I have an Intuous 12x18. I use it for most work, pixel pushing (Photoshop, PaintShopPro), vector work (Illustrator, Corel Draw), 3D work (Amapi, Carrara). I find it gives me the best freedom of motion than any other device. I've used a ball mouse and I have optical trackballs at home. I still feel more comfortable with the tablet for moving things around. I find I'm more accurate and faster to target the cursor on things with the tablet than with a mouse of some sort. For Amapi and Carrara I use the tablet's puck/paddle/mouse/whatchamacallit because I can't seem to click right with the pen without moving the cursor. That's a problem in Amapi. Not really a big issue with me though. The puck has more buttons and I find, sometimes, it works better than the pen. If I had unlimited funds I would definitely go for a Cintiq. I can only dream at the moment although those pen tablets might be something I'll look into later.