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"Excellent For Drawing Pictures!!" on by verminator
Pros: Price Was Okay, Solid, Easy Installation, Easy To Use
Cons: Wired, Mask Cover Is A Bit Hard To Remove, USB Cable A Bit Short
Summary: I haven't actually used this unit, but my 12 year old daughter has been on it almost every waking moment since Christmas morning. It was on the top of her Christmas Wish List.
She enjoys drawing her own pictures, creating icons and avatars and she uses MS Paint and Adobe Photoshop for most of her creations. Until she got this she was forced to draw them in pencil, then wait for me to come home to scan them and convert them into an image file and from there she would color them etc.
Now she draws outstanding pictures on the tablet directly into the computer.
The set up was painless and everything worked on the first go. The tablet, pen and included mouse act simply as another pointing device and allow you to keep your existing mouse connected and both will work at the same time, so no need to disconnect one or the other.
She has created some pretty awesome pictures with it so far!! I paid around $100 for it at London Drugs and I'm happy with it so far.
It comes with a detachable "mask" that allows you to put a photo or picture under it so you can trace it with the pen if you like. This is a cool feature, but in order to remove the make it requires you to unlatch 4 different latches under the unit. This is easy to do, but the cord often gets caught when you try and remove it. Not a big thing, but just takes a bit of fiddling with.
The pen is solid and feels good in your hand.
Keep in mind the included mouse only works when it's ON the surface of the tablet and will NOT work anywhere else...which is fine.
It comes with a couple of nice software packages from Corel and Adobe. I haven't used it much, but my daughter has and when I asked her what she would rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 she actually said "a 10".
If she continues with her love of this tablet and continues to create great things then I'll be looking at getting her a larger one, but I notice there is a huge price jump in the larger models (like 3X the price).
All in all, an excellent and solid little tablet! -
"Overall worth it (as a student note taker)" on by gv381622
Pros: you can make graphs quickly, no batteries, looks nice
Cons: corded, software applicatoins only mediocre, takes a bit of getting used to
Summary: So I bought this product for taking notes, specifically to draw graphs on the fly for Microsoft Word, it works great for that purpose, I wish it wasn't cabled (less cables the better) It's great thta you don't have to deal with a battery, the pen feels nice, could be heavier, the area is a bit small, maybe the 6x8 would be worth it, but you can definitely work with the 4x5, mouse is good, again, limited area to work with. Overall works great, would recommend this buy. Applicatoins are a bit weak, they're not as professional as they should be, word crashed on me once, when you use it with outlook it has to be in some Office 97 format or something, they really need to work on making the software as the hardware is useless without the software. but programs that come with it suffice, enjoy.
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"Good product for $50 (refurbished)." on by G☺☺k
Pros: Good for the price of $50 (refirbished). It's good for people who want to do graphics design for a hobby, but not spend a lot. The 2 extra buttons are nice for web browsing.
Cons: Very hard to set up on Ubuntu Linux. On Windows the driver and a background service is required to work properly. The mouse jumps around sometimes, found shaking it a bit will stop the jumping for a while.
Summary: I bought a refirbished one expecing it to be like new, but I was disappointed that it looked a bit dirty and scratched.
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"Great little tablet" on by 85Dave
Pros: Supports a lot of photo editing programs, easy to use, easy to install, great size and function, comes with pen and mouse, battery free.
Cons: May be a little small for some users. An optical mouse can't be used on this tablet. Included mouse is limited to the inside square which seems too small. Drivers can be a little hard to install, (at least on my Vista OS they were).
Summary: I got this product around the end of 2007 and have been using it in Adobe Photoshop from day one. I didn't like how the mouse stops in place if you go outside the square on the tablet however you can always use an optical mouse off of the tablet.
The drivers didn't install too smoothly on my Vista laptop or desktop but eventually I got the product working. If you don't have the drivers installed the pen works like a mouse not keeping position of where the pen is on the pad.
Overall it is a very nice product and isn't limited by batteries. I really enjoy working with this one and would recommend it to anyone looking into tablets. -
"Great tablet for beginners" on by shokkie
Pros: good for travel, easy to use and install, pleasant design, durable
Cons: more expensive than other brands, takes time to get used to the transition from a mouse
Summary: I recently bought this tablet after my graphire3 gave out, and I really like it. From a digital artist's viewpoint, Wacom is the most trusted brand, which makes the higher price tag very worth it. Graphires are lightweight and can be used for travel, and are very durable. These tablets are advertised towards a general audience who are looking for an alternative to a mouse, and many aren't aware of the time it takes to get used to the tablet (it can range from a few days to a few months) and many people tend to blame it on the tablet. All in all, for beginners or for digital artists on the go, this is a great tablet. Even though it's a less professional tablet (as opposed to the intuos line), the graphire4 is still a very powerful tablet.
Wacom Graphire4 4x5 user reviews
