Wacom Intuos4 Medium Pen Tablet
Review by Terry L. White "Gadget guy" : A must have for Photoshop retouching.

Length:: 9:02 MinsThe New Intuos4 is better in almost every way! In this video I'll show you my favorite new features.

Wacom Intuos4 Medium Pen Tablet
Review by Ray E. : Intuos4 Medium vs. Bamboo Fun

After writing this I was afraid of TLDR issues. Here is the short and sweet - if you are going to get a Wacom tablet, and you know you are going to use it, save your lunch money and get the Intuos4. End of story - if you get a Bamboo and later try an Intuos4 you'll kick yourself, I guarantee it. Higher accuracy, higher resolution, higher sensitivity, tilt recognition, higher data rate (more responsive), better construction, better warranty. If you want to know how I came to this conclusion, read on.

Please keep in mind: I have worked in the IT industry for over 13 years. However overall I am not a pro user of these products. I have about two weeks of use on each. I used the tablets on a Mac Pro with photoshop, corel, and sketchbook pro 2011.

I spent close to two weeks trying to decide on a Wacom tablet for Christmas - Bamboo Fun vs Intuos4 Medium. I kept reading about the pros of each. I could not find a comparison review, nor a single product review that pushed me solidly one direction or the other. Should I spend the extra money on the professional level product?

In the end, I started with the Bamboo because:
I didn't want to waste money. The Intuos4 medium was another $150 - almost twice the cost of the Bamboo. I am not a professional and people said the Bamboo had the same levels of sensitivity as the previous professional model (Intuos3). I wasn't 100% sure the kids would keep using it or get full value from it. If I didn't think it was for me, I could always trade up and try the Intuos4.

Initially we were very happy playing around with the Bamboo. There is nothing blatantly wrong with it at all. It has deservedly positive reviews. People make wonderful works of digital art with it. After playing for about 10 days, and watching youtube vids of people using Wacom tablets, I ran across a comment against the Bamboo that finally broke me. Someone pointed out that the USB cable was attached to the tablet, and cannot be replaced if it breaks. Toss it straight into the trash. Hmmm - bad news. If you look closely at the construction, you can also tell it would be very easy for the cable to wear out. I cannot believe I hadn't noticed that flaw myself. We have two lefties and two righties in the house and we are constantly rotating the tablet. I don't want to be replacing a 200 dollar tablet over a 10 dollar cable. I boxed her up that day and returned it for the Intuos4 Medium.

Let me tell you what people, the Intuos4 is worth more than the extra $150. Any day of the week. Even removing it from the box was a pleasure.

USB Interface:
Bamboo - Cable is attached, thin shielding, and not replaceable.
Intuos4 - Cable is removable, very well made, thick and several feet longer than it needs to be (2.5 m). TWO USB inputs on the tablet, so the cable can always be situated at the top. Also provides a spare port in case one breaks! As an IT guy, this alone was worth an upgrade. Well played, Wacom.

Buttons:
Bamboo has 4 buttons. One button is used to turn the touch functions on and off. Touch Pad functions can be used to pinch zoom, rotate, scroll, etc if the app supports touch.
Intuos4 has 8 buttons with LEDs plus a touch ring wheel. The touch ring can be assigned 4 functions for all applications. Fully programmable. The kicker - the touch ring can be used for all the touch pad functions that the Bamboo did, and does them better. Rotate, Zoom, Scroll, Undo, change your pen size - you name it. Spin the ring with your off hand while drawing. Another upgrade that was easily worth the 150 bucks alone.

Pens:
Bamboo accuracy .02 inch. A very light, plastic toy feeling pen. There were a couple extra nibs in a plastic bag.
Intuos4 accuracy .01 inch. Pen is noticeably heavier. It reminded me of picking up a very well made tool after using some crap made in China and getting that sudden realization that you've been doing it wrong all this time. The pen recognizes tilt - the angle you hold the pen at. The cool "ink well" stand is classy and holds 10 extra nibs and the nib replacement tool. You suddenly start signing your name with a flourish. It just feels right! The Intuos4 also includes a wireless mouse that can be used on the pad if you are not using the pen.

