Wacom Intuos 2 review

With the advent of photo printers and powerful image-editing software, a computer is a great friend to an artist.

The problem is that, unlike a pen, a mouse isn't the most spontaneous or natural tool for drawing. If you've been dogged by this frustration, Wacom's new Intuos 2 could be the answer. Its electronic pen and drawing pad system is designed specifically with artists in mind.

The position of its pen or 'stylus' is detected by the pad as it moves across the surface. Magically, it requires no battery. The pad is also pressure-sensitive: press harder and it'll tell your software to draw a thicker line. There's even an eraser on the other end tip just like a school pencil.

I opened the box and inside found the touch pad, pen with spare nibs, wheel mouse and software disks.

This is the smallest tablet in its range, being the size of an A6 piece of paper. This boils down to total dimensions of 225x210x7.5mm and an actual active work area of 127x106mm. Roughly speaking though, the Wacom is about the size of a normal mouse mat. It also has 10 programmable function buttons along the top, and a transparent cover over its active area under which you can put a picture for to trace.

The pen is very comfortable, with a soft rubber grip and two buttons on its side. Meanwhile, the eraser on the other end automatically invokes Photoshop's eraser tool! The tablet comes with a three-button wheel mouse, which is comfortable but a little light. Still, it's a vast improvement over its predecessor. Remember, though, that like the pen, the mouse only works on the tablet. You can use your old mouse in parallel with the Wacom if you prefer.

Wacom's control and setup software (sometimes called a driver) is excellent. It's very well laid out and easy to use, letting you adjust pretty much every possible detail relating to the way the pen and tablet interact with each other. For example, if you tilt the pen on the pad as you draw, it affects the appearance of the line. Tweak the settings in the driver, and you can set this to your personal taste.

You can also adjust the ratio between how far you move the pen and how far the on-screen pointer moves. This is particularly useful if you're working on a very small detail magnified greatly on the screen. It stops you running out of space on the pad, yet only moving the mouse pointer halfway across the screen.

For freehand drawing, the Wacom is excellent. Varying your pen pressure to change the thickness of lines on screen feels very natural. Occasionally, though, when skimming over the tablet to select an icon, the system would make a mark when I only wanted to move the mouse pointer. Hovering the pen over the pad by balancing it on my finger helps avoid this problem.

Though expensive, the Wacom Intuos 2 is worth the money. It's a fantastic tool for any artist, trouncing the humble mouse. Serious artists are advised to buy one. If, on the other hand, you're a mere dabbler in computerised art, check out Wacom's cheaper Volito.