Product Reviews

Formerly the preserve of artists and graphic designers, Wacom is now attempting to convince office workers that they need graphics tablets too. The PenPartner connects via USB and happily co-exists with your standard mouse: no need to disconnect one to use the other.

You can switch between two modes of operation: Pen Mode uses absolute positioning - place the pen in the top corner and the mouse pointer moves to the corresponding corner on screen - whereas Mouse

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Mode is relative and independent of position on the writing surface.

Wacom's pitch for graphics tablets in the office is its use for handwritten notes, presentations and, er, that's it. It comes with JustWrite Office, a utility that adds a toolbar to Word and Excel for incorporating notes and pictures. Trying to write with it is frustrating though: the small tablet area of 81 x 58mm means that letters are hugely magnified and you need to write with very small letters to fit a sensible amount of text in a given space on the screen. What's more, the small area meant the pen tended to drop off the edge of the surface quite a lot.

If you're looking for a cheap tablet for graphics work though, the PenPartner is a little more usable. It has 512 levels of pressure sensitivity, allowing drawings in pressure-aware apps - primarily Photoshop - that aren't possible with other input devices.

As far as office productivity tools go, the PenPartner is certainly no essential. As a traditional but low-cost graphics tablet, however, it's worth a look