Wacom Graphire3 4x5 USB Tablet (Graphite Gray, CTE430GR)

by Wacom

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000C4DVX
• Item model number: CTE430GR
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #56 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Computer Accessories > Keyboards, Mice & Input Devices > Touch Pads
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 27, 2004

Product Description

All of Wacom's tablets are pressure sensitive-- they literally feel the full range of pressure from the pen on the tablet. With a pressure-sensitive tool, such as Photoshop's Rubber Stamp or History brush or any Painter brush, you get unparalleled control. Press hard, and you get a more opaque clone, a fatter paintbrush, a darker stroke. Press lighter, and you have a transparent clone, a thin brush, a gentle stroke of color. It's intuitive, because it's how tools work in the real world. If you spend any time at all creating and working with images on a computer, a pen tablet will make you faster. You can go from light to dark, thin to thick, or opaque to transparent in one pressure-sensitive stroke. The pen's absolute positioning is also faster than a mouse, allowing you to access every area of your screen without detours.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

132 of 137 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars delightful yet infuriating..., February 6, 2004

By 

JadeRabbit (planet jaderabbit.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wacom Graphire3 4x5 USB Tablet (Graphite Gray, CTE430GR) (Personal Computers)

This is my first foray into the world of digital, pressure-sensitive tablets, so perhaps my expectations might have been too high. Ultimately, I thought that I could draw, trace and sketch "naturally" with ease, and that the Graphire would work seamlessly with Adobe Illustrator. Not exactly the case, here are my experiences so far after 3 mos of use:

PRO's:
--relatively easy installation, although mine did not come with very detailed instructions (questions like: do you plug and play first, then load the software? or vice versa?), so I had to wing it.
--the hardware interface is easy and intuitive enough -- just keep your pen within the allocated 4x5 space and you're set.
--comes with some pared down versions of software, so even if you don't have Photoshop or Painter, you can get the feel for how the tablet and software work.

CON's:
--no instructions for setting up with Illustrator (or any other software, except for a couple of tutorials for Painter), couldn't find any info on this on Wacom's website or elsewhere. Couldn't get Illustrator to recognize the pressure sensitivity. Thankfully, around this time I upgraded to CS, and the tablet/pen chose to work with the update. Although Illustrator for some reason only chooses to recognizes about 5-10 "pressures" instead of the 500+ it is supposed to (don't know if this is the fault of Adobe or Wacom) no matter what I choose the thickness/stroke of the line to be.
--forget about physically tracing anything...the plastic piece that you are meant to lift off and slip things under to hold it in place is flimsy and feels like it is breaking everytime you dare to wrangle with it.
--disconcerting size...the drawing area is only 4x5" but the actual tablet is about 8x8" so it leads to this disconnect when mentally mapping the tablet area to the screen area.
--it's very hard to get "unshaky" or straight/precise lines using the tablet. I find that I am actually better at getting things more precise with a mouse sometimes! I think part of the problem is that the "pen's" is too thick/fat.
--you have to hold the pen in a very "up and down" manner for it to work properly which is the opposite of how I naturally draw, which is holding the pencil at an angle.
--the buttons that are on the pen are located in a very inconvenient spot (for me anyway). I will often be gripping the pen and accidently hit the button (which either accesses the right-click menu or deletes the active path, according to my configuration).
--because of the nature of most graphics/illustration programs out there, the 4x5" space is actually cut in half by all the menu clutter...so effectively, you are drawing in a 2x5" space most of the time. You really have to zoom in to draw any kind of detail.

I feel that the tablet is very promising, but has so far failed me in being a "natural" way to draw. It is a fun as a toy, but somewhat difficult to use in a professional way. Perhaps a larger sized tablet would help me with this, but for now, I am still nostalgic for/relying on old-fashioned pencil/brush and paper. I have not used the mouse that comes with the tablet, as I prefer my other mouse.

