Review by Victor Blake

I purchased Sketch Book Pro specifically for doing initial (draft) sketches of network diagrams, flow-charts, and other telecom engineering work. In the past I’ve found most drawing programs to either be lacking in features or far too complex to learn and use for simple sketches. What I needed was a program that could allow me to do a mix of vector object placement and drawing as well as free-hand sketching (with a Wacom tablet). Having tried many programs (like Iluustrator and Corel) I found them to be geared towards artists and designers as well they should be. I had resorted to using Microsoft OneNote (which I still use for other purposes) for sketches.

Sketch Book Pro offers the simplicity of doodle/sketching with some of the finer features of a mature drawing application such as pressure sensitive support and controls,support for gestures, flexible placement of pallets, etc.

In addition to these benefits it is a very reasonable price compared to other products. I do not use the painting features, but the pencil, marker, and other features are perfect for sketching and initial concept work. Compared to doing a first draft in Visio, freehand sketching a network design with Sketch Book Pro and the Wacom takes about 1/8th of the time.

I also use it for whiteboarding with engineers using desktop sharing with presentation/conferencing software.