Hey you graphic artist peeps. Where should I get a tablet from?

[Meresgi]

Thinking of getting the wife a drawing tablet for christmas as she needs one. I know of Wacom tablets but that's about it. She has a wacom right now but it's old and starting to go on her, so she knows how to use a tablet and is pretty experienced with graphic illustration.

Amazon has some Intuos Pen tablets for around 89.99 with 6 x 3.7 in active area, but i'm still trying to shop around for good deals. Price range is roughly around the $100 mark.

I don't know if Wacom is the be all-end all or if they are more pricey due to name brand.

She's not the type to look at something that isn't Wacom and throw Starbucks in my face while screaming about how I don't understand the world, so any brand will work that is functional.

[Mina]

Wacom.

I've messed around with other brands.

Don't do it.

There's a reason why any respectable person/company/school/etc uses Wacom.
You can't go too wrong with anything they have. Try to find one in your price range. I'm pretty bad at finding deals...

I could go into what's wrong with other brands from responsiveness to functionality to their customer support if there's ever a problem but...

[Meresgi]

http://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Intuos-T...m_cr_pr_sims_t

How would you rate this one Mina? For the CTH 480 version, since it has an eraser and comes with Elements and some other software. (Even though I get all that shit for free anyways)

[Elcura]

Wacom.

The only answer.

As for what type to get, Intuos are really good for pro/semi-pro, get something decently sized, anything smaller than A5 will probably be awkward to draw on (depends on the person though). Intuos3 (or was it 4...?) lasted me for like 5 years of constant use and you can even see the film wearing away yet it still works perfectly. Eraser on the back end of the pen isn't really a deal maker, since I tend to just hotkey eraser to something which ends up being much faster than constantly flipping the pen around but ymmv.

Bamboo types are also pretty cheap and good, though mostly for people starting out with a tablet. Not sure specifically how the tab you linked feels, but it looks good enough for that price range.

[Meresgi]

From what I could see on the Wacom site, their Bamboo tablets are now all just Intuos tablets

Bamboo pen tablets are now Intuos.
Intuos5 is now Intuos Pro.

Off their official site

[Mina]

I did some investigating on that tablet for you. I approve for the price. I recommended the bamboo Wacom (back when it was called that) for anyone who wanted a cheap choice or a starter tablet without throwing too many hundys out.

Wacom makes a responsive product overall and you can't really go wrong as I said earlier. The more expensive you go the more bells and whistles get thrown on.

[gaogaostegosaurus]

I have a tablet from monoprice. Spec wise they are superior to bamboos and "feel" proper (at least I used an intuos 3 back in the day and I think it compares well), and they are cheaper as well. Major downside is that the drivers can be an incredible pain to get working if your system hates the digitizer for whatever reason, and obviously the Wacom onry bonuses will not be available.

But you can buy two, break one over your knee, and still spend less than what you would on a bamboo (I think) while getting a higher spec product.