52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed Gem, But a Gem nonetheless, April 23, 2004

By 

Doc Agony "Doc" (Wilmington, DE USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wacom Graphire3 4x5 USB Tablet (Graphite Gray, CTE430GR) (Personal Computers)

I actually have 2 reviews, one for Windows XP, and one for Linux (Fedora Core 1)

Microsoft XP:
GOOD:
- **easy** to install
- software bundles are fabulous, in my opinion, and
also easy to install

BAD: small active space, no printed manuals for the software
applications. There are manuals on the disk, though.

UGLY: if you stink with pen and paper, you'll stink with this
gadget, too. In fact, you'll stink even more in the
beginning, because you'll have to get used to the
quirks of the pen.

LINUX (Fedora Core 1)

GOOD: EVERYTHING WORKS! Pressure sensitivity, the eraser,
the rocking switch. Worked with The Gimp like a champ.

BAD: You have to download the latest package from the Linux
Wacom Project http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/

UGLY: You're comfortable installing your own kernel drivers,
right? Getting this bad boy to work is Not For The
Squeemish, but neither is it Mission Impossible.

ON THE WHOLE: I really, really love this gizmo. The $100 price point made this something worth trying out (I draw for fun, not professionally). The bundled software is (dare I say this?) more powerful than the Open Source programs I usually use. Painter Classic was extremely nice, even if the pressure sensitivity is broken.

The best advice I can give you is pick an application and work with it. Like anything else in life, you'll get better with practice. A cheap scanner might be a good secondary purchase (sorry, no recomendations on this point).

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cool, March 25, 2005

By 

Jason (Tennesse, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wacom Graphire3 4x5 USB Tablet (Graphite Gray, CTE430GR) (Personal Computers)

Okay i don't know what was going on with some of the other people's computers... but i have tested one of these slick devices on several computers. After installing the simple drivers from the wacom website, i opened photoshop 7 and immediately it worked! I've tested it on mac os 10.1.5, fedora core 3 linux, and windows xp home. Each time, the same thing...
Install drivers, plug in, draw!

I'm not very good with pencil and paper for drawing, but i used to to colorize some artwrk for a school yearbook, and i've watched as a high school art teacher without much computer expeprience, be able to create masterpeices within minutes. You can set it to feel like any art tool immagineable. The pressure sensetivity works like a charm, producing barely visible lines that become heavy ink blots without picking up the pen. Which gets me to my next point.

The pen and mouse both amaze me, you can "hover them" within about an inch above the tablet to move the curser around. Pushing the pen on the pad works like clicking your mouse, and the buttons can be programmed to e whatever you want, such as an undo button. The nice thing about the pen and mouse is that there are NO batteries and they are extremely light. The pen is about the thickness of a semi-thick pen, like those large pencils kindergardeners use, and the erase on the end actually works (it is also pressure sensitive).

Tracing things by placing them under the pad works okay but not very well due to the small drawing area and thick plastic. But what i like to do is print out a screenshot of my desktop to know where my icons and start menu are, and for personalication. If you want to trace something, you'd be better off putting it on top of the tablet and drawing directly on it.

Okay now onto another subject: learning to use the tablet. After a few hours of practice you will get used to looking at the screen and not the tablet, much like you'd memorize your keyboard's layout. If your computer is not near your tablet, you might consider purchasing a usb extension cable, because of its relatively short cord (about 3 feet).

Pros:
Extremely good for the price
Easy Learning
Pressure sensetivity
Good compatability
Bundled Software
Durable
Many uses

Cons:
Most cons are a result of being a low-end model
Smaller active drawing area
Pen and pad need more buttons, which can be found on Intuos models
short cable

Bottom Line:
This is a great entry-level drawing tablet, from the company that makes the most-used tablets in the world. It's small, and lower end than some fo the other models, but don't let that fool you, it is extremely powerful. You probably won't notice the pressure-senitively difference in higher priced models. It works great for drawing, editing photos with pressure-sensitive precision, some gaming such as mmorpgs and strategy games, and almost any other application you can immagine.
So for easy, cool, and fun ways to do things for under $100, just go get one now and try it out!