Recently I received the urge to try my hand at some poorly drawn webcomics. As I knew my artistic skills were lacking, I decided I’d try to simply use a mouse to create them. After several hours of playing around, I felt that if I were using a pen I could go so much quicker with less EDIT-UNDOs (or CTRL Z if you prefer). Eventually I gave up, started hunting the web for tablets and after searching through products I realized that the Bamboo Connect appeared right for me. While I had considered purchasing higher end models, I felt that with the strong likelihood that this could be a product I shelved, the tablets with extra features seemed a poor choice. In addition, I found that many non-Bamboo products often suffered from a variety of problems including driver support and pressure issues.

I brought the tablet home, unboxed it and started to play. As I started to realize how much better curves, edges and sketches I could now draw, I realized that my hobby was likely going to be one that I continued for quite some time. The pressure sensitivity is also a large feature that you won’t get with a mouse. While on a mouse a button is either clicked or not, with the Bamboo Connect the computer recognizes the amount of pressure applied with the pen. This pressure sensitivity is especially useful when wanting to gradually increase the width or opacity of a line, color or shade.

The driver/tablet settings that come with the Bamboo Connect are also excellent. As someone with no tablet experience I found them easy to configure and more importantly understand. The driver allows a variety of settings including pressure sensitivity, click noises, orientation and other features. With years of tablet experience Wacom has perfected their driver to be functional, yet simple.

I’ve been enjoying the tablet for quite some time and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for an entry level model. While there are other advantages to things like touch buttons or a larger workspace, the Bamboo Connect fits nicely on my small desk and still offers the flexibility of using a pen on your computer. If you’re looking for a reasonable priced tablet to just have some fun with, I highly recommend looking into the Bamboo Connect.