I'm looking for suggestions for a mid to lower end Drawing Tablet (such as a Wacom or other alternatives). Ideally if anyone has any first hand experience and recommendations I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm just looking for something for around $100 or so.
Any of the Wacom tablets should be sufficient for your needs. There are other brands, Monoprice & Huion in particular, that are getting a lot of good reviews from professional illustrators like Ray Frenden & others. The one caveat to those products being that they don't always play nice with other 3rd party mouse/input related apps like Wacom so they will probably require a little more research up front.
I currently use a Wacom Intuos 4 Small which is a little higher than your price range but prior to that I was using the Wacom's Graphire 3 which is similar to the introductory level tablets Wacom currently has available. If you are also in the market for a digital art app for illustration or comics I would highly recommend Manga Studio 5. On par in many ways with Photoshop but a lot less expensive.
Hey ZS, thanks for the feedback. That seems to mirror some of what I've learned from homework I've done.
How is that active surface area for you on the small? To me it seems too small. I feel like I'd want the medium, but for the price jump I've now found some new Turcom and Huion options that have a 10x6 area for under $100. I know they may be less reliable than Wacom but it's hard to argue with their prices.
Thanks for the software mention also. It's great to have affordable alternatives. I've heard of Manga Studio and also looked at Sketchbook Pro from Autodesk, also very reasonably priced.
I typically sketch small so working on the small surface area is sufficient for my needs. If you're more use to drawing on larger sheets of paper or if you work with a larger monitor (24"+) a larger tablet would be the way to go.
The Huion might be a good alternative to consider. From what I understand, it works just as well as the high end Wacom tablets but you just need to follow the Huion's install directions to the letter (including removing other 3rd party drivers).
I currently use a Wacom Intuos 4 Small which is a little higher than your price range but prior to that I was using the Wacom's Graphire 3 which is similar to the introductory level tablets Wacom currently has available. If you are also in the market for a digital art app for illustration or comics I would highly recommend Manga Studio 5. On par in many ways with Photoshop but a lot less expensive.
How is that active surface area for you on the small? To me it seems too small. I feel like I'd want the medium, but for the price jump I've now found some new Turcom and Huion options that have a 10x6 area for under $100. I know they may be less reliable than Wacom but it's hard to argue with their prices.
Thanks for the software mention also. It's great to have affordable alternatives. I've heard of Manga Studio and also looked at Sketchbook Pro from Autodesk, also very reasonably priced.
The Huion might be a good alternative to consider. From what I understand, it works just as well as the high end Wacom tablets but you just need to follow the Huion's install directions to the letter (including removing other 3rd party drivers).