p8guitar wrote:I'd like to do some drawing with it (with Anime studio), but most of the time I'll use it only with Ableton live as a controller. So for simple x-y pad motions it might not make so big a difference if I use Bamboo or intuos?
But the tool ID, express keys and touch strip functions of the Intuos 3 seem to be very useful, too - provided they work together with Ableton Live or other programs (VDMX?). I'll so some ebay searching tonight I think...

Oh well, for some reason the touch strip of my intuos sometimes started scrolling randomly without me doing anything one year after having it, so I have that deacrivated. but other than that, i have been using it for about 4 years now, about 10 hours per day, about 330 days a year, and of course it looks used and scratched but it amazes me that it is still as usable as in the beginning (I never used the strip anyway). Don't overestimate the toolid, since you'll most probably won't be using it if you don't really need to have multiple pens, you're most likely not going to get an additional one. ToolID's won't work with Live or any other application which doesn't interface the wacom driver directly, and most applications don't.
I just recommend an intuos because of the quality of the product, that one isn't a toy.
Before using a pen my wrist used to hurt a lot for about 2 years (I was about 28 years old back then), also the clicking of the mouse buttons annoyed the hell out of me. I'm totally glad I spent the money on something not-cheap, you know, this is like buying a good pair of shoes instead of cheap ones, which should be quite important if you do marathon running professionally - speaking in methaphors. These tablets last longl, so consider it as an investment.
Also I haven't tried the Bamboo on my 1920x1200 screen, only on the small netbook screen, so the resolution of the bamboo is ok for a netbook, but I also doubt that it should be ok fo big screens.
One problematic thing is that you are kind of limited to using one monitor, there are solutions to this, but none is really perfect.