[turbo_pascale (Rob)]

I had an old Intuos GD (serial version) and it only stopped working when I went to Vista 64 (no 64 bit support in the driver for the serial version).

Decided to splurge and got the new Intuos 4 Large (8x14") one, and it's pretty cool. it does take quite a bit of getting used to, but I find it good for fiddly stuff. My main reason for getting it was to replace the old one that I couldn't use any more (not that I used it much), but I really wanted to use it for editing my photos, as I find the mouse a bit too fiddly for detailed stuff. Photoshop is very tablet aware, and you can do plenty of very cool stuff with it.
My justification was that sitting and clicking away at thousands of little areas to do selections to build zones is easier done with the pen than the mouse. The short answer though, is you need to get comfortable with it because until you do, everything seems weird and un-coordinated.

I run 3 monitors side by side and span my desktop all the way across, and the nice part is that given the size of the tablet, the amount of movement necessary to stay on my centre monitor is quite reasonable. You can put it in to "mouse" mode though, and that can make the transition smoother. Biggest problem is desk space!

It's a lot of money to spend on something that you might not get a lot of use out of, but then again, there are quite a range of models and price points. Mine was about $650, (RRP about $800, but shopbot is your friend). The small one is about half that price. Wacom make the best ones, but there are cheaper knock-offs about that you can get just about anywhere which may be worth looking at if you just want to play around with it.

Turbo