Review: Bamboo Capture Digital Graphic Tablet

An article by VuugoBlogger    2 Comments

The Bamboo Capture is the latest in Wacom’s newest lineup of graphic tablets. At a MSRP of $99.99, the Capture offers more pressure sensitivity than the past versions the Bamboo series, and features a much slimmer design and a noteworthy bundle of digital art software. One note however, is that Wacom has decided to remove the eraser from the stylus in this version, and is only making it available for the new Bamboo Create (CTH470) instead, which is larger and thus will cost more.

Design, Product Line, and Setup

The Bamboo Capture measures in 6.9” x 10.9” x 0.4” which makes it a very compact tablet. Wacom has updated the design by making it much sleeker and slimmer. There are fewer cut lines around the tablet and buttons than on previous Bamboo series models. There is now an extra space on one side that contains the four programmable buttons. The buttons also feature a nice texture/geometric touch to them, which only adds the sleek style.

The entire tablet is still made of sturdy, quality plastic with a glossy finish next to the 4 buttons. The slim blue LED light indicates that the tablet is on or being used. The Capture has mainly a silver coloring to it, with a black accent bar containing the buttons, a black stylus and a black nylon holder for the wacom pen is featured on the device. The drawing surface measures 5.8” by 3.6”, which is the same as previous versions but still provides a comfortable surface to work on.

Wacom has also made an odd change to the Bamboo series by splitting them in to three different tablets. The Bamboo Connect CTL470 is the basic model intended for collaborating, sketching out ideas, marking up documents, and taking notes. The Bamboo Capture CTH470 (the one being reviewed) adds multi-touch compatibility, and includes full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and Nik Color Efex Pro Filters 3.0, which is an amazing deal for the price. The Bamboo Create CTH670 is a larger version that doubles the size of the drawing area, which might be geared towards architects or digital painters requiring larger brush strokes. The Create also adds an eraser to the stylus.

Installing the Bamboo Capture is very simple: with your system loaded up, connect the USB cable, insert the software DVD included, and follow the on-screen instructions; within minutes, you’ll be up and running (or drawing).  With the software, you’ll also be able to customize the buttons to tool shortcuts, and adjust the pressure sensitivity for the stylus

The tablet also features multi-touch and touch gestures, which will allow you to essentially replace your laptops trackpad with it.  This is also great to speed up users workflows who hate having to switch between their stylus and mouse every time they need sort through windows. And with 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, the Bamboo Capture offers twice the precision as previous versions in the series. Position accuracy remains about the same as before, which is as crisp as the higher end Intuos and Cintiq lines.