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(More customer reviews)I have been going to school for Graphic Design and Fine Art for the last 3 years or so. I nearly have my bachelors and will soon be moving onto my masters of Graphic Design.
With this in mind its obvious that I have been looking into graphics tablets for quite a while. Wacom's Intuos 6x8 tablet is what I had been looking at, longingly for a few years. Unfortunately the price was too far outside what I could possibly afford (and still pay for school, car, bills, etc). I had used the less expensive "Graphire" 4x5 tablets from Wacom and I was not too impressed. The build quality was good but the size was too small to do anything detailed.
A friend who also does a lot of artwork on the computer turned me onto the Aiptek Hyperpen 12000U, which he had just bought for $ from CompUSA. A tablet of this size (9x12) for only $ definitely caught my attention, so when my birthday came around and my mom asked what I wanted I emailed her a link to this page here so she could buy it for me :).
The build quality of the Hyperpen is good. Its a solid unit over-all. The pen feels a little flimsy and the mouse is almost a negative buying point due to its odd and uncomfortable shape, but it is useable. Who buy a graphics tablet with the intention to use the mouse anyway? I have a very nice optical that I wouldn't give up even if the Hyperpens mouse were more comfortable to my hand.
I have been using it for a few weeks and I am impressed with the quality and value for the money. The pen is very accurate and the pressure sensitiveity works well with Adobe Photshop and Illustrator. The setup and control programs are both intuitive and easy to use.
I have used the Wacom Intuos 2 6x8 and this tablet and I can tell you that there is no noticeable difference between using the two except for the shape of the pen and the size of the tablets (the Hyperpen is 9x12). The Hyperpen has a slightly thicker pen because it needs a AAA battery (included) to work.
The only downside to the Hyperpen is that its mouse and pen need a AAA battery to work, but the need for a battery is a small trade off to saving $340.
-->Added 05/04/2007
I recently had to buy a new pen for my tablet, which is $10 from the Aiptek website (much cheaper than $60 for a Wacom stylus). I find the new pen to be a bit more sturdy than the pen that came with the tablet. I have had this tablet for about 4 years now, and it still works well. I had gotten to the point where my pen movements would get jerky, or suddenly the pen would jump to a somewhat random point on the screen. The new pen solved this issue, and in fact I beleve the newer pen is actually more accurate than my old pen ever was.
In fact, the whole tablet works even better than ever with the new pen and also the release of driver version 3.15 which is also available from the Aiptek website. Using driver ver. 3.15 and my newer pen, I have not had my pen jump unexpectedly a single time, and I use this tablet nearly every day (I work for a growing company in the Graphic Design/Creative dept.) The positioning of the pen and the cursor on the screen is very precise, and it detects even very slight movements.
I would, as I did before, highly recommend this tablet to anyone who either cannot afford a Wacom, or doesn't want to spend the money on one. For the money, this tablet is an incredible value. I only wish that it could detect pen tilt, but for about $300 less than a similar sized Wacom tablet, I don't feel that I am missing out much!
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Aiptek Inc (HYPERPEN12000U) HyperPen 12000U
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