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simie

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 26, 2004
1,192
71
Sitting
http://www.wacom-europe.com/uk/press/releases/release.asp?id=232&prlanguage=uk

Wacom launches Bamboo range
17.9.2007
A pen for every PC or Mac



Wacom today announces a new family of consumer pen tablets. No longer an exclusive tool for creative professionals, the Bamboo range of advanced input devices comes initially in three forms – Bamboo, Bamboo Fun and Bamboo One. Combining a tablet with an ergonomically designed, cordless and battery-free digital pen and supporting software, each product provides an enhanced and creative way of using computers at home and at work for a wide range of uses.

Bamboo – make your mark
Launched in May 2007, Bamboo is an award-winning sleek, black input device for consumers in the home office or workplace. Designed for use with office applications and supporting the advanced pen functionality now available in current operating systems including intelligent handwriting recognition, Bamboo can be used to customise emails, letters, spreadsheets, presentations and documents with signatures, notes, doodles and scribbles. The wide-format tablet also has four ExpressKeys for quick navigation and a Touch Ring.

Bamboo comes with JustWrite Office software and now has a new price of £54.99 including VAT.

Bamboo One – get started
Bamboo One is an ideal tool for new users who would like to explore the possibilities of a pen tablet. With a brushed silver design, the tablet and digital pen offer a simple and intuitive way of interacting with a computer, enabling a personal touch to be added to digital photographs, invitations, birthday cards and emails. Simply plug and play, Bamboo One also presents an easy and quick way of navigating office applications.

Bamboo One comes with ArtRage 2.0, a stylish and simple-to-use painting package and is priced at £34.99 including VAT.

Bamboo Fun – create your world
With a stylish, white design, Bamboo Fun comes with Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 for PC (Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 for Mac OS), as well as ArtRage 2.0, making it a versatile input device ideal for consumers keen to develop their creative skills. Users can easily produce more natural and authentic-looking paintings, sketches and drawings, as well as retouch, improve, manage and share digital photographs. The four programmable ExpressKeys on the tablet itself make it quick and easy to use different shortcuts. Bamboo’s Touch Ring is ideal to zoom in and out or scroll through documents.

Bamboo Fun comes in two sizes – small and medium – reflecting the trend towards wide screen display and is priced at £69.99 including VAT and £139.99 respectively.

Each pen tablet in the Bamboo range enables users to unlock powerful pen-based features found in current operating systems, particularly Microsoft Windows Vista and Mac OS. They also include Wacom’s patented pressure sensitivity technology, enabling users to intuitively control and draw natural strokes or retouch digital images with pinpoint accuracy.

A recent, independent study recommends that due to the significant reduction in muscle tension when using a pen tablet, mouse users – with or without typical RSI complaints – should switch to using a pen tablet as often as possible. The RSI study is available to download from the ergonomics section on the Wacom website - http://www.wacom-europe.com/int/use-it/ergonomics.

Why ‘Bamboo’?
Bamboo is a perennial evergreen plant that grows in diverse climates, from cold mountains to hot tropical regions. It is a very versatile resource being used as raw material or transformed into tools, construction and many different products for various applications. Our digital pens are as versatile, hence the Bamboo name. In China, the very first pens were made combining bamboo sticks and fur and the Chinese symbol for ‘pen’ is formed by a combination of these two symbols: fur and bamboo.

Wacom, the leading manufacturer of pen tablets and interactive pen displays, today reinvents the pen for the 21st century.

More information about Bamboo can be found at bamboo.wacom.com.
 

swearpidia

macrumors newbie
Apr 20, 2008
1
0
Wacom Bamboo One Review

I just bought my first PC tablet and it is a Wacom Bamboo One. In this review I will talk about why I need a PC table. Why I choose it over other tablets and my experience with it on the first day. If you are like me and thinking of buying one and still not sure then read on.

Why I need a PC tablet?
===============
My neck and shoulder muscle hurt specially my right shoulder due to the mouse. Also I am learning flash and want to make a flash game for my website. Also because I am a bit bored and in need of a new toy. Lastly my wife uses photoshop to touch up her photos.

