Wacom Intuos 3 A6 Wide review

Nobody seems to be trying too hard to displace Wacom from the top of the tablet market. We can't blame other tech producers - it's not a fight we would choose, either. After all, Wacom does such a good job with its tablets you would need a design team that could reinvent the wheel to be in with a chance.

Fortunately, dominance hasn't led to complacency or resting on laurels. With this latest tablet, Wacom brings together all of the improvements we've seen on previous Wacom tablets over the past 18 months, and piles them into the smallest, most portable wide aspect tablet yet.

The Intuos 3 is meant to travel, so the key things to look for are strength and portability. As it's likely to be moved around a lot, it's a shame that a sleeve or carry bag of some sort is missing from this package. The Intuos is lightweight and slim at only 1.3cm wide, and would therefore easily slip in a notebook sleeve for some extra protection.

Performance wise, the tablet is everything you would expect from a reputable name like Wacom. Everything is superb, from the boxed pen's performance and its 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity and tilting prowess, to the simplest of plug- and-play set-ups, responsive active pad and strong build quality.

The software is equally well put together and gives you full range over the Mac Desktop. The wide aspect mirrors all Mac screens and it's a combination that just feels like a natural fit. Wacom nailed tablet engineering years ago and has not dropped the ball once.

The Intuos 3 A6 Wide runs without an external power source and just needs a USB connection to get going. The lack of extra power doesn't seem to have an impact on the response speed of the pen at all, nor the Touch Strip or four programmable Express Keys, which we must add are a nice feature on such a small pad. It's another hit from the design team at Wacom. James Ellerbeck