I'm in love. For the first time in years, decades even, I've found something to surplant my former working pattern of the multi-button+scroll-wheel trackball for all the time and the Wacom art-pad for those times I need it.
The new bit of tech? It's still from Wacom, and it's the bamboo touch and pen. What is so brilliant about this bit of kit?
Well, firstly like my old flame the trackball, it doesn't move around. You put it somewhere comfortable to work on, and there it (mostly stays). For me, that's to the side of the keyboard most of the time, and between me and the keyboard for using the pen. In pen mode, I suspect it rather depends on how you draw. There's a big brother with 2048 levels of sensitivity, the Bamboo "only" has 512. But I don't find that really impedes me. I learnt to draw down a microscope in histology class and whilst I do use different levels of shading, 512 seems to work well enough for me. If you're an artist from a different background you might find the number of levels limiting.
And the multi-touch trackpad functionality. Bliss! If you're used to a multi-touch trackpad on a MacBook (as I am) it's not quite the same, but within 24 hours I'd been programming, writing and selecting blocks of text, hiding and moving windows and the like, building in Second Life and more. There are a couple of bits where it took me a little while to get used to it (although there are various buttons on the side that can help), in particular to "click and drag" on the mouse is click-click-and-hold-and-drag. It's not hard but it takes a little bit of getting used to. You can right-click with a second finger, scroll vertically and horizontally with two fingers and there's a rotate option too, pivoting your fingers around quite naturally. Rotating pictures in Photoshop is suddenly organic and I can comfortably line up sloppy horizons etc. by hand now. There's a nice zoom option too, although it doesn't work as universally as the zoom from a trackpad - but you can pinch and squeeze/stretch in Second Life and Photoshop very comfortably.
Downsides? None really. I've ended up with the configuration set up for left-handed usage despite using it on the right. That has let me flip the tablet over and have it about 5cm closer to the keyboard. It doesn't sound like much but it makes it just a little easier to use the 'outside' edge of the pad. Not normally an issue for most things, but whilst building in SL you might need that whole width for moving things around - there's no "roll on" option like on a trackball. (That probably isn't an issue if you're used to a mouse though). Being a sax player I have agile little fingers, so it doesn't bother me. There's a bit of a tendency still to tap the middle finger next to the index finger at the wrong time - although the switch to left-handed mode has fixed that and I'm still working out whether middle finger scrolling and index finger right click or index finger scrolling and thumb right click is better for me. I remember going through this with the trackpad on the MacBook too, and it's getting better already, I'm sure it will be gone soon.
OK, the only downside - it's rather expensive compared to a normal mouse. But it's quite cheap compared to a new art pad. It is well worth the money too. And, if you're not used to a multi-touch trackpad already it might take a little while. I remember it taking about 2-3 days to really get used to the trackpad on the MacBook and a day here. Call it 3 days from scratch and that's probably fair. Your efficiency won't be badly affected for long, but it will be. You might not want to swap just before you start marking mid-terms!
Oh, and the included tutorial sucks. Really, REALLY, REALLY sucks. It makes Microsoft help look helpful, and Help Island an inspired piece of training design. But once I'd decided to throw the tutorial away and just get on with it I've had no problems anyway.
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Addenda:
There is a "lock" option that lets you take your fingers off and move them and continue the "click and drag" which I am currently using. It makes click-and-drag a three touch operation rather than a one touch operation but it works nicely. I'm not sure if I will keep it, but it does work nicely.
I have been doing a fair bit of photoshop work of various sorts. The pen tool is very nice for everything I've used it for. It is interesting using the bamboo with pen in Photoshop - it reminds me of my distant memories of art class and working in clay. I switch between fingers and the pen in the way that I vaguely remember formerly switching between fingers and stylus/knife. In a very short period of time it became entirely intuitive.
If you use moisturiser cream or similar, make sure you clean your fingers before you touch the pad... it registers the lingering touch of the cream in a most confusing way!
If, like me, you end up left-handed, restarting your mac seems to flip that preference back. Since I rarely shut down and restart it's not too much of a pain.
Having used the tool in Photoshop a lot, I found I no longer move it. It sits snuggled up to the right of my keyboard and I twist slightly in my seat (or pivot the seat slightly in fact) but it stays over there very comfortably for everything.
