New 2017 Wacom Intuos Pro: Worth the Upgrade?
In short: No. Here’s my quick review after using it for 2 weeks and being pretty disappointed.
It’s very lightweight and beautiful. High class design, wonderful to hold and carry (even the large version). The back is completely metal, so it can be extremely cold at times.
Native wireless (doesn’t need the Wacom wireless accessory kit like previous models). The bluetooth works well and never dropped and did not have any noticeable lag.
The new pen uses 8000+ pressure sensitivity levels.
Touch has excellent palm rejection.
The new pen stand is incredibly cool, very well designed, has a great weight to it.
If you’re not a new user and you have your programs set up with specific pressure curves or you’re used to using brushes with a specific amount of pressure, you will have to recalibrate every. single. brush. to be able to do the same work with the same general feel. However, stippling work is easier than ever as even lighter strokes are possible.
If you use the Wacom Art Pen (the one that has rotation sensitivity) you will have to deal with either losing the new pressure levels, or deal with losing the rotation. I chose the rotation in the end, as the sensitivity levels are BARELY noticeable, at best. (As well as having nib issues, read on for those)
The surface sheet is ROUGH. It’s not even the “rough” surface that Wacom offers (or rather, will offer, as the new surface sheets are unavailable at this time). Using the standard nib (not even the felt one) feels like writing with a Sharpie on cardboard.
The amount of drag the new nibs and surface sheet produce really slow down production times if you’re used to doing very light, quick strokes.
Also the amount of drag from the nibs and surface sheet absolutely destroy the nibs. I have a very light touch and have never had to replace a Wacom nib in the 14 years I’ve used their tablets, a single nib on this new sheet was completely eaten within 2 weeks of use- and most of the time I ended up using the Art Pen and not the new pen, anyway. Maybe 9 hours total use and it was absolutely destroyed. It’s very likely using the felt nibs would be even worse- and they don’t offer a pack of the new nibs in the store yet, either- by the time they do, I’m afraid every nib would have been completely used up.
Touch doesn’t work correctly in most programs. Photoshop’s touch abilities are the best so far, picking up the difference between a rotate and a zoom gesture quickly, but most other programs don’t quite work as expected. Not exactly a problem with the tablet itself, but with the driver and compatibility with different apps. CLIP/Manga Studio have issues figuring out gestures. SAI didn’t even try.
As of right now (Early Feb 2017), the driver has some issues and causes some significant lag at times. This is wired, not on bluetooth. A stroke will take a moment to pick up, and at times, will freeze a program like Photoshop for seconds at a time before registering. Using an earlier driver and a different pen fixes these issues, so it’s definitely unique to the new model.
The side buttons, while aesthetically pleasing, are extremely difficult to use while not looking at the tablet as you can barely feel them on the tablet- my work process was slowed significantly just hunting for my shortcut buttons. The touch ring is fine, though.
The nibs themselves feel extremely cheap and flimsy and only come in two varieties: felt and standard. No rubber tipped or spring nibs. Old nibs will not work in the new pen. New nibs fall out sometimes and need to be pushed back in every once in awhile. The nibs in general are the major problem spot I see with this new model.
Any old accessories do not work with the new pen (the larger grip, for example). The new pen has a different size and shape and Wacom currently does not offer any alternate grips for the new pen.
The new pen, while lighter, feels significantly cheaper. The pen’s side button rattles if you shake it and has an extremely light actuation weight- you can accidentally press it just by shaking the pen.
500$. Perhaps the Paper model might be worth it, but the new “regular” model is just not worth the price tag to upgrade if you’re already using an older model Intuos Pro. Or even an older Intuos standard.
All in all, if you’re looking to upgrade from a Pen and Touch/Bamboo/older, smaller, hobbyist tablets (the ones with 1k sens. levels)- this could be a nice upgrade, if you can stand the fact that you’re likely looking at a big price tag of nib replacements over the years.
If you’re a new user of Wacom in general, this will be a crown jewel if you’re used to Huion/Monoprice/Yiynova quality.
But if you’re already an Intuos Pro/Intuos user, then this model is absolutely not worth the price.