Behold - my new companion the Wacom Bamboo, a pen tablet. You may wonder, why on earth does a commerce student (me) need a pen tablet? Isn't a pen tablet for professional graphic designer?
If you know me well enough, I dislike writing on papers. Ever since dad encouraged me to use a laptop in college instead of writing down notes on papers I instantaneously fell in love using a laptop.
I could type much faster as than I would writing. And even if I do write fast, my writing turns out to be illegible when I write extremely fast (that's another way of me saying that my handwriting sucks). However there is a big disadvantage typing on a laptop - I cannot draw diagram/graphs/mathematical equations. Well, I actually can - last year in Microeconomics lecture I used a drawing program to draw a simple demand and supply graph. It turns out that my drawing on my laptop is far worse that I would draw on a paper, and it took me very long to draw it, even with a mouse (instead of using the trackpad)!
So I ended up bringing both my laptop and papers to lectures. I will use type on my laptop and draw diagrams on papers. This went on until... Today. I finally got the Wacom Bamboo pen tablet. Despite being the lowest range and obviously, the cheapest, it met my expectations.
And now, to answer the question why I need a tablet - it is to write down equations, diagrams, etc on my laptop. Now I need not bring papers to lectures anymore :)
The first ever pen tablet that I saw was the Wacom Intuos4. I was seriously considering about purchasing it, until I found out that it costs more than US$400. No way I am going to spend so much on a tablet! My hopes were crushed until I found out that Wacom produces lower end models - the Wacom Bamboo.
Now I think the Wacom Bamboo is most suitable for me. I am not using a pen tablet to draw complicated drawings like the ones you will find in deviant art. I am only using it to draw simple graphs, and mathematical equations. And it is only after comparing Wacom Bamboo and Wacom Intuos4 that I realised that the Intuos4 is for professional graphic designers. Phew. Good thing that I did some research! Hence the Bamboo suites me the most.
After playing with the 4x6 inch tablet for a while, started using it to do my homework.
While it is possible to do all these with a trackpad/mouse, it will take 100 times longer. With worse writing.Pretty cool huh? Although the active area (4X6) is rather small, I had no problem writing down things. In fact, I think a bigger active area is much difficult to use. And it is not practical for me to bring such a big tablet eg. 9x12 or even 12x19.2 inch to lectures.
Now back to my homework. With my new Wacom Bamboo. =D
