I received my Intuos tablet a few days ago. I’ve gotten about 12 hours of use out of it so far…and so far it performs wonderfully! I do digital photo production and retouching for a living and Wacom has made a world of difference in my work.

Before I purchased this model I had been using an older Intuos 3. The older model does seems to be a little more solidly built. And the surface of the older model was a little more “glossy” than this one. But it took all of 10 minutes to get used to the new textured surface of this tablet. (The texture is pretty similar to the texture of the casing on my MacBook Pro) Yes, this new tablet is more lightweight, but that’s not really a bad thing in my book. This tablet also functions as a track pad, which is awesome! I can use the pen to retouch photos, then just turn my wrist and it’s my mouse!

All in all I’m in love with my new purchase. I highly recommend you get one. It performs just as well as my older (and much more expensive) model, plus it has more features AND a bigger writing surface. If you’re a photographer looking to touch up your photos, this one is a no brainer!

I bought this tablet strictly as a mouse replacement and this review is about my experience trying to find relief for my RSI.

As a Mechanical Engineer I spend 6-8 hours a day in front of a computer, mostly using 3D CAD programs such as Solidworks and Pro E. These programs are VERY mouse heavy and require precise movements. I had always used a traditional mouse (because I didn’t know anything else existed) with no issues until one day I noticed some pain in my right forearm. Thinking I was just tense that day, I powered through. The pain came back the next day even worse. I dealt with that for about a week, hoping it would go away or I could find a way to hold my mouse that would minimize the strain on my arm. I even tried mousing with my left hand for a week and the pain turned up there too! I turned to the internet for a solution and after a couple Google searches all roads seemed to point me towards a vertical mouse (Evoluent has some great SEO). Not wanting to drop too much money, I settled on the Lugulake vertical mouse for . For a single day I thought I had solved the problem because the pain was less intense in my forearm than it had previously been, but within a week the pain had moved from my forearm to my hand due to the new clamping force necessary to click the mouse and the new muscles that were now in a constant tense state. I knew this product would not work for me so I turned to the internet again and this time wound up at the trackball. I purchased the Kensington K72337US trackball and again I thought my problem had been solved. But after a week, the pain in my forearm returned with a vengeance due to all the finger movements necessary to operate a trackball. I began to panic. I make my livelihood off my ability to manipulate a cursor on a screen and thus far ALL my attempts at doing this seemingly simple task without pain in my arm had failed. After several more hours of research I was led to the pen tablet which is where my quest for painless computing has ended.

I purchased this tablet after reading good reviews and after a week of using this device nearly all my pain is gone (can you hear the hallelujah chorus?). My hand feels much more relaxed holding the pen than a mouse.
My biggest worry about switching to a pen tablet was a loss of productivity, but after a few days of getting used to using the tablet I believe I’m even FASTER with the tablet than I am with a traditional mouse (even with Solidworks). This is due to the fact that every point on the tablet is mapped to an exact location on the computer screen so with some practice you can move around the screen with much less hand movement than with a traditional mouse.
This tablet is extremely well made and it has far exceeded my expectations. Coming from a non-Adobe / Photoshop user I can easily say that this works well simply as a mouse replacement. In fact had pen tablet technology been around when Xerox first invented the mouse, perhaps we’d all be using these.

NOTE: If you’re buying this as a mouse replacement there are a few things you should know before you buy.
1. Pen tablets work much differently than traditional mice. With a mouse, you move the cursor and it stays put until the mouse is moved again. With a pen tablet, the cursor is moved by HOVERING the pen over the tablet and where you touch the tablet is where you CLICK. This really concerned me when I first started using it because I was nervous it would cause my forearm to tense up to make fine movements. This was not the case, however, and believe me you want it like this. If you moved the mouse by contacting the surface you would have to make significantly more movements to move the cursor across the screen, thus increasing the toll on your hand and arm. The way this tablet is designed, once you “learn” your screen you are much faster and more efficient moving the cursor but it will take some patience to get used to.

2. The buttons on the tablet and stylet can be programmed to any key or mouse click you want. This, in addition to a key remapping software can make you much more productive.

3. In retrospect it probably would have been worth the extra money to get the Wacom Pen & Touch tablet just in case I ever wanted to use the touch feature. But with how well like the pen mode I don’t think I’ll switch.

BOTTOM LINE: I’m so thankful for Wacom and this product because it has saved my career. If you’re experiencing any pain from a mouse (or simply want to join the 21st century), learn from my experience and get this as soon as you can. You’ll be extremely glad you did.

Great little tablet, for a great price. My husband and I were quite impressed. We both work in computer design fields and are familiar with tablets. I just needed something small to use at home and this little tablet fit the bill. Nice and lightweight, has a pen holder and comes with 3 extra nibs.

Drivers were simple to install. Just popped in the CD and it walked me right through the process and I was using the tablet within a couple minutes.

What I didn’t expect at first when I unpacked the tablet was the texture of the writing surface. It feels rather coarse. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it but once I started drawing on it it has a very papery feel, like a good quality drawing paper with some tooth to it. I actually found I like it, the slight resistance it gives your pen while you are drawing feels… right, for lack of a better term.

I took off a half star because it didn’t have an eraser, I wasn’t sure if it would or not when I bought it, and knew I wasn’t going to actually NEED the eraser for my uses so I’m not concerned. It’s honestly easier to it a hotkey in photoshop to switch the pen nib to work as an eraser than it is to flip over the pen anyway.