Wacom announces Graphire4 tablets with cordless pens

Press Release:
New Wacom® Graphire®4 Pen Tablets Make It Fun And Easy To Edit Digital Photos, Draw, Paint And Jot Notes

Vancouver, WA, Sept. 13, 2005 – Wacom’s new Graphire4 pen tablets provide the tools needed to have fun editing photos and exploring digital creativity. These new pen tablets include a patented, cordless, battery-free pen and mouse, a tablet and five valuable software applications. Using the natural control of the pen and the included software, it’s easy to enhance photos and to create artwork for scrapbooks, craft projects and slide shows. It’s also easy to communicate more personally by using the pen to digitally jot notes, annotate documents and sketch quick diagrams. Graphire4 pen tablets are available immediately in a choice of three colors (Silver, White and Metallic Blue) and two sizes (4x5 and 6x8) which are priced at $99 and $199.

“Wacom is delighted to present a product that is designed for people embracing a digital lifestyle,” said Joseph W. Deal, President and CEO of Wacom Technology Corporation. “In the same way our Intuos products meet the needs of serious photographers, designers and artists, the new affordable Graphire4 provides the creative controls and applications for countless hours of personal fun.”

Cordless, Battery-Free Graphire4 Pen
The comfortable Graphire4 pen offers 512 levels of pressure sensitivity for control, two programmable side-buttons for convenience and a pressure-sensitive eraser for easy fixes. Pressure sensitivity makes it possible to control the amount of a software tool's effect simply by varying how firmly the pen tip is pressed to the tablet. Using a Graphire4 pen is easy because every point on the tablet has a matching point on the screen. When the pen is moved over the tablet the cursor moves in precisely the same way on the screen.

Cordless, Battery-Free Graphire4 Mouse
The Graphire4 mouse is ball-free so tracking is always smooth and highly accurate with up to four times the resolution of an optical mouse. It features a rubberized grip for comfort and the scrolling fingerwheel also serves as a third programmable button for convenience. Alternately using the pen and mouse reduces repetitive motion.

Graphire4 Tablet
The Graphire4 tablet uses a USB connection for quick installation on both PCs and Macs. The new transparent photo frame makes the tablet easy to personalize with photos and artwork. The photo frame also contains a clever pen compartment that, along with the pen stand, provides two convenient ways to keep the pen handy and secure. The Graphire4 now features a scroll wheel right on the tablet and two programmable ExpressKeys™ for navigation, mouse clicks and keyboard shortcuts.

Software For Enhancing Photos With Pen Control
The control of the Graphire4 pen and the included copy of Adobe® (Nasdaq: ADBE) Photoshop® Elements 3 make it possible to quickly and easily edit and organize digital photos. Selectively applying high-quality photographic enhancements using the included nik Color Efex Pro™ 2 GE filter collection is also a breeze. “Wacom’s pen tablets offer the right tools for editing photos and deliver a totally natural feel to digital art,” says Ms. Lynette Kent, renowned art instructor and digital scrapbooking author. “The controls and applications included with the new Graphire4 are all about making the personal creative experience fun, free flowing and easy.”

Drawing And Painting Software
The natural feel of the Graphire pen and the amazing capabilities of Corel® Painter™ Essentials 2 (included) make creating great looking artwork fun. When used with a Wacom pen, Painter Essentials 2 can look and feel like just about any natural art tool and is perfect for creating original artwork from photos.

Software For Jotting Notes, Marking-Up And More
On a PC, JustWrite Office™ 4 (included) offers the ability to annotate Microsoft® (Nasdaq: MSFT) Office documents and EverNote Plus™ (included) makes it possible to jot instantly retrievable notes and organize all types of information. EverNote Plus makes managing personal information easy by providing handwriting recognition, shape recognition, a timeline view of notes, instantaneous note searching, web page cataloging, customizable categories and more. On a Mac, the Graphire4 pen provides the control to enjoy all the digital-inking capabilities of Apple® (Nasdaq: AAPL) Inkwell®.

Additionally, Graphire4 customers using Adobe’s free downloadable Acrobat® 7 Reader can mark up Acrobat documents with digital ink, if the “Enable for commenting in Acrobat Reader” feature was turned on when the document was created.