Worldwide Tech & Science: CES 2012: Wacom’s New Line of Bamboo Tablets.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Wacom’s New Line of Bamboo Tablets at CES 2012.

Wacom delivers new ways to connect, capture and create with the new Bamboo tablet lineup.

Wacom® will show (Booth 36045, South Hall) its new lineup of Bamboo™ pen tablets at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, January 10 to 13. Bamboo brings together an elegant new design and value added software that enhance the use case interests of computer users better than ever.

Consisting of three new choices, Bamboo Connect, Bamboo Capture and Bamboo Create, the Bamboo family of tablets brings ideas and creativity to life by delivering a flexible and fun computing experience.

Bamboo Connect is designed for visual communicators in a home or office environment who want to express their ideas visually and collaborate with digital ink. Bamboo Capture is the ideal choice for the photo hobbyist who wants to have fun editing or retouching photos with the benefits of Wacom pen input. For the artistically inclined, Bamboo Create is the platform of choice to turn creative ideas into works of art. Bamboo Capture and Bamboo Create also feature multi-touch input capabilities, giving users up to 16 touch points for gesture-based input such as scrolling, zooming and much more, depending on application support.

Featuring new sleek designs, patented pressure-sensitive pens, wireless adaptability (in Bamboo Capture and Bamboo Create only) and outstanding software bundles that are ideal for each individual use case, the updated features of the Bamboo family reflect Wacom’s commitment to creating intuitive input devices that allow people to express themselves in a natural fashion.

“Bamboo is all about offering choices to the end-user and giving them the creative freedom to work with their computer in a natural way,” says Rick Peterson, Director of Consumer Products for Wacom Technology Services Corp. “With Bamboo, inspiration and expression become one, allowing people to explore computer input in ways they never thought possible.”

Mightier than the Sword

Bamboo’s pressure-sensitive, battery-free and cordless pen is the soul of the brand experience, delivering precise input control and a true pen-on-paper feel. Whether note-taking, editing, sketching or painting, the pen is the ideal tool to use when working with software applications, especially those creative applications that support pressure sensitivity. One can even erase mistakes with the pen’s digital eraser! “The Bamboo pen becomes a natural extension to the whole input process,” states Peterson. “No matter what the application, the pen is the user’s direct link to creative control and ergonomic comfort.”

Bamboo Connect ($79.95 USD) is a pen-only tablet and ideally suited for visual communicators who embrace pen usage for digital inking, doodling and white-boarding. The low-profile black tablet with green accents is sure to be a hit on anyone’s desk. Whether marking up a document at the office computer or sketching a new landscape project on the laptop at home, Bamboo Connect brings ideas to life with realistic pen-on-paper feel. Bamboo Connect comes with Autodesk® Sketchbook Express, a creative software application with multiple inking tools and colors for sketching and painting. In addition, Bamboo ownership turns on the digital inking functionality in the latest versions of Microsoft®’s Office® Suite to facilitate more natural collaboration.

Bamboo Capture ($99.95 USD) offers pen and multi-touch input in a single device. The silver and black accented tablet is geared to the photo enthusiast or novice designer seeking a fun way to turn ordinary photos into extraordinary ones using the pen’s 1024 levels of pressure with included software, Adobe® Photoshop® Elements and Autodesk’s Sketchbook Express. “Bamboo Capture users will enjoy the ability to alternate between pen input and multi-touch,” says Peterson. “We have significantly improved the touch experience by offering highly responsive multi-finger touch and much improved data sampling. For those that prefer to work wirelessly, Bamboo’s wireless module is available as an accessory.”

Bamboo Create ($199.95 USD), also in stylish silver and black, provides 2X the work space than Bamboo Capture to give creative customers more freedom of movement when making broad pen, pencil or brush strokes on the tablet surface. Make a mistake? No worries. Just use the pressure-sensitive eraser on the other end of the pen to fix your error. Bamboo Create is ideal for home arts and crafts projects, photo editing as well as scrapbooking. Although larger than its tablet brethren, it is still totally portable and will fit easily into any laptop bag or backpack. Bamboo Create also supports the Bamboo wireless module and ships with Corel® Painter™ Essentials, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Autodesk Sketchbook Express for the most complete creative software application bundle in the Bamboo line.

Bamboo works with Mac® and PC operating systems and will support Microsoft®’s next generation operating system, Windows® 8.

Plug-n-Play Wireless for Capture and Create Models

Wireless input is now available for Bamboo Capture and Bamboo Create. The plug-n-play RF module, sold as a $39 (USD) accessory on Wacom’s e-store, fits into the slot on the side of the tablet to enable wireless connectivity. The simple, no-cable module connects to any desktop or laptop for hours of wireless freedom.