I recently had developed some intense wrist pain from using a mouse all day for my job. This is a great substitution for daily mouse use with my PC. For reference I am an architect and do not recall having seen any reviews form a similar profession (i.e. not strictly reviewed geared for more artist use). It did take a little to get used to the hover with the pen (when you make contact it “clicks” or draws depending on mode). My transition to using no traditional mouse at all took about a month and I don’t miss it.
I frequently need to do drawing markups and it is much easier to do with a writing feature like this in Bluebeam – Especially if I have to sketch a building detail or something. In the past I’d have to either do this with program tools, or hand draw/scan/clean up scan, and then attach/insert it into the markup drawing pdf. God forbid I wanted it to a scale… With working remote due to covid it became less feasible to do my redline markups by hand on print copies due to not having a large format scanner at home and this is a nice compromise. It’s also nice to get that hand drawn quality for schematic drawings by using photoshop (or whatever other program combination), without having to scan and photoshop it clean before continuing or having to use a hard-line drafting program – which has a totally different feel to a client at that stage.
I also like that the scroll wheel center (black circle) is a touch pad of sorts when in that mode. It is not terribly accurate, but it’s good enough that when I am working on paper copies but need to move the mouse to select something I can keep writing with my left hand and use my right hand to mouse over with this touch function without picking up the stylus pen. (Being ambidextrous is the best by the way, if you can train yourself to write with your dominant hand and use the stylus with either hand as needed to multi task work as needed.)
Additionally, as an architect I have to draft in AutoCAD and Revit and this seems to do a good job as a mouse replacement for that. Slightly jumpier than a traditional mouse, but there are easy shortcut workarounds. It is imperative to have the scroll/zoom function for all these programs (as I found out the hard way with a starter tablet that did not have it) and this tablet delivers. I combine that scroll/zoom wheel with my main pen button set to middle click for a ‘pan’ function in many programs. It’s easy to use the pen with my dominant hand and scroll/zoom/shortcut key with my non dominant hand once I got the hang of it.
The shortcut keys are easy to program and the interface program is easy to understand. I like that you can program different shortcuts for different programs. You can also switch between ink and mouse modes. Mouse mode works – you guessed it – like a mouse. Where you can move at variable speed across the screen and pick up the pen and move it but it doesn’t relocate on the screen like in ink mode. Ink is more of a screen to screen exact location. In ink mode you can hand-write in all kinds of different programs. Like draw in word documents, or written notes to text in outlook emails (if your writing is legible.. mine is not great).
Additionally, I typically use three screens – a laptop and two externals for my line of work. In mouse mode you can set the full 3 screens to one mouse control area and the ‘mouse’ can traverse the whole area continuously. I also have a shortcut key set to switch monitor so when in ink mode I can click through and have it draw on one screen at a time (you can set it across all – but it becomes quite distorted since the ratios are skewed from tablet to 3screen stretch).
As for the unit itself, it feels well made. Heavy enough to feel substantial but not enough to be obnoxious. It was relatively intuitive to download drivers and set up. The pen stylus has two buttons, a nice weight, and comes with several replacement nibs. The travel pen container is nice as well and the cap acts as a pen stand when not using the stylus. I like the option to be plugged in, work wirelessly via usb dongle, or connect wirelessly via Bluetooth. Battery life seems good (unit is not old so I will have to wait and see). For taking between home and office I was able to get a standard padded laptop protector sleeve that fit this nicely with a pocket for all the accessories (cord, pen case, manual, etc) and fits in my laptop bag with my computer.
Overall pretty impressed with this for what I needed it for.
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