Microsoft XP:
GOOD:
- **easy** to install
- software bundles are fabulous, in my opinion, and
also easy to install

BAD: small active space, no printed manuals for the software
applications. There are manuals on the disk, though.

UGLY: if you stink with pen and paper, you'll stink with this
gadget, too. In fact, you'll stink even more in the
beginning, because you'll have to get used to the
quirks of the pen.

LINUX (Fedora Core 1)

GOOD: EVERYTHING WORKS! Pressure sensitivity, the eraser,
the rocking switch. Worked with The Gimp like a champ.

BAD: You have to download the latest package from the Linux
Wacom Project http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/

UGLY: You're comfortable installing your own kernel drivers,
right? Getting this bad boy to work is Not For The
Squeemish, but neither is it Mission Impossible.

ON THE WHOLE: I really, really love this gizmo. The $100 price point made this something worth trying out (I draw for fun, not professionally). The bundled software is (dare I say this?) more powerful than the Open Source programs I usually use. Painter Classic was extremely nice, even if the pressure sensitivity is broken.

The best advice I can give you is pick an application and work with it. Like anything else in life, you'll get better with practice. A cheap scanner might be a good secondary purchase (sorry, no recomendations on this point).

Simplifies Things (Rating: 5.00)
Review : You can play with a wacom tablet at an Apple store and you'll be impressed. If you're new, start small then decide what you need. I use this to draw diagrams and write on my powerpoint slides during the lectures. It makes teaching with technology seemless.

delightful yet infuriating... (Rating: 3.00)
Review : This is my first foray into the world of digital, pressure-sensitive tablets, so perhaps my expectations might have been too high. Ultimately, I thought that I could draw, trace and sketch "naturally" with ease, and that the Graphire would work seamlessly with Adobe Illustrator. Not exactly the case, here are my experiences so far after 3 mos of use:

PRO's:
--relatively easy installation, although mine did not come with very detailed instructions (questions like: do you plug and play first, then load the software? or vice versa?), so I had to wing it.
--the hardware interface is easy and intuitive enough -- just keep your pen within the allocated 4x5 space and you're set.
--comes with some pared down versions of software, so even if you don't have Photoshop or Painter, you can get the feel for how the tablet and software work.

CON's:
--no instructions for setting up with Illustrator (or any other software, except for a couple of tutorials for Painter), couldn't find any info on this on Wacom's website or elsewhere. Couldn't get Illustrator to recognize the pressure sensitivity. Thankfully, around this time I upgraded to CS, and the tablet/pen chose to work with the update. Although Illustrator for some reason only chooses to recognizes about 5-10 "pressures" instead of the 500+ it is supposed to (don't know if this is the fault of Adobe or Wacom) no matter what I choose the thickness/stroke of the line to be.
--forget about physically tracing anything...the plastic piece that you are meant to lift off and slip things under to hold it in place is flimsy and feels like it is breaking everytime you dare to wrangle with it.
--disconcerting size...the drawing area is only 4x5" but the actual tablet is about 8x8" so it leads to this disconnect when mentally mapping the tablet area to the screen area.
--it's very hard to get "unshaky" or straight/precise lines using the tablet. I find that I am actually better at getting things more precise with a mouse sometimes! I think part of the problem is that the "pen's" is too thick/fat.
--you have to hold the pen in a very "up and down" manner for it to work properly which is the opposite of how I naturally draw, which is holding the pencil at an angle.
--the buttons that are on the pen are located in a very inconvenient spot (for me anyway). I will often be gripping the pen and accidently hit the button (which either accesses the right-click menu or deletes the active path, according to my configuration).
--because of the nature of most graphics/illustration programs out there, the 4x5" space is actually cut in half by all the menu clutter...so effectively, you are drawing in a 2x5" space most of the time. You really have to zoom in to draw any kind of detail.

I feel that the tablet is very promising, but has so far failed me in being a "natural" way to draw. It is a fun as a toy, but somewhat difficult to use in a professional way. Perhaps a larger sized tablet would help me with this, but for now, I am still nostalgic for/relying on old-fashioned pencil/brush and paper. I have not used the mouse that comes with the tablet, as I prefer my other mouse.

A great Tablet at an affordable price. (Rating: 4.00)
Review : The Graphire3 is quite good as a Tablet, it's only downer is the small 4x5 drawing space, tought you get used to it after a while, it's still a limitation, you actually forget the mouse, must be on the tablet to work.

As a begginer on digital painting, this is a God send to me. I can paint as I always wanted, and at an affordable price.