Making the decision to draw digitally can be a rather expensive decision. I still use Photoshop CS2 because I can’t afford the steep cost to upgrade. I mainly use Manga Studio and even that I only use debut because I always talk myself out of spending the money to upgrade (though considering you can get EX on Amazon for like 100 bucks, I’m sure I will soon enough.)
Then there is the hardware side of it. I recently upgraded from my very out of date and tiny Wacom to a large Intous4. I love the thing too! But it set me back about $400 bucks.

Then, even more recently Ray Frenden did a review of the Monoprice drawing tablet on his blog. This led to what I have to imagine was a flood of eager orders to Monoprice for this amazingly too good to be true tablet. Myself included.

The biggest and most notable selling point on this tablet is it’s price. For about $50.00 you get a pretty solid product with amazingly great pressure sensitivity. I am by no means well versed in getting out the technical specs well, so I suggest going to the above link to Rays review or to the link directly to the product.
I was able to plug it into my macbook and get straight to it (though I ended up installing the driver off of the disc before I realized it wasn’t working because I didn’t take the plastic wrapping off of the battery.) I had a tougher time when it came to the PC. For some reason the driver didn’t install correctly and this caused a lot of issues with the tablet not working and not giving me the options to adjust settings. Late last night my buddy J helped me get that straightened out though. So, honestly, both issues I had were either a fluke or my own fault.

I haven’t been able to really spend too much time using the tablet. So far I’ve only really done a couple quick sketches, which I will share with you here:

I didn’t spend time trying to refine the line work or pretty up the coloring. I was playing with settings and just getting a general feel for it.
It’s kinda nice to think that for less than a hundred bucks you can get this tablet and Manga Studio Debut (which is what the above sketches were done in) and have a very effective and good quality set of tools.

I personally don’t see this replacing my Intous4, but part of that is I didn’t spend 400 bucks on that to abandon it 3 months later. I work on two different computers in different rooms, so it is nice to have two good tablets. Also, the Monoprice is the perfect size and price for me to travel with. Just slide it in my backpack and go!
If you are looking into tablets to get started, upgrade or are just curious, you really cant go wrong with this thing.

Monoprice, you really owe Ray Frenden a cookie or at least a small check. He basically put this product on the map for you.

I hope to post a more full drawing done with it soon.