Drawing Tablet advice
 

I'm thinking about buying one but I'm pretty much clueless about it.

What's the best brand outhere? Is there any especific feature that I should look for? What's the hottest model around?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Hey Tawnee,

My question is, what do you plan to do with it?

I have a tablet, which is a Wacom Intuos 3 9x12. Its the latest model, and the most expensive brand when it comes to drawing tablets. According to reviews, the best one out there, and used by professionals. Mine cost about $300+ when I bought it last year. Really cost an arm and a leg especially where I come from, third world country and all. But if you're passionate about digital art or plan a career on it, its a great investment.

The advantages of a Wacom brand is that its pen is cordless, batteryless and therefore lightweigth. Really amazing just because its cordless. I've been using one from Genius a year ago with a cord and its really a hassle when drawing.

If you're on a tight budget, the intuos brand comes in different sizes, like 4x6 (not sure) smaller means cheaper of course.

Also you can buy the older generation wacoms, the Intuos 2 models, since basically they function just as well the Intuos 3, except some people say the pen shape in Intuos 2 isnt as ergonomic as the Intuos 3.. Also the Intuos 3 has extra buttons on the tablet that you can map to application specific functions like cut and paste etc, and it also has a "touch strip" so you can zoom in your drawing just by touching the strip in certain directions.

There is also a cheaper Wacom Graphire brand, with lesser level of pressure sensitivity. (512 I think) Intuos has 1024.

Or you can also get the Wacom Cintiq models where you can view and draw directly on pressure sensitive LCD screens just like canvas. Over $3000 though!

Other tablet brands I know of are Motorolla, Genius and Aiptek. They have either cords and require batteries though.

Go to www.wacom.com for product comparisons.

Also here is a top ten rundown review
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/abo...icstablets.htm

and to http://valiance.wordpress.com for some of my art works made with wacom :D

If you have any more questions about the wacom tablet feel free to ask.

I've never heard of an Intuos selling so cheaply. An A4 Intuos3 with mouse cost's nearly $500 here in the UK ;_;.

Heheh, I got a special offer. It was yet to be launched here then, even asked me for my artworks for display at the mall launch event. :P

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/9...invites9wz.jpg