If you have ever entered the office of a graphic designer you will notice the abundance of drawing tools, some of which being digital. These days the graphic designer has to be well versed in online means, and photoshop, which makes the bamboo tablets or possibly the expensive Cintiq very popular. Essentially artists can draw or write their thoughts onto these pads that then sends the info to the computer and translates a normal drawing into a digital image. Cool, right? Well the main problem that has been plaguing these devices is that artists do not like being tied down to a computer at all times, they want to be able to have artistic freedom and hang out in creative places when doing their work. Therefore the Wacom Inkling was created, a portable device targeting the onthego type of graphic designers that want to work on a notebook or something other than a hard plastic surface.
Interestingly enough the Inkling is small and sexy, coming in a nice little carrying case with all the needed accoutrements. Furthermore, using the device is very simple and is as easy as drawing a picture on a piece of paper, something even the most untalented people, like myself, can do with ease. All you have to do is set up the receiver, a little black box that sits on the top of your paper, and then write away with the magic pen. The pen and receiver apparently communicate with each other and send the position of the pen after every motion. This should lead to a very precise, yet portable alternative to the normally cumbersome tablet options. The only draw backs, pun intended, to this piece of hardware are unfortunately it’s own design. Coming in at $199 this is not a toy, nor is it an inexpensive piece of hardware. So for this price range I was truthfully hoping for a much more ergonomic design, this is targeted at artists after all, and a more intuitive interface. First off ,the design of the pen is really lacking; it is large and bland. I could deal with a lack of visual appeal to a pen of all things, but it just is not pleasing to hold for longer than a few minutes. I foresee this turning into a huge problem, as graphic designers will need to utilize this device for hours on end. Secondly, it seems that the Inkling just doesn’t perform as well as I had hoped. It clearly translates my doodles on a notebook page into digital form for my computer to read, and allows easy editing access, but the quality of the interpretation from hand to computer is extremely lackluster. What I am trying to say is that this device is cool, does it’s job at an OK level, but in the end just isn’t up to par yet with the same devices it was trying to beat out. Maybe the graphic design field will just have to wait for the next iteration of this device, which will undoubtedly be very promising, unless someone is willing to shell out $199 for a just barely acceptable version of this product.
