At Home with the New Wacom Intuos Pen Tablet

Say what you will about Wacom—this is one company that doesn’t rest on its laurels. One week after releasing the greatest creative tablet ever designed, Wacom was back at it, introducing yet another new product. This time it was an update of the popular Intuos line (available in Small and Medium models), which Wacom bills as “significantly upgraded” over earlier models. I took the new Intuos home to test its “upgraded” features and put it through its creative paces.

Right out of the box, the Intuos was a breeze to set up. Just plug it in to your computer, run the installer, and you’re all set. It took maybe five minutes to unbox the tablet, download the drivers, and start drawing—and that’s including the additional software installation. About that additional software: As a bonus, Wacom packaged the new Intuos with Corel Painter Essentials 6, Corel Aftershot 3, and CLIP STUDIO PAINT. You can download any two of the applications or choose all three, depending which size tablet you get. Combined, these programs can cost nearly as much as the tablet itself, so throwing them in for free essentially makes the Intuos a no-brainer.

As far as creative tablets go, the Intuos doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it is about as streamlined and user-friendly as you could hope for. From the little things, like the built-in pen tray (I hate having to set my pen in a separate holder), to the easy-to-use ExpressKeys, Wacom gets almost everything right. Even the drawing surface is built with just the right amount of tooth to mimic real paper. If there was one feature I missed—even though my relationship with is kind of love and hate—it’s multi-touch gestures. But in lieu of those features, Wacom did add Bluetooth connectivity, which was an optional add-on in previous versions, so really it was a decent trade-off.

The new 4K pen is another nice touch. It’s been upgraded over previous version and now features 4,096 levels of sensitivity—as opposed to the 1,048 levels seen in earlier versions. If we’re being totally honest, I’ll say that, for me, 2K levels of sensitivity always felt like plenty, so doubling up was just icing on top of icing. What I did really love about the new pen is the body redesign: It’s now thinner than the pen that came with my Intuos Pro, but somehow feels more substantial, more pen-like—and that’s no small achievement.

All in all, I’d say the new Intuos lives up to the “significantly upgraded” designation. It’s a great pen tablet for hobbyists and beginners, and comes with enough refined features and software support to produce professional work. If you want to get into digital design, or you just want to draw for fun, this latest Intuos pen tablet is a great solution.

What are your thoughts on the newest Intuos tablets? Sound off in the Comments section, below!