Customer Reviews

Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(50)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I've owned a pen-only Wacom tablet before and I think they make good products, but if you get this one you should be aware of several points that I didn't figure out until I started using this one, although, to be fair, there were indications to some problems on the web, I just sort of flaked in my research.

1)The Draw: The drawing and pen functions with the pad are terrific, and unless you're used to high-end tablets, this will probably be fine for you, although the surface is rougher than the older, pen-only tablets and I suspect will wear out nibs fairly quickly. They supply you with three extras.

2)The Touch: While the touch on this, even the "tap to click" works pretty well, I'm not able to use it full time as my interface -- I still use a Logitech track ball. If you're used to one of the glass touchpads on a Macbook or Macbook pro, this will seem a bit sluggish, but if you're used to the trackpad supplied with many netbooks (Like my Dell mini)this thing will be a revelation. Overall it's nice.(There are scrolling issues, see below.) The mouse buttons have a nice, smooth feel, too. Not too clicky, but not so soft you don't know you're pushing them. Mind you, this is after just two days of use. I have no idea about the durability.

3)The Size: This is the larger of the Bamboo Fun tablets. While it should have been blindingly obvious, I suppose, that this was going to be big, it really does take up a lot of room on the desktop. To use it as a touch interface, it's really more than you need. There may people who need the extra space for graphics, but for day-to-day use, the smaller Bamboo Fun or Bamboo Craft touch/pen would have been fine. I'm working on two, 24 inch monitors and this is still way more space than I need. This is about the size of a 13inch laptop, so unless you have room for something that size on your desk all the time, in addition to your keyboard, the smaller Bamboo might be the way to go.

4)The Scroll: The two-fingered scroll function works great until it doesn't. I kept getting a lock up after a couple of swipes in Firefox 3.6, and even my trackball's scrolling would lock for fifteen seconds or so after it locked. This was fixed by turning off the auto-scroll and smooth-scrolling IN FIREFOX. That said, I found that solution in a forum where many people had reported scrolling problems and this fix didn't work for all of them. They also reported similar issues in Photoshop CS2 & CS3 as well. I'm using this with a Mac Pro 2x Xenon processor with 8GB ram, but people with Windows machines reported the problem as well. Wacom didn't seem to address it on their web page other than to respond to users that it, more or less, was the user's fault. I haven't tried it with Photoshop yet, but it seems to work fine in Painter and Art Rage Studio Pro, and I haven't had any scroll problems with the pen, only the touch functions. Your mileage may vary, but I'd be wary of expecting to use this as your only interface until you see a lot of "fixes" reported on the web.

5)The Design: It looks very spiffy, especially if you like the brushed-aluminum look and feel. It's substantial, too - heavy enough to stay in place on the desk. There's a loop for the pen to go into, which is a nice addition my earlier Wacom didn't have. (I use stick-on Velcro to keep the pen attached to that one.)As other's have said, though, the USB cable is permanently attached to the tablet instead of plugging in with a mini-USB plug, as earlier models did. This could become a durability problem if you travel with the tablet a lot, as the connection point isn't very heavily reinforced.

6)In Conclusion: You are more or less in a one-player game. For the price, you can't really get a pen pad with touch from anyone except Wacom, and if this is your first tablet, again, I think you'll probably love it, but do look at the smaller touch/pen tablet first, maybe save yourself some cash, and expect to keep your mouse around for a while, at least, until you iron out any touch navigation problems that you may have with your particular applications.

I spent quite a bit of time looking at various tablets, reading reviews, and trying to figure out which had the most bang for the buck; the Bamboo Fun won in just about every category. Please note that I am not a professional graphic artist, just a hobbyist (though technically savvy enough to understand the features [eg pressure sensitivity]), so I'm reviewing it from that perspective.

Installation was a snap. Download the latest drivers from the Wacom site, plug it into a USB port, and you're all set. I tried it out on two laptops and a desktop and installation was flawless on each.

The tablet is thin and light, with a more-than-adequate amount of active space (I wanted something that would let me do longer strokes without feeling cramped). The multi-touch capability is really nice with graphics programs that support it; being able to pan and zoom with my left hand while my right remains mostly dedicated to drawing is great (and a quick press of one of the Bamboo's 4 buttons will turn touch off, which comes in handy [no pun intended]). For reference, the touch-sensitive area is 7.5" x 5.1" and the pen-active area is a fairly generous 8.5" x 5.4". You can configure it for left-handed use (lefties rejoice!).

