Wacom Intuos 4 Graphics Tablet Comments

I'll second all that!
I got the medium sized one shortly after it was released and it is fantastic.
Doesn't make your skills any better alas but certainly lets you make the most of any you have ...and enjoy doing it!

I will third that!!!

Great review, just a shame it's currently out of my budget.

However, will you please use the correct spelling of Matt, it is not Matte!!!!

Matt is a dull or flat finish
Matte is a mask to block out areas of film (as in Matte Painting, the crappy backdrops they use on low budget sci-fi films)

@ Lee Marshall: Both forms of spelling are, in fact, correct. Matte is more specific to masking and film, however, it is still applicable and therefore valid when referring to the finish of an object.

PS - I want one of these.

I've been using the M size for a few months now. I actually don't feel that PhotoShop (certainly up to CS2) really makes the best use of these tablets. For me the most compelling software to buy is AutoDesk Sketch Book Pro, it's a beautiful, fast sketching program that is ideal either for illustration or marking up screen grabs, something that I've found very useful when discussing product designs in conference settings. You get a limited licence for free with the tablet but as the full package is only a £90 download it's silly not to buy the fully featured version. It doesn't have the awful cursor lag of Corel's sketching programs (I'm using a very fast laptop with a Quadro FX3600 graphics card) and it's a lot more flexible.

Moving up from my old skiddy Graphire to the Intuos 4 was a massive step up in performance, the surface provides a very comfortable level of friction but it really does wear the felt nibs down like nobody's buisness. I'm very happy with my purchse, I would've loved to buy a Cintiq 21 (my client has a bunch of them) but at £1300 less (and a lot more portablity) I'm quite happy with my Intuos 4.

For U.S. readers please put the price in U.S. dollars for those who don't know the conversion rate.Also where,or if available in U.S.Thanks.

@ phred, I think TR wil start doing that when American sites starting doing it for UK readers as well. ;)

And for European readers, please put the price in Euros, for those who can't use any of the converters which are all over the internet.

...I don't think that's gonna happen, fred ;)

Yeah now you know how it feels Pfred! Anyway my dashboard says the pre-VAT price translates to about $574.91.