Wacom Bamboo Create ( Pen & Touch ) medium size - Review

  Somehow over time things developed in a way, that when it comes to digital painting tablets, everybody tells you that you should either get "a Wacom" or leave the whole topic alone. This may be somewhat alright, seeing that Wacom has practically no competition, but how should i say it... they SHOULD have some.

  A little competition never hurts, since it forces a certain product to get better even than its counterparts. To be honest to all of you, the Bamboo Create, or "Bamboo Fun" as for some reason it's called here in Europe, feels like the product of no evolution whatsoever. Although it does its job, the miraculous "Wacom" logo slapped on it doesn't help, it acts like the tablet of a company who just entered business and still waits for feedback from customers to perfect their product. I even went there and left a "third generation my ass" line on their website, didn't expect it to appear, but i'm happy if even a moderator saw it.

  Well, okay, before you fall under the impression, that the Bamboo Create is crap as it is, i should let you know that the fact that i've chosen "a Wacom" out of the bunch speaks from me in this review. While this "bunch" of tablets available is not very large, there still exist a number of models from different manufacturers, for way less money, and as i saw some reviews of them on Youtube, they perform at least as good as the Bamboo.

  It also needs to be said, that i got mine off of eBay as "new and tried once", with wireless pack included, all this for 150 bucks. If i had spent the original price (~300) for it, i would be furious, but this way it's alright. 

  But can i really think it was brand new? Yes i can, since even the most gentle use will show up on its surface. Even if the pen tip is made of this almost rubbery type of plastic, the tablet surface WILL be scratched constantly, and after a few hours of just trying it out for the first time, it will look like you had it for months. I don't really recommend examining it under direct light, your gonna lose your will to live. I'm afraid you are going to have to just learn not to give a crap, as i did. (to be fair, as it's worn in by time, it gets better, but still a big shock for a fresh user)

Why i chose to buy "a Wacom" to begin with?

  I wanted it to be a solid piece of equipment, that feels solid both to the touch and performance as well, that doesn't have all the stupid errors that "the average manufacters" tend to produce on this globalized mass produced crapball once called Earth.

Have i succeded?

No.

  Don't get me wrong... It does its job heavenly when it works! Easy to setup, has a nice and easy little management window, the shortkeys are good to have. The resolution and size of the drawing area is perfect. I like the pen that comes with it, seemed fat seeing it on pictures, but feels perfect during work. The buttons on the pen could have been at better places, i don't know where exactly... but they are "okay" as they are. The built in eraser on the other end of the pen is a very nice touch, i tend to forget about it though and use the eraser shortkey in Photoshop, but that's me.

  The 1024 levels of pen tip sensitivity is i guess already a bit of an overdo, i think they should rather design the pen itself in a way, that you need to add more pressure to activate these levels. You can somewhat adjust the curve of pressure sensing on the software side, but that's quite useless, just go with the factory setting, that's the best. A stronger spring in the pen Wacom, it's not that hard!

  The packaging is professional and reflects care. The design - and by that i mean the looks - , is beautiful. I had my first negative moment when i actually grabbed the thing for the very first time. Remember i expected something that feels solid to the touch. How to say... held in mid-air i would rather compare it to a big thick notebook (the ones you write on, not laptops) and not a hard drawing board that you slap under your paper. It gives these silly cracking sounds and simply feels bendy.

  But cheap notebooks (laptops) also have the tendency to act like this. What? "Some cheap laptop manufacturer" = Wacom ?!...

  Not that i want to draw while laying on my back and holding it angled on my legs or something, this idea seemed nice just thinking about it, but as you will find out, tablet drawing needs the most stable, horizontal surface, or you are going to end up with crap.

  ...but wait, what was that "when it works" bit? Oh i meant that it constantly comes up with something completely different, like a Microsoft product. For some reason, it loves just simply switching off. No problem, i turn it on again! Then the light on it flashes three times as white, and it's off again... it very rarely will start up again this way, i have to take out the battery, wait a few seconds, put it back, and then turn on. That's it for using it wirelessly. But it happens wired just as often. And plugging out / reconnecting helps just as much as turning it off and on again without taking the battery out. So i don't know what would i do without a wireless pack!

  Ahh the wireless pack! It is actually pretty awesome! We wouldn't need it, if the damn thing came with a wire longer than my... khm... but finally something that not only doesn't disappoint, but simply works great!

Back from the world of dreams...

  Every now and then, when i bring back my PC from sleep mode, the cursor will become laggy, and the shortkeys won't work anymore. I have to reset the computer, to make it work again.

Once i even had to reinstall the drivers for it, because it simply acted like it wasn't there anymore (?!)

  The Internet is loud from people arguing about the surface, but somehow for a different reason than me: that the latest Wacom tablets eat away the pen tips like hell. They certainly lose their nice rounded shape after a couple hours, which actually develops sharp edges in that supposedly soft plastic, and starts to scratch the surface like nobody's business... but the actual length of the tip stays for quite a long time. This still doesn't help the fact that they should have given you a nice solid tip which would last forever, and i'm quite sure would scratch the tablet surface WAY less!

Oh, before i forget.

It has a touch feature.

Almost forgot...

...because it isn't worth mentioning.

Unresponsive, sluggish, gimmicky. Don't bother.

  Overall, the Wacom Bamboo Create or "FUN" (would be fun to break it on the CEO's head at Wacom) feels like a deliberately cheapened member of the Intuos series, for the part of the population this bodyless capitalist monster (not talking about Wacom, but the one big entity made up of all the bigass corporations on the Globe) simply named "the casual user".

  It does the job, and packs a ton of "FUN" so you won't be bored on the journey...