Long live the … other mouse.
It seems like forever since I got my little Wacom tablet - an A6 affair that came out to play once a month or so for little bits and pieces.
However, since making the move into “Full Time Web Site Developer” I’ve been feeling the need for something with a bit more umph. The first problem being that A6 is ok for a single monitor setup but I run across two and it really was a bit of a stretch. Secondly the mouse has been missing for a while now and was pretty useless when I could still find it, again due to the size restrictions.
So a couple of days ago I inspected my company accounts and decided that I could actually afford to spend some cash on something. My initial thought was a printer but you can pick them up for next to nothing these days (indeed I can think of a couple of people with several to spare) and so I decided to upgrade my little Graphire to the next level - an A5 Intuos 3.
Now I’m sure you’re all thinking “Oh lord - Robs got another toy he doesn’t really need” but I would ask you to hold that thought. True I’m not an illustrator (yet) but I am an avid photographer and anybody who’s used a tablet to mask or tweak photo’s will tell you they’ve never looked back. Just take this simple image. This would have been really hard with a normal mouse but the tablet (this was done with the old one) made it a breeze … albeit an hour long breeze.
It showed up this morning and, after the unboxing ceremony, I grabbed the latest driver from the Wacom site (just as an aside does anybody actually use the CD’s that come with kit these days?) and settled down to enjoy the package.
The tablet itself is a gorgeous piece of equipment. Soft greys and a light sheen to the finish simply scream business-like. The buttons and scroll pads are well positioned and compact enough to be usable without being hard to find.
As for the input? It’s easily the smoothest system I’ve ever touched! Admittedly I’ve not used a Laser mouse but compared to my old optical this thing screams ahead in terms of both resolution and response curve. What’s more it only required the slightest of tweaks to the default speed and acceleration settings to make me feel totally comfortable with it.
The mouse provided is 5 button and completely customizable via the simple but powerful control panel / prefs panel snap in. The pen is balanced and a little on the light side but it comes with a lovely stand to keep it safe and, to be honest, the pen doesn’t come out to play that often.
I was a little concerned that A5 would be too small. after all it’s only twice the size of the old one. My fears were ungrounded. I can easily cross both screens without lifting the mouse off the tablet and the pen can be focussed on the second screen simultaneously!
My only complaints? It will sound silly but the default stylus seems a bit cheap. The included, spring loaded stroke stylus is much better but I only get one of them as opposed to 4 of the default style.
And I do miss one feature that the old one had and the new one does not - the Graphire came with a fairly cheap, semi opaque cover that could be used ala tracing paper. The Intuos wouldn’t deign to include anything so tacky. I’m sure I can rig something out of tracing paper and duck tape though so it’s no biggy.
It has only been about 2 hours but so far the Intuos 3 rates an outstanding 9.8/10 . I’ll let you know if that changes.
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