Trust Slimline Widescreen Tablet

If you’re serious about creating artwork on a computer, a graphics tablet can be a worthwhile investment.

At 25 by 25 cm the Trust Slimline Widescreen Tablet is a very large example. In fact it’s one of the largest we’ve looked at, but its size comes at the expense of quality.

The supplied pen was fairly comfortable to hold but a little heavy because of its AAA battery – the pens supplied with Wacom tablets are much lighter, for instance. That said, a AAA battery is much better than the impossible-to-find AAAA batteries found in some graphics tablet pens. There are buttons on the side of the pen for right- or double-clicking but unlike on some pens there is no eraser tip on the other end.

The tablet itself connects to the computer’s USB socket with a light that shows when the pen is in range and dims when the pen is clicked. A clear tracing sheet is supplied - this is helpful for transferring rough drawings to the computer.

There are 29 programmable areas around the edge which can be assigned to keyboard shortcuts or programs. A hint is displayed when the pen hovers over a shortcut area, which is handy as there’s no need to learn them all.

Sadly the tablet wasn’t quite as good as we’d hoped: the tracking of the pen seemed slow and it wasn’t precise enough.

The Slimline Widescreen Tablet is expensive given its problems with lag and the pen. It’s significantly cheaper than the nearest Wacom equivalent in size but if tablet size is not an issue, we’d recommend spending the money on a Wacom. It’ll be smaller but more accurate.