Wacom Inkling Digital Sketch Pen (MDP123)

The media could not be loaded.  Like others, I've been waiting for this product for months while at the same time wondering how accurate it would be. Mine arrived last night and I was almost afraid to try it because I didn't want to be disappointed--unfortunately, I am.In all fairness to Wacom, the Inkling does do what it is advertised to do. It is a "tool for capturing ideas and concepts for later refinement on your computer using Wacom Intuos pen tablets." I just didn't expect that the line art would need as much "refining" as it does.I have drawn over 40 sketches with the Inkling and I've found that it works at an acceptable level of accuracy when I draw relatively close to the receiver (a couple inches below it). In fact, a few drawings have been remarkably accurate--but many have been way off, especially when I draw near the lower portions of a letter size sheet. If you watch the video you can see this.The pen is wider than a normal pen or pencil. The lower grip area is almost identical to my Cintiq pen, but the weight and balance is different and it will take me a while to get used to it. Also, I normally sketch on paper with a pencil or sometimes a marker, so sketching with a ball-point pen is a big change for me.The Sketch Manager software works well on my Windows 7 (64-bit) computer and I can easily export images to Photoshop and Illustrator. However, when I export layered images to SketchBook Pro things looked terrible--the layers don't line up. It is possible to use the Inkling Sketch Manager software to first save your image and then open it directly in SketchBook Pro rather than "exporting" it. However, when you use this approach all of the layers are flattened even if you save it as a tiff file. Inkling images without layers open fine in Sketchbook Pro.As for pressure sensitivity--I've done several tests on this by drawing rows of parallel lines with various pen pressures. I've found that there is only a slight difference in the darkness or the thickness of the line between drawing very light and pressing quite hard.From the very beginning I have been extremely careful about making sure that nothing was blocking the pathway between the pen and the receiver. I feel confident that the inaccuracies I am experiencing are not due to a physical obstruction between the receiver and pen.An unexpected feature is when the Inkling is connected to the computer it is able to control the cursor on the computer. This feature is included so that you can adjust the "Click Threshold" of the pen. The "unadvertised" benefit of this is that the Inkling pen can be used in a way very similar to how Wacom's digital tablets work. I can use the Inkling to draw directly in Photoshop. Unfortunately, the pressure sensitivity of the pen doesn't seem to be active when it is being used inside a program. I was unable to control the thickness of my lines or the opacity of the stoke by applying more pressure when drawing directly in Photoshop or Sketchbook Pro. If the pressure sensitivity did work inside Photoshop--I would add an additional star to my review.Bottom line: The accuracy of this pen ranges from fairly decent to poor depending on the distance from the receiver, the use of layers (layers seem to throw the accuracy off a bit), and if you add lines to previously drawn areas. I just wish it was more accurate.Updated 11/28/2011: I have now drawn over 90 drawings with the Inkling. I've added a couple minutes to the original video. I've found that if I attach the receiver to the left side of the paper (I'm right handed) it works better than at the top because no area of the paper is farther than 6 or 7 inches away. Make sure you change the Inkling setting when you do this.Updated 01/01/2012: I've added another few minutes to the original video that shows the accuracy of the Inkling when drawing some simple faces. In addition, I have included a short section on how the Inkling's drawings compare to drawings produced by the Livescribe pen. I purchased a Livescribe pen after my initial disappointment with the Inkling. For me, the Livescribe pen has been much more accurate, and since I don't use vectors, and I can live without layers in my line art, I actually prefer using the Livescribe pen (sorry Wacom).Updated 2/17/2012: My Inkling stopped working properly at the beginning of January after it froze up and would not respond for several minutes. The next day it started working again, but I still contacted Wacom about it. They offered to replace it and I took them up on the offer. Unfortunately, the replacement works terribly. It is only accurate within a very small area near the receiver. Anything drawn farther than 3 or 4 inches from the receiver looks terrible with so many missing lines and misalignments that the drawings are almost unrecognizable. Fortunately, I still have my first one which I intend to keep. I had been wondering if perhaps the accuracy of the Inkling varied from pen to pen. That might explain the wide range of reviews here. Based on my experience the accuracy does vary and that is unfortunate.Updated 4/17/2012: I never use this. It just isn't accurate enough for my type of drawing. I'm going to list it for sale on Amazon for half price ($99) and at least get some of my money back. There was one time in January where it froze for about 15 minutes but other than that it has worked the same as shown in my videos. The reason I'm selling it at half price is that the 2-year warranty only covers the initial buyer.Update 4/18/2012: Sold!

