Genius MousePen 8x6

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/11/15/genius_mousepen_8x6/1.html

 

We you use to have tools like this in my school. The problem was that the mouse was very cheap in the construction and the board it self was a little cheap in the construction. They might have fixed this but that mouse still looks cheap. What I mean by construction is that the plastic make a noise when you press down on it to hard.

Over all that is a great product to own, if your an artist.

 

I spent $99 on my 4x6 Wacom Graphire nearly 3 years ago. Great piece of equipment and no batteries. I probably would have gone through $40 of AAA batteries in those 3 years.

I would say something like this would be great to get started or if you are unsure of the whole pen for a mouse thing, but if you really want a tablet go for a Wacom.

 

Re-charge-able

fantastic invention.

 

The tablet is dirt cheap indeed, but theres no way I would have given it a good value for the money award; this isnt a tablet that provides the capabilities one is looking for when one buys a tablet in the first place, that being a way to emulate pen strokes just like those provided by pencil on paper. With those kinds of jagged lines, I wouldnt reccomend this in any way, shape, or form. This is a toy, not a genuine tool. </rant>

Honestly, once youve used a Wacom, its virtually impossible to reccomend anything else.

 

Surely that depends on how fast a motion resulted in those lines? If it took a pretty fast motion to produce them then for the casual user it would still be ok.

Couldn't agree more. Just use key combinations!

 

If you read the paragraph afterwards you will find the jaggies are due to a limitation of the USB interface, so a USB Wacom would also suffer from them.. I can emulate that exact flaw using my extremely high prescison Razer Diamondback mouse.

 

This is indeed true. I have the 4x6 Wacom Graphire and when I try to draw quick, long strokes they appear the same way. If you want long, curved lines, either draw slowly or use paths.

For the casual graphics use (minor photo retouching, scrapbooking, etc.) this would be a great option. I don't think it's intended for the serious artist, but rather for the weekend hobbyist.

Also The bundled PenSuite program makes this an affordable tool in an office environment for annotating and other documentation functions.

-monkey

 

Are there not USB 2 tablets - faster?

 

USB 1.1 and 2.0 both use the same refresh rate even though the bus speed is faster.

/me worries about getting into technical quicksand..

 

Me and my sister reviewed a Wacom Intuos 3 at moditory.com a little while back; the jagged problem did show up sometimes, but only when making REALLY fast pen movements. Otherwise, at a normal drawing pace, it never ever did anything like that. It may well be that it works faster in USB 2.0; however, Wacom really does know their stuff, especially with the higher end tablets.

 

aye, those lines are not at normal drawing pace.. they're drawn as fast as possible to show the effect.

 

Im pretty sure there's a program out there ive seen where you can up the USB refresh rate to up to around 250.

 

Those jagged lines can be resolved using your paint program. In Photoshop a "smoothing" checkbox can be found in the brushes option.



The top line is drawn with smoothing off, the bottom with it on. I drew them both at the same speed, pretty quick but not difficult if you are making quick strokes for something like grass, on a Wacom.

 

He's not wrong.. well spotted! You learn something new every day.

 

To me the USB ms timing problem is totaly bull. If this is the case, why can i move my mouse as fast as i can and it still draws roundish stripes. If the usb timing is the limiting factor why should you buy a 2000dpi speed mouse. The pen is working on the same level as a mouse does. It measures dpi and submits them thru usb.

To me it sounds more like slow/cheap tablet hardware.

 

As I stated I recreated this problem on my Razer Diamondback which is neither slow nor cheap.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in this however if you read the product write up on the Razer series it talks about prescision and accuracy, not speed. Having used one I find the incresed resolution helps pin-point my targets, not make massive sweeping movements with the mouse (where you wouldn't care if it jumps from one point to another or not.)