Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Let me begin by saying that I don't understand all these negative reviews. In no way does this pen deserve them. While it may not be absolutely perfect in every way, it's definitely better than the competition and gets the job done. A couple of months ago I bought a Lenovo Yoga 720 15.6" 2-in-1 laptop/tablet. I fell in love with the screen and really wanted to use it as a drawing tablet to replace my older Wacom Cintiq Companion tablet (which is amazing, but in comparison quite dim and no keyboard attached). I bought the Bamboo Ink pen in hopes that it would work just as well as my Wacom tablet pen with the Lenovo and Artrage 5 + Corel Painter 2015. Good news! It works! THE GOOD - Pen nib is soft enough to where you don't feel like you're going to scratch the surface of your nice screen, unless some piece of dirt gets underneath and you drag it across. It seems to have a kind of hardened rubber type tip. It's not the same plastic nib you get with the Cintiq Companion pen, that would definitely scratch stuff up especially as it wears down. I was going to get a screen cover for my Yoga to prevent scratches, but now I feel much better drawing directly on the screen. - Pen nib glides across the surface super smooth. If you like the paper/pen feel like it does on the Cintiq Companion, obviously it's not going to feel like that on a glass surface. Personally I don't care and like the smoothness. - Pen sensitivity & pressure works. I can create fine or thick lines without problems. It doesn't work as well as the combo of Wacom Cintiq Companion tablet + pen of course, but it's close enough to where it doesn't stop me from creating what I want. This could also come down to the fact that my Yoga 720 15.6" is not listed in Wacom's "compatibility" section, but it works well in spite of that. Maybe they'll update the driver to include it one of these days, or maybe it doesn't matter. THE BAD(ish) - I'm sad that Wacom didn't keep the more professional shape and feel for this pen, or at least offer a slightly better model. Don't they realize that professional graphics artists and painters might want to use this pen? It's not as comfortable to hold as their original tablet pen that I'm used to. It's like drawing with one of those cheap ballpoint pens. It's thin and weirdly triangular in shape. Be careful when inserting the battery and closing the top. If you try to jam the top back in its place the wrong way, you could break it. There are two tiny black dots that you want to align when closing. - The end part of the pen is not shaped like an eraser, like the original Wacom pen is. Why Not, Wacom??? I don't understand your logic here! - To erase, you either have to select an eraser in your program, or hold down one of the click-buttons. The problem is that the click buttons are hard to press AND use at the same time. They don't protrude out of the pen like they do in the original Wacom pen and they're not as sensitive, which makes it awkward to use even for right-clicking, let alone an eraser. - Not as pressure and tilt sensitive as the original pen, but still pretty good. TIPS BEFORE USING: Make sure to visit Wacom's "Getting Started with Bamboo Ink" web page for instructions and driver! First I had to install the Wacom Bamboo Ink driver from Wacom's website on my Lenovo and then connected the pen to my tablet via Bluetooth. Don't skip this driver step, because while the pen will work without the driver installed, it's not going to work very well. After installing the driver, I opened the Wacom app, selected the softest setting, calibrated the pen on my screen and re-programmed the buttons. I selected the top button as my eraser and bottom button as a "right-click" option. Note that if you change the resolution of your screen at some point, you'll have to re-calibrate the pen again. After a restart, I opened up Corel Painter 2015, went to the preferences in that program and calibrated the pen pressure for that. Works quite well! Artrage 5 doesn't have this option unfortunately. If you have a touch screen (which the Yoga 720 does), you might want to turn it off so that you don't accidentally create paint dots or lines in your painting while you rest your hand on the screen during drawing/painting. I tried it first without turning it off, but minutes later realized it's a necessity for me. I rest my hand on the screen to stabilize the pen, so I was creating dots all over the place, even though I instructed Windows 10 to turn off the touch option when the pen is detected. CONCLUSION: If you want to use your non-Wacom 2-in-1 laptop/tablet for drawing, this is the best option out there right now. Don't expect it to feel the same as your Wacom Cintiq pen and don't expect it to be as precise as far as pressure and tilt are concerned, but I think with proper calibration and customizing the pressure point, you will be happy. With the right drawing/painting programs like Artrage 5 or latest versions of Corel Painter, it will transform your (compatible) Windows 10 laptop/tablet into a kind of Cintiq Companion, which is nice! Hopefully Wacom will release a more professional version of this pen in the near future to improve ergonomics. I attached a small example sketch created in Artrage 5 with one of my custom pencil-looking brushes. This pen is very capable. COMPATIBILITY: - Currently Wacom lists these laptops/tablets as compatible with this pen: Acer Spin 5 ASUS TransBook Mini R106HA ASUS Transformer Mini T102HA/ TransBook Mini T102HA ASUS Transformer 3 T303UA / TransBook 3 Pro T303UA ASUS Transformer 3 T305CA / TransBook 3 T305CA ASUS Transformer Pro T304UA/ TransBook T304UA ASUS ZenBook Flip S UX370UA Dell™ Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1 (7373) Dell™ Venue 10 Pro™ 5000 Series (5055) Dell™ XPS 13 2in1 (9365) Fujitsu LIFEBOOK® P727 Fujitsu LIFEBOOK® T937 HP EliteBook x360 1030 G2 HP Elite x2 1012 G1 HP Elite x2 1012 G2 HP ENVY x360 15-bp000 HP ENVY 8 Note Tablet HP Pavilion x360 14-ba000 HP Pavilion x360 15-br000 HP Pro x2 612 G2 HP Spectre x2 12t HP Spectre x360 13-ac000 HP Spectre x360 13-ae000 HP Spectre x360 15-bl000 Sprout Pro by HP G2 Lenovo™ ThinkPad X1 Tablet Lenovo™ ThinkPad Yoga 260 Lenovo™ ThinkPad® X1 Yoga™ Lenovo™ ThinkPad® P40 Yoga™ Lenovo™ ThinkPad® 10 (2nd Gen) Lenovo™ Miix 510 Lenovo™ Miix 720 Lenovo Yoga 520 (14") Lenovo Yoga 720 (13") Lenovo Yoga 920 Microsoft® Surface® 3 Microsoft® Surface® Pro 3 Microsoft® Surface® Pro 4 Microsoft® Surface® Pro (2017) Microsoft® Surface® Book Microsoft® Surface® Book 2 (13") Microsoft® Surface® Laptop Microsoft® Surface® Studio Toshiba dynabook V82/D Toshiba dynabook V72/D, VZ72/D Toshiba dynabook V62/D, VZ62/D Toshiba dynabook V82/B, VZ82/B Toshiba dynabook V72/B, VZ72/B Toshiba dynabook V62/B, VZ62/B Toshiba dynabook V42/B, VZ42/B Toshiba dynaPad N72 VAIO® Z (flip) VAIO® Z Canvas