Calling All 'Lopers!

[TicTac]

Well, as most of you know (I hope...) I'm a mapper, and a modeler. As you probably don't know, I also love to do FBF (frame-by-frame,) animation in Adobe Flash. And I think it's time I invest in a tablet, because of the animation and texture work that I do.
Bottom Line, my mouse can't cut it for everything, and I want to know what tablet I should buy for around 100 USD (it can be $120, it can be less. I've actually got about $200 out of the bank now, but I would like to keep some for my wallet).

So what do you say? What's the best tablet for that price? I've seen some Wacom Bamboo tablets, but they seem a bit small.
Things I'm looking for: Quick response/No Lag from the tablet, pretty decent size, (nothing less than a 5" by 5", or 10cm by 10cm,) and obviously something that's quality made. Something I can trust will last for a while.

Come on, fellow 'lopers! Don't fail me now!!
-TicTac

[ad_hominem]

I have a Wacom Bamboo, and I would say that it's not too small for what you want to do. Wacom is pretty much the brand you wanna aim for with tablets anyway, so it's worth checking out their whole range.

If you ever check out the Sketch Dump thread, pretty much all my stuff in there was done with the Wacom Bamboo. I've no complaints with it so far, especially since it's kept working despite not being kept in the cleanest of rooms, and can generally be found underneath a lot of other things.

[mat_de_b]

I got one and im not sure it was that useful... guess i've just become quite adept with a mouse...

[jister]

well not that i normaly would promote the brand, but...
got a A4 size wireless tablet by Trust of ebay... 60 €. it's second hand (so i presume the worst of use) and i haven't yet found a complaint... ok i tiny bit of lag maybe, but for that size/price...

it's the TB 4200.

[TicTac]

Thanks for the suggestions, I think I'm leaning towards the Bamboo now.
@ad_hominem, you said that you think it'd be fine for me, and on Wacom's website they said that the Bamboo Fun is geared more towards artists... however, the only difference I could find between the Bamboo and Bamboo Fun is that the 'Fun' comes with a wireless mouse (don't need,) and things like Photoshop (don't need either). So is there any other significant difference?

Also, since you have the bamboo, ad, how detailed can you work with it? Does it jitter or anything like that, or is it a nice and smooth transmission from tablet -> PC?

[ad_hominem]

I don't know much about the Bamboo Fun tablet, so your guess is as good as mine on that one.

As for your second question, you can go pretty detailed. The (insert number here) pressure settings are more than enough for my purposes, and it looks smooth when working within Photoshop/Flash. The movement is very smooth from tablet to PC, as long as your PC isn't straining the CPU already with another program. With modern PCs it shouldn't really be a problem unless you're, say, compiling a map at the same time.

I remember when I was looking at tablets for the first time, I was concerned with the size of the active area but once I'd gotten used to the way everything worked it really wasn't a problem. However, if you're looking to use it for commercial purposes eventually, you might want to look for something bigger. Obviously, I've not used the other tablets on the market, because the Bamboo was my first tablet too, but from what I've read it compares favourably with pretty much anything in the same price range.

[TicTac]

Thanks ad! Well, I'm hoping to get into commercial work some day, be it 3d or 2d, but I just can't say no to this tablet... I've wanted one for a while, and I've got a 25$ gift card to Amazon.com from my aunt/uncle

Thanks everyone, hopefully this will be as useful as I think it will!

[stoopdapoop]

Yeah I have a bamboo as well, I love it.

BUT I have one complaint, it's a widescreen panel (unlike the graphires) and you can't map the surface. Which isn't a problem at all if you use the mouse style movement system, but if you use the setting where every point on the tablet correstponds to a point on the monitor then there will be a little distortion, but it's easy to compensate for it, and since you get visual feedback you quickly get used to it (assuming you don't have a single widescreen monitor).

I have 2 4:3 monitors, so the distortion is a little less, but it's not exact.

[TicTac]

Well, stoop! I just so happen to have a handy-dandy widescreen LCD!
Thanks for that info, though. It would've been obnoxious to have it seem stretched I just don't know if my monitor is 16:9 or 16:10 ratio... Oh well, it wont make any difference at all, i suppose!

[YokaI]

I have a Wacom Bamboo, and I would say that it's not too small for what you want to do. Wacom is pretty much the brand you wanna aim for with tablets anyway, so it's worth checking out their whole range.

I would save up before buying one, and aim high on the list. That would be your best solution. I feel that without the display and size on my wacom, I am better off drawing by hand and editing it later via photoshop or SAI.

I guess it depends on who you are, but I like to get in real close and draw when I do it by hand, and my bamboo requires me to sort of split my thinking.

[TicTac]

Well, higher up on their list goes into the hundreds of dollars, which is too much money for my to commit right now. Honestly, I just want this because it'll be much better than the mouse-and-keyboard approach I'm using for texture editing, and Flash animating now.

PS:I'm on amazon.com right now, placing an order. IDC if Blink can lock this thread or anything, but it would be helpful.