Many aspiring artists out there that are stuck on a computer all day have probably attempted to draw (probably in MS Ppaint!) with a mouse. It doesn’t work. That’s where tablets come in. Now we take a look at Wacom’s Bamboo Graphics Tablet.

I may be hopeless at drawing even with a good pencil, but I was very excited to review this graphics tablet. It costs around £50-60 (~$100-120 USD, but probably a bit cheaper over in the US).

Wacom have made an effort – mainly with the cheap price – with the Bamboo tablet to try and get it in the homes of amateur artists, rather than make it a product for what has always traditionally been only really used by professionals.

I think very soon graphics tablets will start to be as popular as peripherals like the scanner and digital camcorder, thanks to Vistas new built in support for many drawing functions such as handwriting recognition, sticky notes, and digital inking.

The tablet is built in very hard plastic and has a very nice finish to it.

The overall drawing area size is 14.8cm by 9.2cm, which although doesn’t sound like much I personally find it to be more than enough. It is about the same size as a mouse mat, so it shouldn’t be a problem even on the smallest of desks.

Of course where would a tablet be without a pen? The pen holds in your hand very well, and has a couple of buttons on it which are very easy to use. And where would a pen be without a pen stand! It of course comes with a pen stand.

At the top of tablet is a round button that allows you to scroll in and out effortlessly by rotating it round

This is a REALLY handy feature, I never realised how much I would be scrolling in and out when drawing! It may be easier however if it was built into the pen itself (near the thumb, maybe).

Next to this are four buttons, which can be assigned to do many custom key combinations – however none that involve CTRL or ALT. By default the top two are for back and forward, and the bottom two for show desktop and switch application.

Overall it is a very handy product. It is a shame I wasn’t able to use it to its full potential, due to lack of artistic skills, but i was certainly VERY impressed with it.