Fantastic tablet for the money!, October 20, 2009

I've owned a pen-only Wacom tablet before and I think they make good products, but if you get this one you should be aware of several points that I didn't figure out until I started using this one, although, to be fair, there were indications to some problems on the web, I just sort of flaked in my research.1)The Draw: The drawing and pen functions with the pad are terrific, and unless you're used to high-end tablets, this will probably be fine for you, although the surface is rougher than the older, pen-only tablets and I suspect will wear out nibs fairly quickly. They supply you with three extras.2)The Touch: While the touch on this, even the "tap to click" works pretty well, I'm not able to use it full time as my interface -- I still use a Logitech track ball. If you're used to one of the glass touchpads on a Macbook or Macbook pro, this will seem a bit sluggish, but if you're used to the trackpad supplied with many netbooks (Like my Dell mini)this thing...

I spent quite a bit of time looking at various tablets, reading reviews, and trying to figure out which had the most bang for the buck; the Bamboo Fun won in just about every category. Please note that I am not a professional graphic artist, just a hobbyist (though technically savvy enough to understand the features eg), so I'm reviewing it from that perspective.Installation was a snap. Download the latest drivers from the Wacom site, plug it into a USB port, and you're all set. I tried it out on two laptops and a desktop and installation was flawless on each.The tablet is thin and light, with a more-than-adequate amount of active space (I wanted something that would let me do longer strokes without feeling cramped). The multi-touch capability is really nice with graphics programs that support it; being able to pan and zoom with my left hand while my right remains mostly dedicated to drawing is great (and a quick press of one of the...

This review will be most helpful to someone who is relatively unfamiliar with graphics tablets, as I was before selecting this item for review.Other than the keyboard, the mouse is the most universal computer control device. But trying to draw with a mouse is clumsy. Pen type drawing tablets were invented to offer a more natural input device for any bitmapped graphics programs such as photo retouching and freehand art applications. The other popular input device, generally found on notebooks, is the trackpad, which works directly with your fingers. Recent Apple MacBook trackpads offer two finger stretching and rotating and other fancy tricks. Some people would like to use this method with their desktop computer; Bamboo Fun is in part a giant trackpad that allows you to do that.Before buying it, be aware that Wacom, the largest producer of such things, offers many different products and variants at many price points. These range from large pen-only tablets for...