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Cliff3

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 2, 2007
1,556
178
SF Bay Area
I have never used a graphics tablet before but I have been wanting to experiment with one for quite some time. My needs are driven by photography, and my primary use would be with the adjustment brush in Lightroom. I am also a Photoshop user and use with that product with retouching and layering/masking tools would be a secondary use. Wacom tablets, even the Bamboo line, are not inexpensive and their prices have deterred me from taking the plunge. I ran across some favorable anecdotal reviews of Monoprice graphics tablets recently. The Monoprice tablets range in price from $19 to $84 with a roughly A5-sized tablet priced at $40. At that price point, the buying decision became a lot easier. I received this tablet last evening: product link.

To give you a sense of its size, here is a thumbnailed photo of it positioned in front of my 30" monitor.

graphics+tablet-8014.jpg


The tablet is manufactured by UC Logic and newer drivers than what were packaged with the product are available for download from their web site. Installation was simple, just install the drivers, plug the tablet into a USB port, and install the supplied AAA battery into the pen. The installation routine adds the pen driver to the login items for the current account. The configuration utility is not added as a preference pane but rather as a separate application accessed from the /Applications/PenTabletSetting folder. It permits the configuration of the pen buttons, the pen area on the tablet, hot cells that appear as a row across the top of the pen area, and pressure sensitivity.

I am still learning how to use a tablet. Using it to draw masks with the adjustment brush is much more intuitive than using a mouse and the control is better. I am still getting a feel for using it to manipulate the many sliders in LR's develop panel and it is definitely different than using a mouse. Lifting the pen away from the tablet seems to be the most effective way to disengage the pen from the control that currently has focus. It is different from what I am used to and will require some learning on my part.

I quickly tried it in Photoshop using it to do something simple like signing my name. The brush width was sensitive to pressure, so that aspect of the driver works. Again, with experience I am sure my skills will improve.

The equivalent Wacom tablet is the Bamboo Fun. The Wacom's pen area is a bit smaller that the Monoprice tablet: 8.5x5.4" compared with 10 x 6.25". The Wacom pad comes with some bundled software while the Monoprice pad does not, but the software bundled with the Wacom is not compelling to me. Especially when you factor in the price difference: $169 from Amazon for the Wacom tablet versus $40 for the Monoprice tablet.
 

dyn

macrumors 68030
Aug 8, 2009
2,708
388
.nl
The only problem with cheap tablets is this: 1x - AAA battery for pen. This makes the pen thick and heavy. Wacom does not use a battery, the tablet feeds the pen (electromagnetic induction). That makes it a lot more comfortable to use. Wacom tablets also seem to perform better, movement seems to be smoother than on cheap tablets in my experience. Another big plus is the support you get with Wacom. If you still have a Graphire 1 tablet and you need a new pen or new nibs you can still get them from Wacom. Most of the cheaper tablets don't have this (you need to buy a new tablet).

As for price, well most "cheap" tablets are somewhere around $20 or $50. The Wacom Bamboo Pen is also around $50~60. It doesn't differ that much since the Bamboo series. And since you can still buy nibs, pen, etc. when the tablet is like 5 years old this puts the Wacom tablets on par imo.
 

Monoprice

macrumors newbie
Jan 10, 2011
10
0
Hi Cliff3,

Thanks for the review of our product! We like to here user inputs from time to time so it is much appreciated even if its quick one .

Thank you! I use these tablets myself and I love it :).

Tech Support
Monoprice.com
 

ankh

macrumors member
Jan 9, 2003
76
4
Anyone able to install usably with Mt Lion? No luck here, pointer goes to 0.0 upper left corner no matter what. I see the Ubuntu folks wrestled with it and got it working with much effort.
 

osiodmak

macrumors newbie
Jul 2, 2007
5
0
Works with Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Downloaded the UC Logic drivers (http://www.uc-logic.com/en/index.php?ParentMenuID=4) it it worked perfectly. I was actually able to use the tablet before the driver install, but the software allows you to configure the pen buttons and tablet quick keys. Since I am not a graphics designer the $40 tablet is perfect for my needs. I agree the Wacom product has it's advantages but you need to weigh your usage of the device against the price. For my screen manipulation, photo editing and minor touch-up tasks, this is working fine.
 

seanoo

macrumors member
May 10, 2014
35
31
Hi All,

I'm hoping somebody can send me a private link to the drivers? The website (http://www.uc-logic.com/en/index.php?ParentMenuID=4) appears to be down. On a new machine and can't pull the driver over myself due to data loss.

