Wacom Intuos5: Unboxing Photos and First Impressions

My Wacom Intuos5 (medium) tablet arrived last night. I haven’t had a chance to really put it through its paces, but in the brief 10 minutes or so I had last night – Wacom has a winner. My cursory impression is that the Intuos5 tablet is well worth the upgrade from earlier models, including the Intuos4. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with some unboxing photos:

Beautiful packaging is a hallmark of Wacom’s products, and the Intuos5 is no different. The packaging was clean and inviting. I felt like I was unboxing an Apple product.

The Intuos5 stylus feels identical to the Intuos4 model. Included with the pen is a pen holder, which houses 10 replacement nibs inside it.

Also in the box is a driver disc, an installation booklet, and a USB cord (more on that in a moment).

The USB cord is reinforced and feels much sturdier than its Intuos4 counterpart. The USB connection is on the side, placed in the middle of the tablet. From a structural standpoint, the connection feels solid and there’s less chance of the cord strain with the new design compared to the Intuos4 model.

In terms of the tablet itself, the Intuos5’s surface is a pleasure to draw on. Again, I’ve only spent 10 minutes testing this out, but my first reaction was “WOW!” – my hands glide across the surface instead of sticking to it. Gestures also work – but I haven’t tested this beyond zooming in and out of the canvas. The heads-up display (HUD) is a huge improvement over the buttons on the Intuos4. Hovering your hands over the appropriate “buttons” will show the HUD display. You can use the default button settings or customize them to the app you are working in. I have a feeling I’ll be using the HUD quite a bit, because I don’t have to keep looking at the tablet to know which button I have to click.

Again, these are my first impressions. I hope to have a more thorough review posted, after I’ve had a chance to use the tablet on a few real-world projects. In short, I’m super glad I went for the upgrade.

-Krishna