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This last month we held a Twitter giveaway for a brand spankin’ new Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet. We had an amazing turnout but only one could win. We hope that those new followers we gained during the contest stick around and that Best Tablet Review proved to be a great resource on tablet news, reviews and rumors.
Using Random.org we narrowed the contest entries first by randomly selecting the date (January 29th) and then using advanced Twitter search to find posts with the #BTRBamboo tag. We then counted up the entries for that day and generated another random number who pointed us to the winner…
Look Ma, no wires!
The Wacom Intuos 4 graphics tablet is highly regarded to be the best non-screen pen tablet on the market. Now Wacom has upgraded their popular medium model to go wireless via a Bluetooth connection.
The new Wacom Intuos 4 Wireless graphics tablet takes all the great things about the medium Intuos 4 — like its 2,048 levels of pen pressure, OLED ExpressKey display that shows you what function each button will perform and the multi-function touch ring — and adds a wireless connection and snapping pen holder. It also has two lights on the side of the device; yellow or green to show you charge status and blue to show connection. The active area on the wireless is listed as 8 x 5 inches which is smaller than the Intuos 4 Medium tablet which is listed at 8.8 x 5.5 inches. The tablet charges by USB when plugged into your computer and is operational during this time. When not used for 30 minutes the tablet will go into a dormant mode to save battery. Wacom rates battery life at up to 18 hours but that doesn’t include constant use.
Happy Tablet Eve from the Boogie Board
The Boogie Board Paperless LCD Writing Tablet was announced by Improv Electronics on Friday. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, the Boogie Board is a monochrome LCD screen that has resistive pressure sensitivity which allows you to write on the screen as if it were paper. When you’re done simply press the erase button and it clears the screen within a second or two. Think of it as an electronic Magna Doodle or dry erase board that costs a very reasonable $30.
We already know the Boogie Board is popular — it sold out in America within hours and worldwide in two days (Improv Electronics says they’ll have more in stock early next month). So far most internet criticism surrounds the lack of any recordable method. While that’s true with this version of the Boogie Board, we contacted Improv Electronics and they said they were working on a recordable version that uses a SD card to record and USB to transfer to a computer. They expect to have it for sale by the end of the year and estimate it will be around $50. (more…)
The Boogie Board Paperless Writing Tablet
The Boogie Board Paperless LCD Writing Tablet measures 8.8 x 5.6 inches and is only 1/8th of an inch thick and weighs 4.2 ounces. Essentially, it’s about the same size as a small notepad and affords you a writing area equal to about half a sheet of letter-sized paper. Doodle to your hearts content and when you’re finished simply press the erase button and start again. It’s rated to last for up to 50,000 erases. All this for a cost of under $30 makes this a tablet that you’re likely to buy if you often take notes or draw frequently.
The only downside we can think of is that there’s no recordable method to save your work. If Improv Electronics figures that out they’d have the perfect product. We’ve got one on the way and will be reviewing it next week so stay tuned. Update: See the exclusive hands-on review.
Update: After talking to an Improv Electronics representative, we’ve confirmed that they are indeed working on a recordable Boogie Board tablet that would utilize flash memory and a USB connection to save and download your work. It would be the size and model, just with added storage and USB connection. They anticipate having this new version available for sale within the year but will still sell the current base version. Price on this new recordable model would be around $50.
Source: CrunchGear
Win a brand new Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet
Aside from subscribing to our RSS feed, we promote our stories on Twitter and Facebook. We’re constantly on Twitter and use it as both a medium for discussion and news. So we figured for our first big giveaway we’d focus on our Twitter account – @tabletreview.
Entering for your chance to win is simple. Just follow our Twitter account – @tabletreview – and retweet this message:
Win a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet from http://BestTabletReview.com – to enter just follow @tabletreview and RT this! #BTRbamboo
The more you RT the more chances you have to win, but we’ll only allow one RT a day — we’re not a fan of massive Twitter spam. At the end of the month we’ll be tallying all the RT messages and randomly picking a winner. It’s that easy to win one of the best graphic tablets on the market. Even if you’re not a graphic artist or video editor the Bamboo Pen & Touch is still a great prize (mostly because this one is still wrapped! Can you say regift?!).
