This Article was Originally posted on the http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ Upgrades Forum

Hi GunShell & everyone else reading this, I've recently given up my favorite apple desktop bus mouse II for an Intuos 6" x 8" with 4D mouse, an I'd say that the experience has been exceptional! The "Scroll" feature works great with the Finder & Netscape; especially due to the adjustable speed settings and the full fifteen buttons feature achieved by moving the "thumb wheel" in forward, center, and back positions to change the configuration of the mouse buttons is now invaluable to me when using 3D programs such as form•z and Lightwave 3D 5.6. The tool I.D. recognition is great. In fact, my roommate is an illustrator and disables the mouse movement, only using it for the the 15 buttons, while drawing with the pen or airbrush with Painter 6.0 (hers is the 9 x 12 tablet). The clever little mouse also adjusts for left & right handed users which switches both the angled slope and the thumb wheel to the left or right side. My roommate is right handed, but uses the mouse on the upper left of her tablet which was relatively easy to configure to "hide marquee" or "draw outside selection". By the way, the Intuos Mouseª is much lighter than many other apple mice, but it grows on you and glides effortlessly on the tablet with its ultra smooth synthetic cloth underside. O.K., I could rave about this product all day because I'm in the "Creative Industrial Design" Industry, but I haven't got all day; so here's the bad or shall we say mediocre news:

The one feature that is not currently supported is assigning a "click-lock + keystroke" feature to the Intuos mouse. Translation: if you use 3D programs on the Mac, you commonly have the ability to constrain vertical & horizontal movement while moving an object or zooming through a 3D scene. Thus if you need to press "shift" while click & dragging the mouse to constrain it's movement; you can't assign a single button to do all of this with one click. You will still have to use the "click-lock" on the mouse while pressing shift! This may not be a concern for most of you out there who do not use 3D programs often. This also means that you can't "control + click-lock" with ONE button for those of us who use contextual menu items often.

Another annoying problem is that in addition to the Intuos and all its tools, I use a Stingray® trackball which has "jumpy" movement much like that of the Wintel cursor variety, when the mouse is on the drawing area of the tablet. There is a work-around however; put the mouse just off of the drawing area (not off the tablet) when you move you hand to the track ball. This will return you once again to the smooth ergonomic movement of mac cursors.

Those are my two major complaints for now.....I'm very picky! -A word about the Airbrush; if you don't use Painter 6.0 you may want to wait on that purchase. Painter 6.0 is the only program to my knowledge that works seamlessly with the airbrush "thumb wheel" feature (it does this very well though). Other graphic programs such as the "World Standard Photoshop®" by Adobe need to use the Pentools® plug in to access the "thumb wheel" paint mode; otherwise the Airbrush is just another funky-shaped pen for people to ooh and ahh about.

Advise: First and foremost, get that damn "Intuos Mac 4.5.1 English" software before you install a new tablet or tool. I can not stress this enough because you will have to trash you preferences and "remove" the current Wacom® software to prevent future conflicts with many applications & the mouse. Yes, I know all of you who already have an Intuos are now thinking: "but I'll have to reset all of my preferences," but spend that extra few minutes to make screen shots (command/apple + Shift + 4) of your settings in the control panel to avoid that next crash or freeze. If I can prevent another Mac user from frustration, I've done my job. Also, for you USB users out there, Wacom® recommends that you install the tablet before the software.

One may also consider NOT attaching the Intuos directly to the keyboard from the computer. This has caused numerous problems for me & my roommate on separate occasions, which were resolved as soon as we installed the Intuos on the ADB chain after the keyboard connects to the computer. This is especially important if you use the Apple Adjustable Keyboard® which has a separate unit for the "F Keys & Number Pad."

Lastly, I'd buy the 9" x 12" tablet which comes with the pen & mouse for about $358.00 +/-. It's the best deal if you have the desk space (about 14.25" x 18" to be exact or 36 cm x 45.5cm.) or don't already own a smaller or larger tablet. This is great for use with 17" monitors because the size of the screen to the tablet drawing area is almost proportionally exact. For people who want a mechanical advantage like me (my monitor is a wide aspect ratio 24") you may consider the 6" x 8" tablet & mouse separately which helps me to move across the screen from edge to edge very quickly with little effort. The 6" x 8" tablet measures about 10.25" x 13.5" or 25.5 cm x 34.3 cm. Remember, getting the "Biggest" tablet is not always the best for each individual because it does take quite an effort to move the pen across an 18" or 45.5" drawing area. All the Tablets come with Painter Classic, which is by no means an underpowered piece of software, it allows new users to experience all 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity right out of the big box. If you have used the Art Pad II and are wondering "why is the tablet border in the Intuos so big?" -I'll tell you why, so that you can..... Put Your Mouse Aside When You Use Your Trackball! there, I've said it & I feel better now.

To answer GunShell's question: YES! it's worth all of the $72.95 + tax I paid for the Intuos Mouse® my wrist thanks me for it every day when I open Freehand, LightWave 3D and Painter. Get them while there HOT and don't be afraid to shop around, but don't wait too long or they will be out of stock at most major retailers.

To the non-primary English readers out there, I apologize for the wealth of American slang I have probably used in this article. If you need a Japanese translation of this, I can beg my roommate to make one up & email it to you.

Best Regards, -Phubear

In case anyone is wondering, my work configuration is as follows: Beige G3/300, Apple® Adjustable Keyboard, 6x 8 Intuos Tablet with Mouse, Pen, and Airbrush, 500+ RAM, ATI Nexus 128/32MB Video Card, Sony W900 Display, Stingray® Trackball & Orbit® Trackball, and a Fujitsu 640 Magnetic Optical Drive. In regards to the Intuos, faster processors & more RAM provides better tracking and less delay in rendering Painter Plug-In Brushes. And in case anyone has any doubts about tablets, let me tell you that the ability to draw is a requirement for adequate use of any tablet. If you haven't already taken a drawing class, do so before you purchase any drawing hardware; remember that skill & talent are different abilities and you need both to survive in the creative world!