a Macbook Pro 13", I felt the need of having a smaller tablet to take with it whenever I go to work/college. That's when I found out about Bamboo Fun Pen/Touch. I've been using it for about a month now and, I've been "mostly" satisfied with it, except for a few things I'll discuss later here.

The slim design makes it easy to fit in any backpack. You can take this tablet anywhere you want, which is wonderful if you also own a laptop ( 13" or larger ).

The pen sensibility works great with softwares like Photoshop/Painter. Both amateurs and pros can use this tablet and I'm sure they will not be disappointed in its pen pressure quality. Like any Wacom product, you can adjust the pen sensibility, the active area of the tablet and how it'll behave to multiple screens however you want.

The pen's simple design makes it easy to hold, like a regular pen. It's a good thing for people who are new to this sort of tool, so they don't have a hard time getting used to it. It's something I miss in my Intuos 4's pen, since it is thicker on the side I hold it and I really dislike that. Sure, I could just buy the "classic pen" and my problem would be resolved, but do I really have to pay another 60-70$ just for that?

The four shortcut keys are very useful and they can be customized to act however you want. You can also create customized menus, triggered by any of those keys. With these, you can build shortcuts to make your time as productive as possible.
Its price is quite reasonable, most tablets with the same size/features from Wacom are about 100 USD more expensive.

Now for the things I don't approve in this Tablet:

The USB cable. I don't know about other users, but to see that the older Bamboo Fun had a removable USB cable and NOT to see that in this new model is an AWFUL thing. I always carry this tablet inside my backpack with my laptop and the fact I cannot de-attach the cable from the tablet to put it elsewhere really annoys me. Besides, what happens if I start having issues regarding bad contact in the cable? If I could just remove the cable and use another one in it's place, I would easily resolve my problem. But in this tablet's case, I can't. Which is very stupid from Wacom, I will say. If I knew about this before buying this tablet, I would probably have chosen another model. ( EVEN the Bamboo Pen has a removable USB cable! Isn't that an absurd? )

The multi-touch function is new to this kind of product and it does appeal to many users. But it would be much better if it actually worked decently. Which doesn't happen, unfortunately. If you own a Mabcook and got used to the smooth and fast response from its trackpad, you will most likely hate Bamboo Fun`s multi-touch function. Its response is quite slow and using two fingers to scroll through webpages most times becomes annoying since it stops working in the middle of the process. This function needs a lot of improvement and I don't recommend users to buy this tablet only because of it.

Whenever you touch the tablet's active area, whether with your fingers or with the pen, you'll notice that flashing light between the two middle shortcut keys. That can be a very distracting and annoying thing if you are somewhere with low light. And you can't change it's light intensity like you can with the Intuos4.

It's not my case, but many people are still used to having a mouse and might hate the fact this tablet doesn't come with one. The multi-touch function is a great idea but it doesn't replace a mouse's functions.

Also, you get only 3 extra nibs n this model. Other products from Wacom come with at least 5. So why's this ? Nibs can wear out quickly depending on how often you use the tablet.

Overall, I consider this tablet to be a good choice for those who are beginning their experience with Digital Art. Yes, there are some things that need a lot of attention in this model. But despite these, it has good quality and may be of great use to designers and digital illustrators.