I’ve never used a drawing tablet, ever. I’ve always thought that I might like one but it seemed like an unnessecary expense when my mouse-wielding skills are if not prodigious, then at least acceptable. Last month, I was gifted some Amazon vouchers and instead of buying lots of books (my usual vice) I spotted the Aiptek 600U Slim Tablet Premium II, read the reviews and ordered the thing before I could talk myself out of it.
First Impressions
Upon opening the box and taking out the tablet, my first reaction was “Great Googa-Mooga!, that’s a slim tablet”. The main work surface is only 5mm thick and a narrow bar at the top that’s no more than 9mm thick, this has a very low desk profile. The pen is quite light but feels comfortable in the hand although the buttons seem a little awkward – that may be my inexperience with such things showing through.
Setting Up
I’m using Windows XP Pro so I installed the software included in the package, it wasn’t too clear whether the macro-key manager also installed the drivers but it’s an inobtrusive piece of software which runs in the system tray and allows you to assign actions to any of the x unused macro-keys positioned to either side of the tablet. I then fired up Photoshop and, as if by magic, the tablet worked perfectly.
Working with it
I’m really enjoying working with this, one thing that I love is the ability to sketch, not something that’s easily achieved using a mouse. The 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity really let you start ghosting lines in before committing to stronger strokes.
The nib of the pen is slightly sprung which feels good if, like me, you are happy to doodle with a ball-point pen, the package includes a couple of spare nibs too (which I’ll probably have lost by the time I need them – a little storage compartment in the tablet would have been useful). There is also a neat little pen-stand included in the package, not sure if I’d rather have something that would keep the pen with the tablet when not in use but that’s a matter of opinion.
The workable area of the tablet is approximately A4 size (210mm × 297mm) with about 20mm along the top, left and right edges reserved for the macro keys. This area doesn’t feel restrictive and is impressive considering the low cost of the device.
I can’t find fault with the responsiveness of the tablet, in the example above (completed in about 10 minutes) you can see that I’ve scribbled extensively and never found myself waiting for the action on screen to catch up with my pen movements on the pad.
The tablet detects the pen from about 10mm away so it’s not too fiddly a job to move the pointer into a position without touching the surface.
Problems
I currently only have one criticism, the majority of the macro-key assignments are fixed, I don’t have a problem with the basic functions such as copy, paste, undo etc. but I don’t need Outlook or Powerpoint on there as I rarely (or never in the case of Outlook) use them.
In Conclusion
If like me, you’ve never used a tablet before, I can’t fault it. If you are an experienced tablet user, you might want to try one out first but at the price, it’s a surprisingly good quality product.
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Welcome to the Doodlers Dave. Soon have you off all this coding lark and onto pushing pixels.
I found the graphics pad promising, but a bit useless in Photoshop CS3- there was only a slight variation between pressure low and pressure strong – and the movement was disproportionate – eg – it moved disproportionate width and hieght – making a circle into a horizontal oval – the documentation was too limited to figure out how to fix this – adjusting the Auto Setting – didn’t seem to do anything, mind you I don’t know if it was meant to.
I think the width / height problem may be a symptom of using a widescreen monitor. I’m using a 4:3 ratio monitor and not had any problems. I couldn’t find any setting to account for different ratios so that could be an issue for quite a few people.
just ordered this off amazon… hope I find it good
erm my daughter is asking for this for hr birthday to deal with art coursework and stuff and my question is does it5 have to be connected to a PC or can you take it around like a normal laptop? Oh and does it come with a bag for the laptop? I’m full of questions!
this device won’t work alone, it needs to be connected to either a PC or Mac (laptops are fine). It doesn’t come with a bag either but because it’s so thin and light, you could happily slip it into a laptop bag alongside the laptop for transportation.
I hope this helps
I ama bit annoyed that it has to connect to a laptop but I dont really mind as she would probably be wwaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy to busy with the sketching/drawing feature it has.
will this product install/comply with vista??????
I don’t have a PC running Vista so I really couldn’t say for certain.
It should work just fine. In fact with Vista and Windows 7 it should be a Plug ‘n’ Play meaning that you shouldn’t even need the software disc that comes with it.
I just thought I’d drop by, your review helped my decision in buying this tablet, so thanks for writing it!
Cheers,
Harry Mustoe-Playfair
Manticorp Photography
http://www.manticorp.co.uk
07896618112
thanks, I hope you like it as much as I do
I was considering to buy one of these but the differnt sizes of tablets confuse me, so i was just wondering with this one can you draw A4 sized pieces of artwork or larger or is it only able to draw little sketches?
Remember that in the end, a graphics tablet is just a mouse – a much more intuitively shaped one, for artists, but a mouse nonetheless. Movements on it move the cursor across the screen as a mouse would, hence you can draw A0 images on an A6 pad if you are either prepared to zoom out until the whole thing is visible, or keep scrolling around the image and working a small piece at a time
Really the size you need is a matter of how you work and whether you feel a need for large movements in the pictures you make. I could imagine landscape artists wanting a wider movement zone, where figure artists are largely focussed on smaller curves and fine detail.
i like to draw fantasy and manga based drawings but i dont want them to be small, so your saying i could have a little tablet but still produce large professional pieces??
thank you for answering
That’s right, as Eddie pointed out, the tablet is just an input device. You can produce any size of artwork you like, just like the fact that you could produce billboard-sized artwork using a desktop-sized monitor.
Hello!
I want to buy this model tablet. But how it is working with it?
It’s size A4, but when you are drawing and you toush the screen of tablet with fingers, it’s ok? Or it damages your picture or artwork what you are creating?
And I use Adobe Photoshop CS4. It will work on this?
Thank you!
The tablet doesn’t have a “screen” as such, only a working surface. There is a clear plastic covering which you can place artwork underneath if you are tracing something so as not to damage it. And you can’t use your finger to draw, it will only work with the pen provided.
I will try this digitizer out – its cheap – and I have never had one before… I hope I will find it as good as you.. Thanks alot for the review.
/Amigasger
I am new to digital imagery and was hoping to buy this graphic tablet, however have a few questions before I buy it: does it work with photoshop cs3? and is it compatible with an emac?
Thanks
I can confirm that it works great with Photoshop CS3 but I’m not sure about an emac.
Hi i just wonder if this will work with gimp (Draw & Scetch program)
thanx
I’ve not tried it so I couldn’t say for sure but the issue is mainly with the operating system having compatible drivers for the device, I recently tried the tablet on a Windows 7 machine and it installed automatically and worked fine.
in phothoshop CS4,when i set the control of any option to pen pressure, a triangular warning sign appears on left of the option and i don’t see the pen pressure effect. Do you have any idea why is that happening?
It could be due to the tablet driver not supporting pressure levels.
If you are not using the AIPTEK driver then I would go and download it – if you are then maybe check to see if there’s a more up-to-date version.
Failing that I’m not sure, possibly you can run a diagnostic test through your system hardware control panel.
Hi, im thinking about buying one of these off Amazon for my Art college course next term, and i was wondering if this will work with Photoshop CS5 and Windows 7 64bit?
No problems there, that’s the same as my current setup.