Good to excellent hardware, driver software needs improvement
Written: Jun 18 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: hardware quality, accuracy, pen, technology
Cons: driver
The Bottom Line: Pen operation is excellent, highly recommended. Looking for a very special mouse? I like it, but mice are a matter of taste and can be had much cheaper.
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| therealvarta's Full Review: Wacom Intuos Tablet Series |
Wacom Intuos2 A4/9x12 USB regular review
Usage period: a couple of weeks / daily.
Introduction:
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I've been looking for an accurate cordless mouse, but for my taste all the optical cordless mice were too heavy because of the additional weight of the batteries. The Wacom tablet technology seemed to be
the answer: cordless, batteryless, accurate. This is why I got myself a Wacom Intuos2 A4 regular tablet with 4D mouse and grip pen.
Buying such an expensive piece of hardware only for a mouse may seem to be decadent and it probably is. But I spend a lot of time with the computer and in this area the best is just good enough for me.
I've been using optical mice since years before they became so popular, albeit with dedicated mouse pads back then.
Usually people buy an Intuos2 because of the pen. My focus is on the mouse and so is this review. I'll start with the overall workmanship, then comment on the pen and finally address the mouse operation.
I'll also make a few references to the Wacom Graphire3 XL tablet I owned before and which I got refunded because the mouse became jerky after moving it over a certain area on the tablet. This turned out
to be a general problem, not tied to my particular unit.
Package:
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The Intuos2 A4 regular arrived in a big packet the next working day after I ordered online from the German Wacom web shop. Included in the packet were two CDs, 4D mouse, grip pen and the tablet. There
is no printed user manual, just an online version on CD. The tablet, mouse and pan have a kind of eggplant color which is not to everybody's taste, but there is also the platinum color editíon (more
expensive) for those that can't live with it. I don't care for the color.
Tablet:
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The Intuos2 tablet is more rugged than the Graphire3. It does not bend that easily when your arm rests on it. The frame around the active area is rather broad. I wonder if there is a technical reason for this.
An A4/9x12 already takes up lots of space on the desk and the frame adds to this, albeit without adding value. Well, I like to place the mouse on the frame when using the pen, but thats the only use for it
I've found so far. The USB cord on the tablet is fixed, but it can be ordered as a spare part, which is good if it breaks after the warranty period, just like the thin tabet overlay. Between the tablet overly and
the tablet's frame there is a small gap (ca. 1-2mm). You won't feel the gap when sliding over it with the mouse, but it may irritate your wrist.
Grip Pen:
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Pen operation is probably the reason for Wacom's excellent reputation and there's nothing but praise from me too: the grip pen is well-balanced, leightweight and accurate. Its reported position is always
that the tip is pointing to, no matter if the pen is tilt and/or floating. The click action couldn't be better, same for the pressure sensitivity. For the pen, the tablet reports position (of course), pressure, x/y tilt
and height. If there was a separate rating for the pen, I'd give all 5 stars here.
4D Mouse:
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The 4D mouse has 5 buttons and one wheel which is also acting as the 5th button. Fortunately the extra buttons are on the top where they can be ignored when not used, in contrast to side buttons (see
MS Explorer mice), where care has to be taken not to press them. In order to act, the middle button needs to be pressed much more firmly than the other buttons. I'm glad that I've no use for it.
The bottom of the mouse is made of felt.This felt easily gets dirty and is hard to clean. The felt also has "minipockets" which may collect scratching particles. Gliding on the felt is not as smooth as I'd like it
to be, probably a matter of taste.
The weight of the mouse is at the upper bound for my taste, but it's definitively lighter than battery-driven mice, which is good for me. I saw people asking in the Wacom support forum if there were weights
in the mouse which could be removed, but I'm not aware of such a possibility.
The 4D mouse is wider than usual computer mice. To grasp the mouse, you need to stretch your fingers more than normal. The sides are moulded, which is supposed to be ergonomic, but I don't think it is.
The point is to be able to lift a mouse with least effort, and this is achieved best with a slight V-shape, not moulds. After the first day of use, my hand became uptight because of this, although this got
better with time. After some weeks of use, I got used to the different shape. I don't know if it would work for you the same way, just be prepared for a learning curve.
If you've used a regular mouse before (and I bet you did), you're probably in the habit of lifting / displacing the mouse to move the mouse to a more comfortable position without moving the mouse cursor.
This can be done with the 4D mouse too, but the height to which the mouse needs to be lifted to make it stop tracking is noticeably higher than with a regular mechanical or optical mouse. Again, this is
something one can get used to to some extent, but less ergonomic. Although the mouse height is reported by the tablet, there is no way of adjusting the height at which tracking stops.
The wheel does not work the same way you may know from Microsoft mice wheels, though it has the same effect. Instead of being able to turn the wheel endlessly, you turn it by about 45 degrees in either
direction, self-centered by a spring force. The more you turn it, the faster it scrolls. This is advantageous when scrolling large distances, because you don't have to keep turning the wheel for it. For scrolling
small distances, I prefer the Microsoft style wheels. I guess this is because the wheel of the 4D mouse needs to be turned by some angle before it acts and there is no tactile feedback as to when, which
gives less accurate control. But all in all, I think I prefer the way the Wacom wheel works.
Accuracy:
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Accuracy is usually quite good, and if you draw a straight line on the tablet, for example with a ruler, you'll get a straight line on the screen. There is one exception however: the combination single mode /
mouse mode does not yield straight lines when drawing slowly. The inaccuracy is so high in this case, that even regular mouse use becomes impractical. This seems to be a driver problem rather than a
hardware problem. The single mode is to be used if you experience interference problems, for example with a CRT monitor. No problem for me, I've got a TFT.
Accuracy does not seem to be dependent on the speed you move the mouse or pen with. For gamers this may be a big plus. I know that older optical mice had a problem with this. I never managed to fool
the tablet by moving too fast, though I tried hard.
The Intuos2 series tablets are specified with 2540 lpi resolution. The tablet may have that resolution internally, but this is not delivered to the driver or applications, since position changes are reported only
if the position changes by at least 5 tablet counts. This effectively gives a resolution of about 500 lpi only. This is not bad, but also not as good as it could be or as good as specified. With a 1600x1200
screen and my preferred mouse settings, I cannot position on every single pixel. With a true 2540 lpi resolution I could.
When the PC is under heavy load, the mouse pointer may get jerky more easily than a regular mouse, but I only rarely experience this.
One way to improve accuracy especially when using the mouse is to implement "acceleration": the mouse pointer moves slowly if the mouse is moved slowly and it moves superproportionally faster if the
mouse is moved faster. The standard Microsoft mouse driver does a good job if acceleration is turned on. Unfortunately, the Wacom tablet driver also implements acceleration and turns the Microsoft
mouse driver's acceleration setting off on every occasion. This wouldn't be bad if the Wacom driver's acceleration was as good as that in the standard mouse driver, but it isn't. It is so extreme, that I cannot
use it. Thus I've turned it off and don't use acceleration at all.
Bottom line:
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During my usage period I could have returned the tablet with full refund and switch back to using a regular mouse, but I didn't. I think it is because I got used to the way the 4D mouse works, started using
the pen occasionally for sketches and there is also some kind of attraction from the cordless technology and fine hardware on me. In other words: I like it. It seems that most of my complaints could be fixed
by a driver update, though I don't think Wacom will do so. Their support is quite willing to help, but they seem to back out when it comes to reproduce a new problem.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 500
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Epinions.com ID:
therealvarta
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Reviews written: 4
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