Wacom tablets mimic traditional art media

The latest Wacom professional pen tablets come the closest yet to emulating the response and feel of traditional media, the company says.

The Intuos4 tablets are sensitive to a touch of just 1g and register 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity. And they are reversible, so that shortcut keys can be on the right or left, making the tablet equally friendly to right-handed and left-handed people.

The keys are customisable and an OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display shows the the current function of each key.

The pen has a pressure-sensitive eraser and two customisable side-switches; a replacement grip gives the pen a thicker body, which Wacom says is preferred by some users.

A new touch ring can be used to control up to four different parameters, with the central button toggling between functions such as zoom, scroll, brush size adjustment, canvas rotation and layer selection.

The tablets ship with a choice of standard, felt, stroke and flex nibs, which can be stored in the optional pen stand.

The Intuos4 range, which is available now, comes in four sizes: the small Intuos4 S at £199.99, the medium-sized Intuos4 M at £329.99, the large Intuos4 L at £429.99 and the extra large Intuos4 XL at £699.99. All prices include VAT.