VT Realm Graphic Pen Tablet (Black)

I've had the  VT 12-Inch Touch Screen Graphic Pen Tablet (White)  for 4 years, and the Boss Pen broke because I dropped it one too many times on the floor. Not feeling like I wanted to pay $25 for a pen, I decided to just get a new one, seeing how my pressure sensitivity was old anyway. I'll be breaking my review into sections.BUILD: Very nice build quality. It has a matte plastic base which is slightly rough to the touch. The accent curve is very nice on the very left side of the tablet, as well as the white light which I prefer more than my original VisTablet's blue light. The size is pretty similar to regular printer paper, if you just made it a half an inch thinner and 2 inches longer, approximately. The actual active surface is very smooth to the touch and very nice to keep your arm/wrist on when you're writing/drawing. The original vistablet is much more rough, and flimsy plastic. Not to mention that this active area is the SAME as the original active area... There's also a very long cord, so if you feel like placing it ~3 feet away for whatever reason, that'll work. The only thing I wish they had was a cheaper alternative to the VT Muse to get the spinny wheel + shortcut buttons.PEN: The pen is glossy plastic, and if you're lazy like me, eating things while you're drawing or doing whatever and end up with greasy fingers, wash them. Your fingerprints will stick onto the pen like no tomorrow. Luckily they don't show up because it's black, but it feels a little weird with messy fingers. When putting in the battery, I felt as if it's a little cheap on the inside. There's a very thin piece of metal to hold the battery in, and sticks firmly once you put the cap back on(It's a twist cap). But that may or may not be just to make it lighter.PRESSURE: If you're looking at the different between 1024 and 2048, I personally think its worth it. What I realized with 2048 levels is that with my lightest levels, it was /very/ thin, at least compared to 1024 levels. It was a little getting used to, so if you're looking to make that jump, go for it. I've gotten smoother lines drawing since 2048, but I could just be different.SOFTWARE: Installation was easy for me, however I did have the same driver for it 4 years ago. But from what I cam remember 4 years ago, all I really had to do was put in a CD and let it run, download, and I was good to go. The software it comes with is not very useful(Office Ink + Power Presenter RE II). I'd suggest scraping it. It would be interesting to get a cheap art software included with this, but fine without.MACRO KEYS: I don't bother with these, and never have. They just give you shortcuts to Chrome, Word, whatever. Nothing you can integrate into your art programs, which is disappointing that they haven't done so.

This was a really good 1st tablet right up until I used my last tip and couldn't order anymore because the company went out of business. Couldn't find a universal tip that would work with it. Needless to say this pushed me toward a very overpriced Wacom.

I bought this Graphic Pen Tablet, after the first one (Tursion 12" x 9") I order arrived "DOA" and was so cheap and tingy I did not want to try a second one. I was hesitant at first to order another cheaper model, but I was still not ready to lay down $500.00 for a Wacom tablet yet either. So Glad I did try this tablet out. It is very decent for the money, responsive and seems to work great so far. Also it is very thin and not bulky at all. I am using it with Manga Studio 5, running on an Apple Macbook Version 10.6.8 with 8 GB of Ram. The pen is pretty decent quality as well. It's not cheap and tingy, much like the first verison of the Tursion I ordered. The only fault here, is that is comes with only two extra tips. But they tell you in the included information how to order more, so I will be doing that. Everything seems to be going smooth so far and the pictures are coming out decent. I'm sure a lot of the errors are coming from myself, as I learn this new art technique. I will forewarn you, I had to install / uninstall the drivers a few times to get a good take on them, but it was so simple, that I never had to contact tech support to get it up and working. There are easy to follow directions included and a manual and website for support. No hidden information, everything you need is right in front of you. For those of you using Mountain Lion OS, it does not come with the drivers for this OS, but you can go to the website and download the drivers there, that simple. Overall, very happy with this purchase and liking the new form of art I can produce with it. Given the few noted issues, I'm still ranking this 5 Stars, as It was a great alternative to a $500.00 Wacom. If anything changes or goes wrong, I will update this post. If there is no update, then you can assume everything is still working great!

It's hard to choose the right star rating for this. It's a great tablet - but - it's important to note: only use it with Windows!!! The problem I had with it is that Vistablet's drivers for Mac don't work very well! I could not get the control I needed, could not draw a decent shape to save my life, and that's kind of important when you're a graphic designer. The Realm is great with Windows, however. Worked like a charm when I plugged it into my other laptop. It's an inexpensive alternative to the more expensive tablets out there, and a nice size. I ended up returning it because although it advertises that it's Mac compatible, it really isn't. I don't use my Windows computer anymore for graphics work, so back it went.

Tablet seems to be very slow when I want to flip back and forth between a power point presentation and the tablet. I bought it specifically for this purpose to make notes and drawings for my students as I lecture. It takes way too long for this so for me it has been a useless device and a poor purchase.

this is my 1st tablet and it works great, especially with sai, tho sometimes it freezes but it'll become normal again. Trust me, the sensitivity is amazing. with adobe photoshop cs6, some of the brushes are a bit slow but the lines are smooth. i bought this in december 2013 and it broke in dec. 2014 but it was worth it. I literally used it everyday for 8 hours straight. one thing u dont want to do is rest your elbow or putting heavy stuff on the active area of the tablet, i did that too many times and thats probably why it broke early. its thin so u might want to have a mini table of something for it cuz it feels like it can snap in half without a flat surface for support. i dont know whether i should buy it again or try a new one because my hands are itching draw digitally but this is a must get for new artist wanting to try out digital art. (plenty of space to draw in)