Home > Consumer Reviews > Bamboo Fun Pen Black

Pros: Better than a mouse when used with a Wacom tablet; works with no bugs or issues; very good build quality; appears and feels reliable; comfortable to hold; and attractive appearance.

Cons: Price is a bit steep. But I double it as a mouse, so it's reasonable after all.

This also works with the original Graphire tablets (CTE-xxx). I bought it to replace my less than two year old Graphire pen. This is of much much better quality. Looks like Wacom has realized that it produced a terrible pen for an otherwise excellent tablet when they made the Graphires. The Graphire pen was extremely unreliable and also very uncomfortable. I heard many complaints and those complaints had a reason. The Graphire pen had a terrible design, especially with the rubber covering. The buttons themselves surrounded by the rubber clothing were also poorly made. It never felt good in your hand, and it became nearly unusable after a short time. I torn away the rubber clothing and continued to use the pen for another half a year, and the thing eventually became so bad that it was completely unusable. I'm glad that Wacom made the new pens for the new Bamboo tablets compatible with the older Graphire tablets. So far, it seems 100% compatible and I've run into absolutely no issues. The new pen is better in all aspects. The buttons are much easier to access and are much better designed and made. And it lost the hated rubber cover. If you have ever used the older Graphite pen, you will especially appreciate this one.

The Wacom Bamboo pen is really something else, at least, compared to my old Graphire 4.

The sensitivity is pretty amazing--really, it has a lot of depth. It took me a few days to get used to it, actually!

I bought two graphire 4 tablets-- both pens, at around the same time first started losing buttons, and then the eraser would give out...then it wouldn't work right etcetcetc, whatever was wrong with those has been fixed with this. I've had it for quite a bit now and nothing is falling off or has stopped responding. The only reason why I had to get a new one was because my dog ate the end off of my other. It's been noted that it feels comfortable in your hand, and this is also true!

Because I knew just what I was purchasing, I didn't need to know anything ahead of time. It could be noted that the pen seems to be interchangeable with other tablets. But I'm not sure on how many. Bamboo Fun Pen Black

I got a Wacom CTE-430 Graphire tablet some years ago, then at one point sat on the pen and broke it. The Bamboo fun pen works perfectly with my old tablet, and everything installed right the first time on OS X 10.5.7, and it responds to pressure in Photoshop without a hitch. It is nicer to hold than the old pen, the rocker button works more cleanly, and it's nicer looking too. A little more money and I could have bought a new tablet, though, and I was tempted. But luckily I am cheap, and now I am pleased with my purchase.

I lose pens all of the time. Of course, usually they are the kind I can afford to lose, and they are easy to replace, and eventually they turn up. It's really a pain, though, when the pen is a Bamboo Pen - my daughter and I use the tablet pretty regularly with our laptop (usually with Corel Painter 11) and every once in a while one of us will misplace the pen. The trouble is, we don't usually use the laptop at a desk so it's easy to leave the pen and tablet and computer all together somewhere or other and then someone else in the family might unplug the tablet and wander off with the laptop, leaving the pen stranded before it gets picked up and put away. That's a recipe for loss. Usually it turns up, but that's inconvenient since it means we can't use the tablet in the meantime. One time it didn't show up and, after a few weeks of hoping it would and a couple of dedicated searches to be sure, I finally broke down and ordered a new one here on Amazon. This time, though, I ordered a Bamboo Carry Case to come with it to be sure we didn't lose it again.

We're very happy with the new pen. It works great, and it's nice to be able to use the tablet again. At first I was frustrated by the fact I had to shell out this much for a new pen -- but then I thought about it, and it is much better than having to replace the whole unit, and I realized that a fancy normal pen can easily cost much more than the price of this one and as far as I'm concerned this is much more useful than a prestige pen.

Note that it's not just for drawing. With this and the tablet installed (we use it on our MacBook), you can set things up to have the pen function like a mouse - where you can hover over the pad to move it and touch down or use one of the pen's buttons to click. The tip is pressure sensitive, which means if you press harder while drawing the lines can be thicker and if you touch lightly the lines will be faint, and you can adjust this sensitivity. If you are drawing you can turn it over and the back will automatically function as an eraser. You can also go into settings and define what you want the buttons to do. I wrote a review of the Bamboo tablet a couple of years ago suggesting that it wasn't a very good replacement for the mouse, but it interfaces very well with Mac's Leopard operating system, and I now find it easy to use as a mouse when I want to. The buttons are a bit awkwardly placed for my usual handgrip, but I've gotten used to that and the pen is easier to use now. It's indispensible for drawing and photo retouching applications, and I'm very happy to have one. If you do buy a replacement pen because you lost the old one, though, do yourself a favor and buy the case as well.

I needed to replace the pen for my 5+ year old Wacom Graphire tablet. My main concern was whether or not the new pen would work properly with the old tablet. No need for concern, it works perfectly and saved me the considerable expense of buying a whole new tablet.