Hi tablet gurus, I’m in the market for a tablet accessory as a gift to my partner. He’s interested in something that will let him whiteboard over Zoom more effectively than mouse and keyboard. Currently, both his work and personal laptops are Macs.
I immediately thought of Wacom as an obvious choice - after clicking around their website, I’m thinking that the Wacom Intuos (not Pro), medium, would be a best fit for this use case. Although the motivating use case is productivity, my partner is one of those creative types who has been known to draw comics, anime, etc, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this tool unleashes him to do more drawing and art.
Since my research has been pretty casual, I wanted to check in with this group about anything I might be missing in terms of factors to consider, models and brands that I should take a look at, etc.
The pens from Wacom have been battery-free for just about forever, save for a brief digression into Wacom AES, and the odd capacitor to enable BlueTooth on phones.
My suggestion would be the new Wacom One 13:
I have a Gen 1 which has worked well on my MacBook, and am planning on updating to the new version w/ touch and brighter display when I have the funds.
I don’t personally have experience with them, as I use an iPad Pro for all things tablet-y, but I’ve heard good things about Huion in general and it seems like they are a bit of a cheaper option than Wacom while having similar tech.
Is he only going to be drawing on PC and needs a large screen 14+"? Otherwise, I’d actually recommend getting a Galaxy Android tablet that can also be used for PC input via the app, SuperDisplay.
The Tab S6 Lite has been know to drop as low as $200, so I’d wait for a sale. The Tab S7 FE for $570 currently is a pretty good price imo. And well, if you’re a baller and want to spoil your bf , I’d do a trade-in (or wait for the end-of-year sale) on the current $1200 S9 Ultra.
My partner tried to set up an [old] iPad as a pointing device this weekend and it was fiddly - he didn’t finish before moving onto other things. Is that one of the ways you use your iPad, and if so, how’s setup?
I use it as a standalone art tablet. Between Procreate, Clip Studio Paint, and Adobe Illustrator, the iPad has all the art apps I need on it that I don’t need to use anything from my MacBook.
This is actually the biggest drawback for me from getting a pen display to attach to my MBP. I would have to pay the more expensive license for Clip Studio to use it on both machines. But, my dream set up, if I didn’t care about expense, would be a 24" or larger touch enabled pen display for my MBP along with my iPad Pro so I could sketch on the go and do finishing work on the larger display.
, I’d do a trade-in (or wait for the end-of-year sale) on the current $1200 S9 Ultra.