Wacom - Drawing Tablets

Wacom - Shop Graphics Tablets & Drawing Tablets

Wacom provides interactive pen displays, pen tablets, styli and apps to equip and inspire everyone to make the world a more creative place.

Wacom tablets use patented electromagnetic resonance technology called "Electro Magnetic Resonance" ("EMR"). Their technology built into laptops with capatitative touchscreens is called AES, "Active ElectroStatic". It comes, as of 2021, in two versions. AES1 offers 2048 levels of sensitivity, but is criticized for wobbly diagonal lines. AES2 is supported by Bluetooth and doubles pressure sensitivity to 4096 levels, adds tilt sensitivity and allows for more precise drawings.

Several Wacom models, including the Intuos4 and Bamboo, were criticized for the drawing surface's roughness, which caused the small pressure-sensitive 'nib' to wear down, and become slanted or scratchy in the same way as pencil lead, albeit more slowly. This could also cause the surface to become smoother where it is used more, resulting in uneven slick and non-slick areas.

As the nibs were only short lengths of plastic, it was possible for a user wanting a more durable nib to improvise a replacement from a short length of nylon 'wire' (approx 0.065 inches or 1.7mm diameter) like that found in grass trimmer or 'weed-eater' refills, suitably straightened by hand and smoothed (rounded off) at one end with abrasive paper. Additionally, a thin sheet of glass or acetate can be placed over the drawing surface to avert surface or nib damage in the same way as screen protectors are used on phones, although in the case of glass this may induce a—usually modest—parallax error when tracing.

The Intuos4 surface sheet was revised in October 2010 to reduce nib wear. Wacom Europe sells a bundle that includes the revised surface sheet and replacement nibs at a reduced price for installation in existing Intuos4 tablets.