As many of you already know, this pen vectorizes what you draw. This is better than scanning because vector files can be sized up whereas scanned images (bitmaps) lose resolution (angled lines becomes staircases).The pen is pretty good as long as you are drawing in the same proximity...that is, you draw everything in the area that you are working on. If you come back to add things, I've noticed that it loses accuracy. It also lost some accuracy as I moved further from the receiver. For example, I wrote "Happy Thanksgiving" and later came back to cross the "T" and noticed that it was off a bit. One thing that may contribute to this may be that I might have accidently moved the receiver when I turned the paper. So be careful that you don't bump the receiver if you like to move the paper as you draw.The other thing I've noticed that it is hard to draw a light line. While my real ink drawing has lightly cross hatched lines, the vectorized image lines appear much heavier than what I drew. I still learning how to use the pen so there might be a pressure sensitivity option in the control. Haven't found it yet.Overall, if you are careful not to move the reciever, the pen is pretty good for small drawings. Larger drawings seem to get a little distored at the far edges (which might be expected since the receiver is rated for A4 paper). I haven't seen the "jaggies" posted by the other reviewer (i need to look carefully) and did not have the same problems with sketch manager as he did (knock on wood). I am running the Inkling on Windows XP (Intel Pentium D processors) and on Windows 7 (Intel i5 machine).The manual could be better. But it is not hard to figure out. For example, it shows that you need to put the included battery into the pen but does not tell you how to open the battery compartment. I was expecting some type of latch (it just opens, if you use your fingernail in the right spot).The thing to note is that receiver stores the image and also has the setup utility. That means you have to plug in the receiver into your USB port so that you can get to the setup utility.Overall, I am happy with this product. It is ideal to sketch out ideas and email to them to a colleague at work.

When I bought the Wacom Inkling pen, it was mainly a way for me to easily transfer my sketches into Illustrator, Photoshop or even Sketchbook to develop further. I was originally disappointed that I could not easily export to Illustrator CS6 until I found there was a 1.2 Version of the software. It took some time to find the update but it was worth it.The pen pressure sensitivity surprised me. I was inking over a sketch I originally did in pencil so I could export it to Sketchbook and pressed a little harder than I should have. When I finally got the sketch in the Inkling Manager, the ink lines were far thinker than I originally intended. One has to be careful when drawing with the pen that they are not pressing down to hard when they draw with it. I would suggest doing you are first drawing lightly in pencil or even using a light blue pencil before going over it with the Inkling.Figuring out how to properly use the layering feature is still causing me some issues. I believe it just a matter of using it enough time until I get a better grasp on the feature. I see it being useful in the future.My real disappointment came when I found out the Inkling was suspended by Wacom for various reason. Their staff was still able to send me to a site where I can buy refills for the inkling but I believe Wacom gave up on the product to soon. The original issue with exporting to Illustrator CS6 and taking to long in coming up with a update must have played a role in their decision in cancelling the line.Besides the originally difficulty I am enjoying the Inkling and how easy it is to export to different programs to continue with the sketch without scanning. IT would still be wise to do your preliminary sketch in pencil than ink overusing the Inkling. I would like to see an update that would allow ledger size sheets (11x17) instead of A3 being the largest you can use. Ledger is more common in engineering than A3 sheets and I am a drafter. Being in the engineering field, I would like to be able to use the Inkling to sketch ideas out for design as well as for art. However, I would still recommend it for different user and not just for artist.

hard to decide whether to give it four or five. the pen and sketching is fantastic. however, i had an issue when following the directions to set the pressure of the pen as it said to do it on my screen, as there is no place else to test it. however, the pen left ink on my screen which was a bugger to get off, but i did with methyl alcohol, finally. also the sketch manager doesn't work really well with windows 8. i think they are working on making it more compatible. i have had wacom pens since 1997 with my first computer and generally i love them. and the inkling is super for travelling and then working the sketches digitally. it also annoys me that most digital 'toys' are made with apple in mind when 80 to 90 percent of computer users are pc's of some sort. when you look at the tutorials for inkling there seem to be more tools to work with on the computer etc and it shows someone using a mac.other than that... lol... it is a pretty neat toy for a sketcher who does more with digital art.

Cette plume n'est peut-être pas pour l'oeuvre maîtresse, mais pour des croquis et un travail exploratoire c'est l'outil idéal. Elle conjugue le plaisir de dessiner sur papier à celui de l'accessibilité sur ordinateur. Bravo Wacom! Il reste maintenant qu'à améliorer le tout pour rapprocher l'oeuvre papier à l'oeuvre digital.

Noelle got this for me (Mark) and it has been challenging and fun to learn to use. I am retired so the flaws are not serious. Positioning can be iffy, particularly between layers. Even so, more layers is better. It may be the way I'm using it (I move the paper around a lot), but I believe that it is simply that this tool needs further development before it comes up to Wacom's usual high standard. Having said that, I would definitely recommend the Inkling to anyone who does a lot of sketching that is going to be digitized. After the learning curve it's much less work than scanning erasing and editing.

It broke after a year. Burnt battery, no software update from Wacom. It is not worth it.