Our hope is that you’ll find our website and our Twitter account to be a useful and prompt source for tablet news. Best of luck!
Wacom Bamboo Comic Pen and Touch graphics tablet
Wacom has also had success with packaging a quality tablet with a software bundle honed to a particular subset of graphic art. For instance, their Bamboo Craft is a differently painted version of the Pen & Touch with added photo manipulation software to aid the scrapbooking enthusiast. Now Wacom is releasing another graphics tablet — the Bamboo Comic Pen & Touch — for those who are into anime and manga art.
The Wacom Bamboo Comic is a Pen & Touch with a very detailed software package. It comes with Pixia Edition. Illust Studio Mini, Comic Studio Mini, Corel Painter Essentials 4 and Pencil LITE. All great programs to help the aspiring or accomplished comic artist. The only downside is that the new version is being released in Japan on December 2nd. We’re still waiting on word back to see if we’ll see a stateside release and, if so, for how much.
Source: Akihabara News
The Princeton PTB-S1 Graphics Tablet
Princeton features an entire line of PTB graphics tablets (ten if you want to count) but the S1 caught our eye due to the smooth look, multiple shortcut keys and it’s closeness to graphic artist workhorse tablet Intuos 4 by Wacom. To start with, the PTB-S1 features a large pen area of 10 x 6 inches. It has 1024 levels of sensitivity (the same as the Bamboo Pen & Touch), a +/- 45 degree pen angle, and a light pen with no battery to unbalance it.
Hands-on unboxing and review of Wacom's Bamboo Pen & Touch
Wacom just announced their new 2nd generation of Bamboo Touch tablets today and they’re currently up for sale. Last week we brought you a video review of the Touch but we haven’t seen anything about the Pen & Touch combo. This seems the most interesting of the group especially when you consider it’s only $99 (note: Amazon currently has it for $90.76) and can offer all of the advantages of the $69 Bamboo Touch and the ability to use it as a pen tablet as well.
Update: Win a brand new Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch from Best Tablet Review. Go here for information on how to enter.
Best Tablet Review got our hands on the Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet this afternoon and we’ve got your first look.
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While the newly announced Wacom Bamboo Touch tablet is already available in stores (they had two in my local Best Buy this morning) the rest of Wacom’s new Bamboo tablet line was announced today.
Wacom is bringing five new Touch versions to its Bamboo line. Starting with the already available Bamboo Touch ($69 with touch-only interaction) they also offer a Bamboo Pen ($69 with pen-only interaction), Bamboo Pen & Touch ($99 with touch and pen interaction), Bamboo Touch Craft ($129 with pen/finger interaction and more software) and Bamboo Fun ($199 – a larger sized tablet with pen and finger interaction). Amazon currently has the Fun, Craft and Pen & Touch listed as “in stock.” The Bamboo Pen is still listed as preorder.
We’re interested to see how these compare to the older Bamboo tablets and Intuos line when it comes to pressure sensitivity and ease of use. Remember, if you’d like to submit an exclusive review to Best Tablet Review and make a little money for your efforts, check out the details here.
The Wacom Bamboo Touch - a multi-touch graphics tablet
Wacom will be adding to its popular Bamboo line with the Bamboo Touch. It will have a multi-touch panel that will allow you to interact with the new Snow Leopard and Windows 7 operating systems. The Bamboo touch will also include gesture commands like scroll, zoom, rotate and forward/backward. The tablet measures 8.2″ x 5.4″ and has an active area of 4.9″ x 3.4″. It has four shortcut keys that can be programmed by the user. The retail price is $69.99.
We could see this touch interface providing some ease-of-use for certain computer work like video and audio editing. There’s not much information on sensitivity or pressure but we’d be interested to see how well it would work with graphic editing.
Check out the Engadget story for more pictures.
Best Tablet Review is your go-to source for the latest tablet news, reviews and rumors on tablets. If it's flat and has a screen on it, we're talking about it. Check out our sections on the Apple Tablet, Tablet PC's (like HP, Dell, Toshiba, Archos, MSI and Pegatron), eReaders (like the Kindle, Nook and Sony Readers), PMPs, MIDs and Graphics Tablets like the Wacom series.