The tablet is very smooth and responsive with Sketchbook Pro and ArtRage 2.5. I wasn't that thrilled with Corel Painter 4 Essentials, which comes bundled with it; the UI was clunky and not very intuitive (spend the $20 on ArtRage instead - you won't regret it). The Bamboo Fun also comes bundled with Photoshop Essentials, which should be useful if you don't already have a full version of Photoshop.

The battery-less pen, with two configurable buttons and 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity, is very comfortable in the hand and I admit it, I love the eraser on the end. :) The tablet has a fabric loop on one side for holding the pen when transporting it.

The tablet comes with three extra nibs and an extraction tool, which isn't listed in the product description.

Overall, for a couple of steps above entry level I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Bamboo Fun as a great tablet for the price.

This review will be most helpful to someone who is relatively unfamiliar with graphics tablets, as I was before selecting this item for review.

Other than the keyboard, the mouse is the most universal computer control device. But trying to draw with a mouse is clumsy. Pen type drawing tablets were invented to offer a more natural input device for any bitmapped graphics programs such as photo retouching and freehand art applications. The other popular input device, generally found on notebooks, is the trackpad, which works directly with your fingers. Recent Apple MacBook trackpads offer two finger stretching and rotating and other fancy tricks. Some people would like to use this method with their desktop computer; Bamboo Fun is in part a giant trackpad that allows you to do that.

Before buying it, be aware that Wacom, the largest producer of such things, offers many different products and variants at many price points. These range from large pen-only tablets for professional graphic artists ($430) down to small "amateur" tablets with reduced spatial resolution and pressure resolution, for sixty bucks. There are versions with only the track-pad mode, only the pen mode, or both. The product reviewed here ($169) is a bundle which puts together several things at the sub-professional level. The device does both the track-pad and pen modes, is medium size, and the package includes bundled software: Photoshop Elements (the non-pro version of Photoshop, normally $90), Corel Painter Essentials (the non-pro version of Painter, $40) and a program called Nik Color Efex. (The latter is tossed in but doesn't really belong here; it's a set of advanced filters and tricks which work under Photoshop and would normally be used by advanced photographers. But quite expensive if bought alone.) Bundles like this are questionable. If you really use all this software, it's a bargain. But if you are a serious photographer, you probably already have full Photoshop, so Elements is superfluous. Receiving Corel Painter Essentials was a nice surprise however - it's a lovely, fun program which can do things such as turn photos into simulated oil paintings.

Let's talk about the tablet function. One quickly becomes habituated to using the mouse so changing to any other device takes a lot of relearning. The utility of changing to a trackpad with two finger options has a lot to do with the type of software you are working in; for most everyday applications there is not much to be gained. For sorting photos in Aperture, yes, could be quicker after some practice. And, let's face it, having the trackpad made by a third party (that is, not the computer maker nor the software maker) inevitably means that it may or may not all work together smoothly. So a big trackpad like this is ends up a highly personal preference - you will love it or hate it, not in-between. But it would be hard to say it is 'absolutely necessary' for any particular task.

The pen function is a different story. Freehand drawing programs or Photoshop effects cannot be manipulated easily with a mouse - you really need the pen, which is pressure sensitive and can be adjusted in many ways. This one worked well, and makes Corel Painter or Photoshop much easier to use with precision.

It all works, but who is this product really for? As noted, the Bamboo Fun package throws in a bit of everything in nonprofessional versions. But for a 'sampler,' the $170 price is not really cheap. To be worth the price, you will want to be sure that you need both the trackpad and the pen functions, plus the bundled software. I suspect there are few customers who fall in this category. Most graphics-oriented buyers will know what they intend to do. If you only want the pen function for example, you may be better off spending about the same money to get the high performance, higher res professional version of this one Wacom item (called Intuos line). This would probably be my own choice; a top grade pen for Photoshop and skip the rest.

This Bamboo Fun package might be a good option for a school or family with a variety of different users. But a focussed artist with a specific task in mind will do better to choose a more specialized Wacom product.

After writing this I was afraid of TLDR issues. Here is the short and sweet - if you are going to get a Wacom tablet, and you know you are going to use it, save your lunch money and get the Intuos4. End of story - if you get a Bamboo and later try an Intuos4 you'll kick yourself, I guarantee it. Higher accuracy, higher resolution, higher sensitivity, tilt recognition, higher data rate (more responsive), better construction, better warranty. If you want to know how I came to this conclusion, read on.

