Wacom's Intuos 5 Pro tablet

            The Wacom Intuos 5 Pro computer tablet is a decently designed tablet. The intent of the tablet is to give artists and designers an alternative to using a keyboard and mouse. This alternative allows for much smoother line work and overall quicker design. Using a mouse can be rather clunky and it isn't nearly as accurate enough for smooth line control.

The tablet comes with a USB plug, stylus, a tablet specific mouse, and pen holder. Encased in the holder are three colored attachments, a pinching tool, and a multitude of spare nibs for the stylus. The colored attachments used to stylize the pen as well as label it if you have other Wacom stylus. It’s able to precisely measure the amount of pressure placed on the pen to the tablet’s surface. On the left side of the tablet is the interface which comprises of eight programmable buttons and four programmable LED touch panels in the center.

The tablet and stylus do have some minor flaws to consider however. One of the main problems with the device is that you are still dependent on a computer screen in order to watch what you’re drawing. It can be a real pain having to look back and forth between making sure the pen is on the tablet and checking where you made your mark on the screen. This can cause a very slow adaptation when consistently using a tablet instead of just simply jumping in and allowing creativity to flow smoothly. It creates a very steep learning curve for first time users. Another minor flaw is when you have to replace the nib of the pen with the pinching tool. The basic idea of the spare nibs is that they eventually erode during use and that you can simply pull it out and replace it quickly. However, pulling out a fully eroded nib is impossible due to the amount of the nib that you need to grab onto when using the pinching tool in order to pull it out. This means that in the long run, the nibs can’t be used for very long and must be replaced very frequently. It’s rather strange, seeing how long a nib is when you pull it out of the pen compared to the amount that is able to be used. The last flaw is that the tablet comes with a mouse. The mouse is functional and responsive to the tablet, however it is rather odd. The idea of owning a tablet is that it is to replace the keyboard and mouse for artistic work and accuracy, so the fact that it has a mouse is out of place and unnecessary.

The Intuos 5 tablet and stylus is overall quite user friendly and is surprisingly easy to customize. Had they gone with a mechanical pencil approach to filling the pen with nibs they would definitely last a lot longer in the long run. The mouse should’ve been replaced with either a spare stylus or even with the wireless adapter for the tablet. Since the development of Wacom’s Intuos 5, there have been many other tablets and accessories: the Cintique and the Cintique Companion 2 all of also feel more structurally stable compared to their earlier counterparts.

The Cintique is leagues ahead of the Intuos 5. The Critique is a desktop monitor and drawing tablet combination that allows the user to see what they’re working on at high definition. Like the predecessors to Wacom’s tablets it has the same basic functions of all o their tablets. It has even greater accuracy compared to the other tablets and overall better functionality. A major downside of the older Cintiques are that the colors of the display is terrible, however this has been fixed with later Cintiques and the Companion series. The Companion 2 is a more portable version of the Cintique. It’s a very portable and very efficient at both professional work and casual use. The companion is also a stand -alone tablet, however there is a minor issue of it not coming with keyboard.