The above image was drawn with the ballpoint pen stylus of the Wacom Inkling. To those who don't know about it, it's the latest released product from Wacom. An introductory video for it can be found here. It is a new tool that lets you draw on any piece of paper with a ballpoint ink stylus, and translate what you draw into a vector- or raster-based digital format. Pretty freakin' sweet.

I recently got mine after being on a waiting list with Amazon, and have put it through the first few tests. I decided to type up a quick review of it for anyone who might have been on the fence about buying it after reading some negative reviews that others have written of it online.

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Okay, let me get this out of the way first: the Inkling is not a 100% accurate drawing device. So yes, all those negative reviews you might have seen on the internet from people all pissed off because it isn't some inexpensive replacement for an actual tablet ARE true.

However, there is one crucial point that every single one of these people have missed, and strangely enough it's even in writing in the very first paragraph of the product's description on Wacom's own site:

"Designed for rough concepting and creative brainstorming, Inkling is ideal for the front end of the creative process. Later, refine your work on your computer using an Intuos4 tablet or Cintiq interactive pen display."

You'd THINK they would get this concept from the first moment they use the pen and see how it functions. It utilizes a ballpoint pen cartridge to let you physically draw on the page, while translating your motions digitally into a vector format. If there are any artists out there who believe they will be able to create refined and gorgeously-inked lines with a ballpoint pen, they have a LOT more to learn.

So getting all of that out of the way, here are my opinions on the device, after my first day of use and testing.

- The device works beautifully as advertised. I had very few moments where it could not read the signal from the stylus, and the green light that blinks when a connection is established is extremely helpful. I have tried attaching the sensor bar to the top of the page and along the left side (since I'm right-handed), and both times there was never a hiccup. However: I can see how this COULD present a problem, since you have to hold the pencil at least a half-inch away from the tip, and I know quite a few people who love to squeeze their pencils as close to the tip as possible. So that might require some practice and feel awkward for some.
- You can see in the image that the tree came out pretty good, but the tighter detailed areas (like the worm) came out a bit funky. I also did some tests with writing letters and it kinda goofed up a bit there as well, so keep that in mind.
- The entire thing feels like a solid piece of equipment. It's made of hard plastic, but has the same strength to it as the other Wacom products, so it really feels good to use. Plus the carrying case/charging dock combination just looks awesome to pull out and use, and it comes with a number of replaceable ink cartridges out of the box.
- The biggest complaint that I have is with the included software. Like most reviews have said, it sucks. Hard. For some reason Wacom decided to go with a proprietary new format for the Inkling's saved sketches, so you can't just grab the vector data right off the sensor. You have to go through the included program in order to export the data to another graphic editor, like Photoshop or Illustrator. I have heard that Sketchbook Pro has the capability to extract the images straight from the device, but I can't justify paying $60 for a program that I won't use aside from that one function, so I haven't tested it myself yet.


Long story short, I'm definitely loving this thing. For how I plan to use it for my own work -- designing web layouts, preliminary concept sketches, loose doodles/thumbnails, etc. -- it is an absolute gem, provided the hiccup with the software doesn't bug you too much. And for $200, it's the cheapest Wacom device. Definitely worth the money and it gets my full recommendation.