Customer Reviews

Trust Slimline Widescreen Tablet 16529

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I rely on my much used, fairly ancient Wacom tablet everyday for my work - then one day it completely gave up the ghost at a very inconvenient time. So choosing this Tablet was a rushed purchase as it was all I could get from my local PC store. I thought I could use it to buy me some time whilst I shopped around for the best price on a new Wacom.

However 1 week in and I am very pleased with it. It's accurate and works in Photoshop CS5 - including excellent pressure sensitivity. It is has a very large working area and the pen is reasonably comfortable to hold. For less than £70 you can't really expect anything else. Yet, there is more. It has a tracing sheet built in, pre-programmed macro keys for common commands such as Save & Print and comes with 2 spare pen nibs (usually the first thing to wear out).

So why not a 5 star review? Just a a few things to consider:

1) The Pen, whilst comfortable is a little 'creaky'.... will it last many years of constant use? I am not sure. Once again, for the price paid this is not a major issue.

2) If you work with a dual screen set up (like me), you may well find (like me) that the tablet area automatically stretches across both monitors. This is not necessarily a good thing as running Photoshop on the main screen only means you are only using a portion (about half) of the tablet for your work. Unfortunately there is no option in the tablet's software driver to change this. There is, however, a solution!

It's a bit technical, but if you copy the setup files from the included CD to your hard-drive and then edit a file called " aiptbl.ini " and then re-install the drivers from your hard-drive, you get a new option in the control panel to limit the tablet to one monitor. Why this is not included with the standard installation defeats me. I would advise doing a google search for " aiptbl.ini " for more details - it seems to be a fairly well documented problem with many tablets in this price range. Oh BTW, this is on a PC - I've no idea how if this works on a Mac.

3) Finally it has a little flashing blue light on it which is distracting. Another solution - black tape!

So that's it. Great stuff if you can get around the minor disadvantages. I know I will end up with a new Wacom one day, but hopefully this will delay that big expense for a while. The price differential between this and the equivalent sized Wacom is vast, however, with the Wacom you will get much better drivers and possibly more impressive longevity, so consider that before buying, but otherwise it's a wise purchase.

At first I was sceptical about buying this tablet from the 1 star review about bad installation and driver issues but on purchasing the product and downloading the drivers which are obviously placed on their website, I had my tablet up and running in about 10 mins, I run Windows 7 64bit and the tablet does everything I want it to do although the hot keys round the edge were a tiny bit difficult to get working, a reboot sorted everything out so now it works perfectly. Would definitely advise to buy this product

At first, I was a little bit nervous purchasing this product. The previous two reviews gave very contrasting star ratings but I took the gamble based upon its price and compatability with Windows 7 (64-bit). My previous tablet -Aiptek 600u- gave up after I changed the operating system!

In my opinion the Trust 16529 tablet is fantastic! It works perfectly well with all my programs (Adobe CS3 suite and Zbrush)and has no conflicts with Windows 7. I can't recommend it enough.

Trust are a brand that has a certain amount of tech snobbery directed at them. I myself have been guilty of this in the past, despite having never even owned a single Trust peripheral to even come to this snobbish opinion in the first place. After purchasing this tablet my opinion is now completely reversed, and I now highly rate both their hardware and their customer service, with which I had some minor dealings with as I'll explain.

I purchased this tablet/pen combo based solely on the price (it was a mere £24.97 at the time!) and also having recently given up on Wacom's supposedly superior tablets, which no longer deserve the reputation they have in my opinion. All but one of my Wacom tablets purchased over the years has become faulty or unusable just outside of the warranty period! Wacom will repair outside of the warranty at 100% cost to you for repair and postage costs, which are very high, and their attitude in email comm's is pretty flippant once the warranty is expired, as well as being slow to even reply.

Anyways, I took a punt at this graphics tablet, it arrived and unfortunately the pen was faulty from the start. Not good! I contacted Trust customer service, who quickly replied and offered to send me a replacement pen free of charge! In the meantime I exchanged the faulty pen and tablet via Amazons return service.

The replacement functions superbly. Penny for penny you would get a tablet with a much much lower spec from the likes of Wacom. A Wacom tablet of similar spec would be around the £200 mark.

The battery powered pen is something I was a bit unsure about, but after a short amount of use you'd forget it was even battery operated. The only minor fault regarding the pen is if you do not use it for a little while it switches off to conserve power, and you have to click the tablet with the pen to wake it up. For a short period the pen cursor is then a bit jittery after wake up. This is the only fault - if you can call it that? - with the whole pen/tablet package. A minor plus for me at least, is the pen nib pushes in on a stiff spring when you write/draw, which gives more physical feedback than pressing down on a hard nib with no give.

The tablet build quality and functions are the same as my past Wacoms, lag free, slickly designed, nice finish etc. I use many illustration app's, CS4, Sketchbook Pro, Corel Painter, Artrage Studio etc, and also Zbrush. All worked fine with the tablet.

I cannot comment on the longevity of this tablet, but my dealing with Trust customer service have reassured me that should it go wrong they will sort it. They offer a two year warranty, EXACTLY the same as Wacom! Considering their price, Wacoms tablets should have a lifetime guarantee!

