As I have also blog posted few seconds ago at http://www.scorpiono.com/the-daily-www/wacom-help-designers-help-me I'd like to hear your opinions on the following: - Do you think A4 is a must for a good designer, or the A5 is just fine? - What model would you recommend? Link it! - I’m using it just for logos and drawing mostly, as the rest of the web layouts I can do without a tablet, am I in a need for a tablet?
I've got an old A5 Graphire2, and I love it. It's tiny, BUT I only use it for feathering, shading etc... not actually for freehand drawing (I can't draw!). If you're using it for drawing, you might want something bigger than A5.
I have a small and a large tablet, and I find I use my smaller older one more. Why? I don't know, it's such a personal thing. Both are Wacoms, the smaller one is a Graphire3 and the Big one is the black Bamboo one. Both are solid, wonderful machines, but you have to try them out. Bigger isn't always better in this case, and keep portability in mind. I only take the smaller one on the road with me.
the texture of the pad itself versus the tip of the pen makes for a very unique experience. The Bamboo pad has a matte pad, and the nib is plastic. But you can get felt tips, which apparently feels more like the drag of pencil on paper. On my Graphire3 it's shiny plastic versus plastic and much more fluid. For some reason for handwriting the plastic on plastic feels more natural than the matte bamboo - so again it depends on what you're planning to do with it - you might want to purchase extra nibs in a different variety.
I use Tablet sapphire, brought one to work and one stays at home...I use it on typography, illustrations, layouts and whatknots...I only use the mouse when I do HTML...
I had a revelation - it has to do with the nature of the strokes you will be writing. I mostly use my tablet for file management, mouse gestures, navigating GUI's and handwriting. I don't require large movements or big swashes of my arm. If I were doing painting or more ART based movements with big lines everywhere, a small tablet wouldn't do. It's best if you can try out the sizes of tablet, and think of the nature of things you're going to be doing - most people prefer the size they have and very very few have multiple sizes like I do so I imagine I offer unique insight that could only be countered by other people who have and use multiple sizes. Either way, neither will prohibit me from doing both types of work - both do their jobs and do them well. Wacom makes solid hardware and I will say they are worth every penny. There's no *wrong* choice when choosing between Wacom products.
I use the Wacom Bamboo. It doesn't really help me do anything better it just makes things easier and my wrists don't hurt as much anymore. I really like it and prefer it to using a mouse for most tasks. A tablet is definitely not something you need but it is nice to have. I think the money could have been better spent on more memory for my computer.
If you do a lot of illustrations it would really help a lot...but if you're a programmer yeah you don't really need it.