A little while ago I noticed these cheap drawing tablets over at Monoprice*:


http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10841

(in particular, this one: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10841&cs_id=1084101&p_id=6251&seq=1&format=2 )

I've done a little bit of digging and it appears that they are made by a company called UC-logic. Reviews seem fairly solid. I know getting a tablet won't make my drawings really any better, but I figured it could be kind of fun to toy around with, as opposed to one of those little Wacom Bamboo tablets that normally run for more than twice the price for a much smaller sized tablet (4"x6"). I have used one of those before and found it pretty fun to play with.


Anyone here have any experience with these or seen one of these before?




[sub]*Monoprice is seriously the place to get any sort of cable. I'm always amazed at the price and the quality of their cables that I have ordered have been top notch.[/sub]

I can't comment on that one but I recently got an aiptek hyper pen 1000 and find it hard to find any place a wacom could improve on it.
Careful with drivers though getting linux to play nice with tablets can be a bitch.

I don't plan on running linux, but apparently it did take a little bit for some decent x64 drivers to come out for the tablet I linked to.

With tablets it's a serious case of "you get what you pay for." I owned an Aiptek (it may be the model referenced above, I can't recall) for a few years before receiving a Wacom Intuos for christmas, and the difference was very noticable to me. The wacom draws smoother, feels more comfortable/natural (I use the felt nibs), and you never have to swap in batteries to your pen (that got annoying).

I also downsized quite a bit moving to the wacom, from a 12" x 12" space to a 6x8, and I can honestly say the smaller ones are just as easy to use and functional as the larger tablets. You just adjust your zoom and screen layout appropriately for the level of detail you want to get into, and it's good to go from there. It never felt like I was drawing in a more cramped space, turns out 6" x 8" is a pretty fair amount of space to manipulate a pen inside.

If at all possible, go with a wacom, even if it's smaller to save some money.

With tablets it's a serious case of "you get what you pay for." I owned an Aiptek (it may be the model referenced above, I can't recall) for a few years before receiving a Wacom Intuos for christmas, and the difference was very noticable to me. The wacom draws smoother, feels more comfortable/natural (I use the felt nibs), and you never have to swap in batteries to your pen (that got annoying).

I also downsized quite a bit moving to the wacom, from a 12" x 12" space to a 6x8, and I can honestly say the smaller ones are just as easy to use and functional as the larger tablets. You just adjust your zoom and screen layout appropriately for the level of detail you want to get into, and it's good to go from there. It never felt like I was drawing in a more cramped space, turns out 6" x 8" is a pretty fair amount of space to manipulate a pen inside.

If at all possible, go with a wacom, even if it's smaller to save some money.

Well, at this point I'm not totally set on getting a tablet. I don't have any pressing art projects, so it would really be more of a toy. I can probably justify spending $40 or $50 on a toy, but when it starts getting higher than that, especially for the amount I will probably end up using it...

If I end up getting one I'll let you guys/gals know.

I buy tablets occasionally for the fun of seeing what they're like, and the best low cost one I have found, which I bought on ebay for £40, is the Wacom Bamboo Pen. (Not Touch).

It's got one thing a lot of cheaper and other tablets do not have. A textured surface. This genuinely makes it feel more like paper. I love it. I don't use it much, because I don't get much time to do that kind of work with the jobs I have taken on recently, but when you need to scribble on the page, it's got such a close pencil/paper feel it's really nice. That was the one thing that always put me off other tablets I owned.