Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet
The Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet takes your digital image editing to a new level with both touch and gestures along with a versatile pen with erase capabilities.
Ease of Use, Performance: 23/25
Look & Feel: 23/25
Features 22/25
How much I enjoy 22/25
Total: 90/100
The Wacom Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch Tablet is billed by Wacom and many others as a slightly expensive but portable tablet for both touch and pen use. The tablet I received is the Bamboo Fun model CTH-661 with the pen and tablet that connects using the USB cable and also includes the driver CD's and instructions.
The Bamboo Fun is about 12 inches by 8.75 inches, is a quarter inch or so thick with a six by nine inch touch/pen area and four buttons along the side where the USB cable is attached. The tablet can be oriented with the buttons and cable toward the left or right using the software drivers for the tablet that are simple to install and are included.
Drivers and software include touch recognition software for Windows 7, Vista, Windows XP and MAC so you are set for the common operating systems and mobile computers. The Bamboo Fun is advertised as a better touch pen tablet and seems to be geared for mobility as they left out a mouse but touch works great.
I have used large and smaller tablets and now the touch which makes a very nice addition to my growing collection but the mouse is one I never used much. I don't find the need for a tablet all that much but for large editing projects and reviewing image editing programs I find I enjoy touch and the pen over using the mouse.
While the Wacom Bamboo line of tablets may not have all the features for professional tablet users like photographers the series does have plenty of features. Features include multi finger gestures like zooming, single finger cursor movement and pen use for general tablet navigation.
The four buttons on the side can be assigned with the software under your control panel in Pen Tablet Properties for use as clicks, keystrokes or to open or run a program. The properties section under Pen Tablet Properties also has the pen and touch functions where you assign many of the properties of the pen, gestures and the tablet.
While there are several menu pages under control panel and Programs themselves to use for your tablet properties they all make sense once you search them. The program is available from the Start Menu for Windows and the control panel so you have a few ways to change settings and properties of the tablet, touch and pen.
Using the pen and touch gestures is easy and if you spend much of your time image editing the tablet will really make things easy and for casual users the combination of pen and touch gestures makes this versatile. I have not used any touch device before and have really been impressed with how the Bamboo Fun recognizes gestures like two finger touch for right click and spreading my fingers on the tablet to zoom.
The Wacom Bamboo Fun recognizes gestures well and using simple programs like Windows Photo Viewer allows you to rotate and zoom easily with the simple gestures. For further gestures and integration you need to have programs designed for the gestures like Adobe's new Creative Suite 5 programs.
Using brushes to enhance image editing with new features like Bristle Tips and Mixer Brush using the touch tablet makes for a better and easier experience with image editing. I had no problems using the touch tablet or gestures for image editing as well as general internet browsing and computer use.
Erase is also a great function and really adds to the versatility of the tablet for my kind of quick editing work on photos. I have a routine for images I use in my reviews with crop then resize and erasing or clone stamping areas to smooth out backgrounds.
Using the erase end speeds editing if you use erase a lot and having the right click or other function assigned to the side button on the pen makes customization unending. You can assign the side buttons on the pen just like the four buttons on the side of the tablet to anything you want from clicks to running programs and more.
The pen is a versatile tool for customizing your tablet for how and what you want just like other features of the Wacom Bamboo Fun. This is really the most versatile tool made for editing I have found and the touch aspect of the tablet really adds a lot for general use of my computer.
I have been using the Bamboo Fun touch tablet for a few weeks now and really enjoy using the tablet as an alternate means of navigation and program control from a mouse. I have carpal tunnel syndrome and at times my wrists bother me so much it hurts all up and down my arms but the tablet eases this.
Using a tablet eases the repetitive motions of always using a mouse and gives not only the control and precision but variety to my computing. The tablet gives me an alternate input method as well as more precise and versatile control for my image editing.
I highly recommend the Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet for a versatile and easy to use tablet for touch and gestures use while editing and manipulating images. The Bamboo Fun also makes a great tablet while performing other tasks with its versatile touch and pen for an all around great tablet.