Why I use Bamboo One?
================
I spend a day searching the internet and Wacom seems to be the name associate with PC Tablet quality. I also look up AipTek and other brands. My general feeling is I won't be sorry if I choose a Wacom where as I might need to buy twice if I choose a cheap one.

I conclude that Bamboo is my choice because it is cheap and enough for my use. When I go to the shops today I discover Bamboo ONE. Which is 40% cheaper than the regular Bamboo. After checking both products here is the list of differences I discover:

Bamboo
=====
Slightly bigger
Has the ring and nav keys
It's black in colour
Appears to have an eraser
Vertical pen holder
Claims to have hand Recognition software
40% more expensive

Bamboo ONE
=========
No Eraser
Hand Recognition from Vista works

First time experience with PC tablet & Bamboo One on VISTA.
=================================
You need to install the drivers
----------------------------------
I plug in the tablet as soon as I arrive home and didn't bother to install the driver since I am very eager to play with it.

I remove my mouse and replace it with my tablet and start playing. I encounter problems. The cursor was hard to control and my desktop icons are being dragged all over the place. I simply made a mess of my desktop.

I went to VISTA control panel and the pen input device to make some changes. I.e I made the double tap speed faster so that I don't mistakenly tap my desktop icons. I disable Press and hold so I can place the pen on the tablet for a long time without clicking anything.

If you are a first time PC tablet user like me you will find that the pen does not need to touch the tablet in order to move the cursor. I still am not too acustom to this behavior. Also the cursor movement is different to the mouse. I will cover this in the tutorial part.

Once you install the Drivers that come with the Bamboo One. You have another Icon in your Control Panel 'Pen Tablet Properties'. There you have more options to choose for the buttons on the pen.

Tutorial
=====
After you installed the drivers. You will see a tutorial option on the installation menu. It is recommended by Wacom to go through the tutorial and I must 120% agree with it. After the tutorial the cursor is very much in control.

With the PC tablet, you can make the cursor jump to a specific location on the screen simply by placing the pen on the respective area on the tablet. E.g to place the cursor on the top right hand corner of the screen, just place the pen on the top right hand corner on the tablet. This needs getting used to.

ArtRage 2.0
========
ArtRage 2.0 comes with the box. I thought it would be a simply version of paintshop but I was wrong. It is a very nice drawing software that allow you to make my screen looking like an artist canvas. I am very impress with what I can do with it so much I am thinking of making my first web banner with it.

VISTA
====
Vista comes with a few new ultilities for the PC tablet. I am very impress with the Flickr function. You know how you can drag pages up and down with the iphone well you can do with the pen. I just program it so that I can drag my web page to scroll up or down. You can also program it to do different things.

Tablet PC input panel is a VISTA tool that allow you input characters. It can do hand recognition in English and with my Chinese Vista, Chinese too. My hand writing is bad and let's say the hand recognition is 7/10. However I find the keyboard much faster. You can have it in keyboard mode so that you are presented with a keyboard and you can tap on it to type. I just browse the web a few times using opera and firefox using just the PC tablet with no keyboard and no mouse and it is ok. When I need to enter something to google I use the Tablet PC input panel. Clicking on web links is no problem. I also find it useful to use the flickr function to scroll down the page. The only thing I miss is the zoom function from the mouse scroll wheel.

There are two other Vista ultilities 'Sticky notes' and 'Windows Journal'. You can write on them and make notes. I find it hard to write on it since in tablet mode my input area is restricted to a very small area on the tablet. You cannot use the whole tablet input area.

Others
=====
I find it hard to click on small items on my screen because the tablet is too small. BTW I am using 1650x1050 wide screen. I hope I won't press the wrong option in Adobe Flash 8 Pro.

Conclusion
=======
I am still not entirely confident that I can replace the mouse with the PC tablet. Time will tell. And for my shoulder and neck let's see if it can help too.

But for this price I think it is very good. I will definitely use it for paintshop and stuff from now on.


I hope this review is useful to you.


http://www.swearpidia.com
 
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