Wacom Press Release

1 September 2006 - Wacom, the leading manufacturer of pen tablets and interactive pen displays, today launches the Intuos3 A6 Wide pen tablet, aimed at wide-screen notebook users as well as professionals and enthusiasts from the digital imaging and photography markets. The growing number of wide format monitors has resulted in a higher demand for Intuos3 pen tablets in a specific aspect ratio. The Intuos3 A6 Wide is the latest addition to the Intuos3 pen tablet range. It replaces the Intuos3 A6 and extends Wacom’s offering of wide format pen tablets which already includes the Intuos3 A5 Wide and the Intuos3 A3 Wide.

The Intuos3 A6 Wide offers a compact active area of 4x6 inches, (98.4 mm x 157.5 mm) and provides a wide aspect ratio of 16:10 which more closely matches the dimensions of widescreen displays in the market place today. The pen tablet also comes with Corel Painter Essentials3.

Intuos3 family features
Intuos3 provides extended functionality through the ExpressKeys and Touch Strip. The ExpressKeys are four-button keypads that can be pre-configured with frequently used modifier keys and the Touch Strip acts like a scroll bar with presets to allow zooming and scrolling. Situated on the left and right hand side of the tablet’s active area, users can directly access functions such as pan and zoom, cut, copy, paste and undo at the touch of a fingertip.

For high precision work, each Intuos3 tablet offers a resolution of 5,080 dpi and 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity in both the pen tip and eraser. The pen tablets are able to recognise the tilt angle of a Grip Pen of up to 60 degrees. Each input device also offers Tool ID. In supported applications, the tablet automatically recognises the relevant tool with its individual settings when the device is brought into contact with the tablet.

Intuos3 pen tablet range
The Intuos3 range is available in A4, A4 Oversize and A5 formats as well as in wide formats.

Intuos3 A5 Wide
The Intuos3 A5 Wide provides an active area of 6x11 inches and comes in a 16:10 aspect ratio. This makes it particularly beneficial for the digital imaging environments as the wide format tablet allows work to be carried out on double monitor set-up or wide format display. Using the standard mapping of current pen tablets with a wide format display or multi-monitor set-up, often results in a distortion of objects, as the proportions of the tablet do not fit the screen.

Intuos3 A4 Oversize
The Intuos3 A4 Oversize offers an active area of 12x12 inches (304.8 x 304.8mm) for working both horizontally and vertically in A4 size. It comes CAD or DTP configured. CAD Includes the Intuos3 Lens Cursor providing a clear line of sight for both left and right-handed users. The DTP set-up comes with an Intuos3 Grip Pen equipped with a double side switch and eraser enabling a natural feel to painting and drawing.

The Intuos3 A4 Oversize includes a transparent overlay for tracing artwork and a QuickPoint area for fast navigation. This is a small area on the tablet, which enables the user to navigate around the screen with smaller pen movements.

Intuos3 A3 Wide
The Intuos3 A3 Wide is the largest pen tablet in the Intuos series and is ideal for use with large widescreen displays as it has an active area of 12x19 inches (304.8 x 487.6mm). It has a wide aspect ratio of 16:10 and also comes with a CAD or DTP set-up.

The Intuos3 A3 Wide also has a transparent overlay for holding originals or menu templates and a QuickPoint area for faster navigation.

Pricing and availability
Intuos3 A6 Wide is priced at £159.99
Intuos3 A5 is priced at £199.99
Intuos3 A4 is priced at £309.99
Intuos3 A5 Wide is priced at £255.31
Intuos3 A3 Wide – DTP configuration with Intuos3 Grip Pen is priced at £509.99
Intuos3 A3 Wide – CAD configuration with Intuos3 Lens Cursor is priced at £479.99
Intuos3 A4 Oversize – DTP configuration with Intuos3 Grip Pen is priced at £379.99
Intuos3 A4 Oversize – CAD configuration with Intuos3 Lens Cursor is priced at £349.99

All prices are excluding VAT.

The Intuos3 pen tablets are available from Computers Unlimited, the Intuos3 A6 Wide format will be available from September.

The tablets have a USB connection and run on Windows 2000, XP or XP 64bit and MacOS X 10.2.8 or later.