So, recently I've been blessed with a shiny cool new toy at the office - the intuos4. A long awaited moment i must say. I was all excited like a kid in the candy store when i opened the box and there it was, all awesome and black, the super sexy i4. With different projects flying around it wasn't until tonight that i managed to use the i4. So i did this sketch and here's my opinions on the wonderous intuos4:
- first of all, i love the intuos3 active surface. the texture almost feels like skin, it's a /rubbery /plastic kind of surface with a nice warm feeling and it's really enjoyable to work with. The intuos4 however, greeted me with a cold, plastic touch that i didn't quite enjoy.
- i don't know about you guys but the spring tips never felt enjoyable to me. Maybe it's because i usually work with a ballpoint pen and i got used to a more strict and rough feel of the pen. So, just as i did with the intuos3 at home, i instantly changed my pen tip with a regular plastic pen. Let me just say congrats to Wacom for the successful marriage between the pen rest and the tips box. I love the new smart hideout of the pen tips even though i get chills thinking about my dentist whenever i see them.
- next stop, the display + interface. it does look awesome but.. this might just be the feature i like the least. the buttons mapped for Shift, Ctrl, Alt and Space feel really difficult to press and they took me some time to get used to. the top 4 buttons i'm ok with, it's cool to have some multimedia access from your tablet..i guess.
- the center wheel is nice, it's got 4 possible uses and a round ipod-like touch interface. now, the best thing on it is the canvas rotation. i immediately left that one selected and started flying my canvas around. it's a cool feature cause it feels a bit like sketchbook work, where you spin the paper around to draw lines from a comfortable hand position. the problem was shuffling through zoom, layers control, brush size and canvas rotation. it's gonna take some time to adjust to and i hope i'll manage to use it at its full potential.
- i love the fact that you can map the wheel to do so many different things, i'll try to play around with it and maybe it will start feeling more comfortable.
- i usually use alot of buttons while painting. i've remapped some of my right hand side keyboard to do some things in Photoshop like flipping canvas, making new layers, saving, sharpening or blurring, etc. That way i can work fullscreen without too much interface interruption. I've definitely had a problem with my intuos3 but in time i got used to having my right hand on the keyboard (i'm a lefty). I still don't feel that the tablet interface offers enough options for me but i'm definitely going to keep using it in the idea that maybe i'm just being obtuse and anti-technology.
- just so i don't completely bash the intuos4, i think that the way the active surface reacts to the pen is really great. those extra pressure levels really feel nice, even though they're not required.
All in all, i do like it, and i'm not going to be hasty in dissing it. I'll play around with it more and i'll deffinitely come back with more impressions on it. I hope this has been so far helpful to people looking at buying one and i'd love to hear more thoughts on it. Cheers!
