I recently started a little side project to this blog, a cartoon site called Spamtoons.com. I've been cobbling cartoons together to this point using my very meager skills drawing in The GIMP and Inkscape along with some free and public domain clip art. While that's working, I've had some ideas that require me to create some original stuff of my own. It seemed like I needed a drawing tablet.

I did some searching on eBay and elsewhere on the web and just couldn't find a really good deal. I was surfing some of the "green light specials" on Geeks.com when I found the Aquila-L1 Graphics Tablet with Cordless Stylus Pen for $17.99 (normal price $21.99). I decided it was worth risking $20 on it. It arrived Saturday and I've already done quite a bit of work with it.

Below is a photo of the unopened Aquila-L1 package:

The tablet in its packaging

The contents of the package appear in the photo below:

The package contents

Installing the tablet couldn't be easier. I plugged it into a USB port and Windows XP immediately recognized it, loading built-in Windows drivers for it. And, as we used to say when I used a Macintosh, "it just worked"...

The cordless pen (pictured below) contains a battery at the time the Aquila-L1 tablet is boxed up and is immediately ready for use. The tablet detects the pen when it's held within about 3 inches of the pad and moves the mouse pointer. When I activated the freehand drawing tool in Inkscape, the Aquila-L1 and pen allowed me to draw images on the screen that were difficult or nearly impossible with the mouse.

The cordless pen

The pad is reasonably sensitive to pen movements and I found it very comfortable to hold the cordless pen. The surface of the tablet is slightly rough, giving a very paper-like feel to using the pen.

Using the Aquila-L1 graphics tablet is similar to using a mouse, yet different. For example, when drawing a freehand shape in Inkscape, I select the freehand tool using the mouse. Then I pick up the tablet (because I find that comfortable, not because  I have to) and wave the pen over the tablet surface to move the mouse pointer where I want it. Once it's where I want, I tap the pen to the tablet's surface and begin drawing. Watching the pen move across the Aquila-L1 tablet is virtually useless, so you should watch the cursor move about on-screen instead, which seems to work much better (at least it did for me). A button on the pen simulates mouse right-clicks.

Bundled on the CD bundled with the Aquila-L1 tablet is a device-specific driver to replace the default Windows driver that installs when the device is plugged in, a software package called "PenSuite", and a trial copy of Painter 8. Since I use The GIMP I  didn't bother with Painter 8, but I did install the other software and the driver after playing with the pen for a while (mostly because I wondered if the software added any features).   I'll add more about this later.

The tablet (at least as far as the package is concerned) supports Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP. I tested it only on Windows XP. It might work on a Macintosh, but you'd be on your own if it didn't work out, since the tablet's not officially supported on that platform.

My only complaint, and it's pretty minor, is that the surface is rather small.  But I knew it would be going into this.  I didn't want to invest $200+ in a tablet only to find I didn't like it or didn't use it that much.  As you get used to using the tablet, the small size isn't that big a factor.  You just have to adjust how you use it.

On balance, I've found this to be a great product for the money spent and would definitely recommend it to anyone who has a need for a small graphics tablet. If you're a full-time artist you may need something much larger and fancier, but for the rest of us this little device probably provides the functionality we need.   I'd give it an 8 out of a possible 10.