New Bamboo Tablets from Wacom Launch in the Philippines

Posted on October 16th, 2009. Written by Rico.

Yesterday saw the launch of Wacom’s newest Bamboo-branded tablets in the Philippines. The new key feature of this line, marketed as “for home or office”, is the full integration of multi-touch gestures. Specs and pricing details follow.

Table of Specs and Prices

Product	Bamboo Pen & Touch	Bamboo Fun	Bamboo Touch	Bamboo Pen
Model Name	CTH-460	CTH-661	CTT-460	CTL-3460
Tablet Dimensions (mm)	248 x 176 x 8.5	337 x 223 x 8.5	208 x 138 x 7.5	248 x 176 x 8.5
Pen Active Area (mm)	147 x 92	217 x 137	-	147 x 92
Touch Active Area (mm)	125 x 85	190 x 130	125 x 85	-
Pen Pressure Levels	1024		-	512
ExpressKeys	4			0
Interface	USB
Color	black	silver	black
Bundled Software	Ink Squared Deluxe Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 (Mac) / 7 (Win)	Corel Painter Essentials 4 Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 (Mac) / 7 (Win)	-	ArtRage
SRP	P6,295	P10,895	P4,295	P4,895

Wacom covers the I-don’t-want-to-pay-for-touch crowd with the Bamboo Pen, which features only pen and no touch functionality. I can’t see why the Bamboo touch (all touch and no pen) would sell. It is, after all, an over-sized track pad, which might seem a bit superfluous to those who already own a laptop with multi-touch functionality.

The touch controls should be very familiar to Apple users; you circle your index and thumb fingers to rotate something, and pinch or expand the same fingers to zoom in or out. Scrolling is even as it is on the iPhone, with quick flicks allowing for continuous scrolls. And yes, Wacom has all the appropriate licenses for the technology. Here’s a marketing video available online that summarizes the Bamboo’ functionality:

Also on display was a Cintiq 21UX, the P155,000 flagship of Wacom used by professional artists and animation studios. The 21UX is basically a large 22.1″ x 16.5″ display that you can draw on. While the Bamboo line is available from multiple resellers starting today, only Ynzal Marketing carries the Cintiq. Sources revealed that, despite the price, over 100 units of the Cintiq 21UX and its smaller cousin, the 12WX, have sold in the Philippines.