Thanks a ton if anyone can help out.
-S

PS. I'm on Mavericks if that matters.
 
Last edited:

ankh

macrumors member
Jan 9, 2003
76
4
this might be it

http://www.uc-logic.com/demo/support.html

Gave up on their main site, went to the home, got past a 404 somehow, hit this new page with promises of a LCD display touchpad tablet coming sometime in July, lots more links that don't work, finally stumbled onto that page that has a Windows and a couple of OSX drivers that can be downloaded -- newer than anything I've seen.
 

compuwar

macrumors 601
Oct 5, 2006
4,717
2
Northern/Central VA
Great review. I was looking a couple of months ago, and ended up with a factory refurbished Bamboo Capture off of eBay for about $18 more than the Monoprice. After reading all the Amazon and blog reviews of the Monoprice and generic it's based on, I decided that the price delta would be ok- I'd have gone with the Monprice over a new Bamboo though.

My primary use was to try my hand at digital painting, not to edit photos, and I haven't tried any photo editing with it yet, but for my use, I doubt there'd be much difference between the two.

Paul
 

davidcastellani

macrumors newbie
Jan 13, 2017
2
1
Raleigh, NC
this might be it

http://www.uc-logic.com/demo/support.html

Gave up on their main site, went to the home, got past a 404 somehow, hit this new page with promises of a LCD display touchpad tablet coming sometime in July, lots more links that don't work, finally stumbled onto that page that has a Windows and a couple of OSX drivers that can be downloaded -- newer than anything I've seen.


Ankh, you wouldn't still happen to have those drivers would you? Their site is really offline now...
 

ankh

macrumors member
Jan 9, 2003
76
4
Is Monoprice still reading this thread?

I tried all the drivers, including the newest one -- and the pen cursor just jumps to the upper left corner of the desktop and sticks there.

Do you have any suggestion what to do to make it function?

OSX Mavericks 10.9
 

TheDrift-

macrumors 6502a
Mar 8, 2010
879
1,400
Is Monoprice still reading this thread?

I tried all the drivers, including the newest one -- and the pen cursor just jumps to the upper left corner of the desktop and sticks there.

Do you have any suggestion what to do to make it function?

OSX Mavericks 10.9

Sell it and buy a wacom?
 

Dr.Buzz

macrumors member
Jul 27, 2007
32
2
This is the oldest post ever, but if you made it this far, I have a solution for older macs. I originally installed wacom drivers and my monoprice magically worked. It didn't seem to matter what type of tablet was plugged in. And I had a cheaper Monoprice. So far, no go on 10.12. :(
 

ankh

macrumors member
Jan 9, 2003
76
4
> wacom drivers
Tried that with the 2011 MacBookPro and the 2011 Mini. No joy.

Symptom is, as soon as the pen is pressed to the device, the cursor drifts to the upper left corner of the screen and hangs.

I'd suspect I have a hardware problem, but Monoprice assured me it has to be software.

Oh, wait, would they try to fob me off with a poor excuse to keep me from returning it? It's been a few years now.
Sorry, warranty expired.

Feh.
 

xincheng

macrumors newbie
Aug 10, 2020
2
1
france
It's a decent starter tablet, but I found it disagreeable with my art programs of choice, particularly regarding pen pressure. There was pen pressure of course, but coming from a different tablet that I had used previously (but broke), I found the pressure lacking in comparison, especially with smaller px brushes. I've since upgraded to a XP-PEN Deco 01 V2 tablet and as expected, I have a greater range of pen pressure now. This might not matter to you, especially if you're just getting started in digital art, but as someone who draws comics it ended up being an annoyance.
 
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