They're awesome. One thing, don't be drawn in by large sizes. Smaller is often better with graphics tablets.
Another vote for the Wacom from Aldi, good value.
can the pen be used as a mouse and do all these things for you?
yup, does everything the mouse does.. you might need to enable flicks for scrolling etc.
We use wacom's at work, so I have used an A5 size wacom, an A4 and an old A3 tablet. I much prefer to use the older A3 when working with my 24" monitor as I find I get a much better resolution to hand movement for finer details.
Beware of the older tablets if you spot them on Ebay though. Wacom stopped making the older pens so there is a worldwide shortage and the new pens don't work on the old tablets.
I've got a Bamboo pen & touch, great bit of kit but I've only used it a couple of times, my Macbook Pro touch pad seems to be just as easy to use to be honest.
The bamboo is now an old model i think.
The new ones are the touch range where you can use iPhone like gestures as well as the pen to zoom in and scroll...!
Me too, great bit of kit. For the life of me I cannot use a mouse now on the mac.I use a medium Intuos4. Love it.
I popped into pc world today to take a look at what the differences were between the bamboo and bamboo fun was.
Other than the styling they appear to be identical, but the fun comes with a downloadable copy of elements.
Ebuyer owe me credit so i am just looking at getting one from there now, my local aldi had naff all.