All in all, I would never hesitate in buying Trust hardware in the future, especially their graphics tablets.

I use this product with my system primarily for creating freehand textures for 3D-models, and drawing/sketching. The precision is fantastic and considering the size (same as A4 paper when landscape) its value for money is incredible, especially compared to its Wacom competitors. It also comes with shortcut touch buttons which can be pressed with the pen to launch applications quickly (these you personally customize).

The pen that comes with it includes 2 changeable tips for when the original runs out (4 months of heavy use and its still going strong), as well as a battery which has also lasted as long.

I use Windows 7 64-bit on my system, and before installing this (you can do the following even if you have already installed) I first disabled the Windows 7 tablet features/drivers which can be done by typing "features" into the start searchbar and then selecting "Turn Windows features On/Off" in the search results. When you have done this (and restarted) install the software on the disc that comes with this product so you get maximum performance and precision (and get rid of the bugs with the Windows components).

To summarize, a great product which is well worth its amount and more, and fantastic for professional and personal uses!

NOTE: The drawing area is constantly grey, it will not light up or anything to show your screen for drawing. It also solely responds to contact from the pen and NOTHING else in case you are wondering.

EDIT: After having to reinstall the software with this product as I got a new computer, I found that at first the precision (even when doing what is mentioned above) was laggy/delayed. The reason for this is because in Control Panel > Pen and Touch the "Press and hold" "Right Click" pen action is enabled, you want to DISABLE this and this will get rid of any lag/delay when using the pen.

This product arrived and I had it installed within 5 minutes. Went straight to the Trust website and downloaded the drivers for Windows 7 (64-bit) and installed, then plugged in the tablet and it worked right away. Also works fine in Photoshop CS4 with full sensitivity (to control the thickness of the stroke with more or less pressure).

Also works in Mac OSX plug and play, although doesn't seem to work in Photoshop on Mac.

Has a really nice size allowing for full brush strokes and has 2000 LPI sensitivity meaning it is great for pinpoint accuracy etc. etc. A really good product overall.

What a fantastic bit of kit! I've had 3 or 4 graphics tablets over the years and have always been disappointed by their size, lack of touch sensitivity or inability to run sensibly under various operating systems.
Not so with this one, it's large (not far off A4 active working area), very slim and lightweight, installed on my laptop which is running Windows 7 64 bit in 5 minutes without any hitches or glitches and is great fun and very responsive to use. The combined software (Artweaver) is excellent and I also use it with Corel Painter 4 Essentials.
For the price and features I'd recommend this to anyone.

I had, until recently, been using a rather ancient Genius tablet, which suddenly stopped working one day. I'd known for a while it was wearing out, and had already determined not to get another Genius tablet as the driver support had been awful. But I had also decided I didn't want a Wacom - I'm used to working on large sized tablets, and I would have needed another mortgage to buy a large Wacom. The reasonably priced ones are practically microscopic and completely unsuited to my needs. So I went looking at other brands, with an emphasis on large size, good driver support and good value for money.

I ended up deciding on the Trust brand fairly quickly, due in part to the better reviews it had compared to other non-Wacom brands, and decided on this one because it was similar in size to my last tablet but widescreen in proportions - as I'm using widescreen monitors now, going for this one made sense.

And I haven't regretted my decision. Bear in mind that what others have said about the drivers in a dual monitor setup is completely true. I ended up downloading newer drivers than the ones that came on the disk, and edited them to add the support for setting my tablet to work only with one monitor. The reason I didn't knock a star off for this is because I didn't find it that difficult, it took all of five minutes to do, and I didn't mind doing it. (I had more trouble uninstalling my old tablet than I did installing this new one, and after the problems I had there, editing a single .ini file was nothing.)

Overall, I love this tablet. It has a lovely solid feel and it works perfectly with PaintShop Pro X3. The pressure sensitivity is very sensitive, and the tablet responds wonderfully to every tiny movement of the pen. I'm able to do things with that tablet I never could with my old one, simply because it's so much more responsive and the drivers work consistently. I love the little pen holder. Previously, my pen would sit on my desk and end up rolling around, falling off and generally getting in the way. But now it doesn't, because the pen holder is solid and decently weighted. Now it only goes wandering when a cat decides it's a toy... And the addition of two spare pen nibs is fantastic - I think I'll be needing them one day.

Installed first time on fully patched XP, restarted and the tablet worked immediately, with pressure sensitivity, in the Gimp. (Paint also works, but without sensitivity.) The install has to run as an admin, but once installed it all works properly without.

My daughter has been painstakingly drawing with the mouse for the last few months and the difference with a tablet is huge. Drawing is obviously much easier and and she is very happy with pressure sensitivity. The only worry is the pen -- in our house, "cordless" is just another word for "lost" and an ordinary stylus doesn't work, so a recess on the tablet might be a better bet. There are function button regions around the edge if you want to get serious, but we haven't gone there at all.

No doubt there are better tablets, but for family use, this one seems excellent.

Very responsive and easy to use. Bought with my 6 year old son in mind but I find myself using it on technical drawings which adds a pleasant organic feel.