Pressure levels:
Bamboo 1024
Intuos4 2048
People said you can't tell the difference, but let me tell you I could, and so did my wife. It may not be the ONE thing you need to upgrade for, but it's one more reason to spend the extra cash, for sure.

Resolution:
Bamboo 2540 lines per inch
Intuos4 5080 lines per inch

Software packages:
Are basically the same, Intuos4 software package must be downloaded though - Bamboo has physical media.

Tablet itself:
Basically same review as the Pens, the Intuos4 is heavier and feels much sturdier and like a professional tool.

Warranty:
Bamboo - 1 year
Intuos4 - 2 years USA and Canada

Wacom Intuos4 Medium Pen Tablet
Review by JW : if you're buying your first Wacom tablet...

All the product info is on the Wacom site and there are plenty of reviews here to give you an idea of what people may or may not like, though honestly the intuos4 is your best choice for a tablet at this point in time (but you probably already knew that.) So what I'm going to do is talk a little about the things I wish someone had been friendly enough to talk to me about years ago before I bought my first Intuos.

I'm an artist, freelance photographer and web designer, why should you care? Well if you're doing the same things I am then maybe I can help you decide what size tablet you should buy. If you really want a Wacom tablet chances are no one is going to change your mind and all that's left to decide is what size to get and how you're going to justify spending so much money (until the tablet arrives and you can only think about how cool it is.) I do a little digital painting and sketching, usually just for fun, the majority of my painting and drawing is done with traditional materials. I'm not a digital artist, but all the best digital artists I know have a really strong background in traditional painting and drawing, so if you're a budding digital artist don't dismiss what I have to say just because I'm getting old and prefer pencil and paper, those are still valuable tools, and they're cheap! I do a LOT of photo editing and web design, that's the primary reason I have a tablet. I do a lot of detail work so I prefer to draw using my wrist as opposed to using my whole arm to make big sweeping strokes.

When I first decided to buy a Wacom tablet I did a lot of searching around the internet and asked for opinions at art forums I was a member of. Most of what I found was people complaining about how "stupid art n00bs" constantly ask for advice about tablets when they shouldn't own one and the occasional comment from a professional digital artist about how they prefer the XL size, none of that helped me. So I bought a large Intuos2 because I thought that sounded like the right choice, it was huge. I loved the tablet but I found that I always ended up mapping a much smaller work area onto it, so all that extra space was usually wasted. I don't think it takes all that long to get used to using a tablet in general, but what did take some time was getting used to moving my stylus 3/4 the distance I wanted my pointer/brush to move. You see, a small mouse movement usually equals a large screen movement, but when you have a big tablet you have to make larger movements and it can feel a bit awkward at first.

So recently I decided it was time to upgrade and I bought the small Intuos4, for me it's perfect.

The tablet is about the size of a standard clipboard, it's thin and very portable. I can feel all the buttons and they're slightly tilted so as long as I remember which button is for what (or if I push the first one to see the on screen display) I can easily find the button I want and push it. I don't need the OLED display, I never look at the tablet while I'm using it. I never find myself running off the tablet or wishing I had more room. I have absolutely no problems with this product, it's exactly what I wanted, it's perfect for the work I do.

My advice: give the small tablet a try. It's cheaper and if you buy a refurbished unit you'll get one that's practically brand new for around $50 less with a one year warranty, that's not a bad deal. You can take that $50 and buy a Belkin Nostromo game pad, program it with keyboard shortcuts for your favorite image editing program and cut your work time in half. There's no shame in having a small Wacom (giggle if you have to) a lot of people prefer the small because of how they work and the size of their workspace. If you buy a small and don't like it you can always return it and buy a medium instead.

I hope all my rambling helps somebody... :D