Please keep in mind: I have worked in the IT industry for over 13 years. However overall I am not a pro user of these products. I have about two weeks of use on each. I used the tablets on a Mac Pro with photoshop, corel, and sketchbook pro 2011.

I spent close to two weeks trying to decide on a Wacom tablet for Christmas - Bamboo Fun vs Intuos4 Medium. I kept reading about the pros of each. I could not find a comparison review, nor a single product review that pushed me solidly one direction or the other. Should I spend the extra money on the professional level product?

In the end, I started with the Bamboo because:
I didn't want to waste money. The Intuos4 medium was another $150 - almost twice the cost of the Bamboo. I am not a professional and people said the Bamboo had the same levels of sensitivity as the previous professional model (Intuos3). I wasn't 100% sure the kids would keep using it or get full value from it. If I didn't think it was for me, I could always trade up and try the Intuos4.

Initially we were very happy playing around with the Bamboo. There is nothing blatantly wrong with it at all. It has deservedly positive reviews. People make wonderful works of digital art with it. After playing for about 10 days, and watching youtube vids of people using Wacom tablets, I ran across a comment against the Bamboo that finally broke me. Someone pointed out that the USB cable was attached to the tablet, and cannot be replaced if it breaks. Toss it straight into the trash. Hmmm - bad news. If you look closely at the construction, you can also tell it would be very easy for the cable to wear out. I cannot believe I hadn't noticed that flaw myself. We have two lefties and two righties in the house and we are constantly rotating the tablet. I don't want to be replacing a 200 dollar tablet over a 10 dollar cable. I boxed her up that day and returned it for the Intuos4 Medium.

Let me tell you what people, the Intuos4 is worth more than the extra $150. Any day of the week. Even removing it from the box was a pleasure.

USB Interface:
Bamboo - Cable is attached, thin shielding, and not replaceable.
Intuos4 - Cable is removable, very well made, thick and several feet longer than it needs to be (2.5 m). TWO USB inputs on the tablet, so the cable can always be situated at the top. Also provides a spare port in case one breaks! As an IT guy, this alone was worth an upgrade. Well played, Wacom.

Buttons:
Bamboo has 4 buttons. One button is used to turn the touch functions on and off. Touch Pad functions can be used to pinch zoom, rotate, scroll, etc if the app supports touch.
Intuos4 has 8 buttons with LEDs plus a touch ring wheel. The touch ring can be assigned 4 functions for all applications. Fully programmable. The kicker - the touch ring can be used for all the touch pad functions that the Bamboo did, and does them better. Rotate, Zoom, Scroll, Undo, change your pen size - you name it. Spin the ring with your off hand while drawing. Another upgrade that was easily worth the 150 bucks alone.

Pens:
Bamboo accuracy .02 inch. A very light, plastic toy feeling pen. There were a couple extra nibs in a plastic bag.
Intuos4 accuracy .01 inch. Pen is noticeably heavier. It reminded me of picking up a very well made tool after using some crap made in China and getting that sudden realization that you've been doing it wrong all this time. The pen recognizes tilt - the angle you hold the pen at. The cool "ink well" stand is classy and holds 10 extra nibs and the nib replacement tool. You suddenly start signing your name with a flourish. It just feels right! The Intuos4 also includes a wireless mouse that can be used on the pad if you are not using the pen.

Pressure levels:
Bamboo 1024
Intuos4 2048
People said you can't tell the difference, but let me tell you I could, and so did my wife. It may not be the ONE thing you need to upgrade for, but it's one more reason to spend the extra cash, for sure.

Resolution:
Bamboo 2540 lines per inch
Intuos4 5080 lines per inch

Software packages:
Are basically the same, Intuos4 software package must be downloaded though - Bamboo has physical media.

Tablet itself:
Basically same review as the Pens, the Intuos4 is heavier and feels much sturdier and like a professional tool.

Warranty:
Bamboo - 1 year
Intuos4 - 2 years USA and Canada

Although I highly rate the Bamboo Fun, I do not regret moving up to the Intuos at all. I hope this comparison review makes your decision on a Wacom product easier.

Thanks for reading,

Ray E.

I received this tablet from Amazon in great condition and hooked it up. It acted funky initially, but after reading the instructions in the installation CD, it said to install the software BEFORE you hook it up. Once I did that, the tablet was very responsive to the "Touch" capability. I have a Mac with 3 Monitors and it registered perfectly across all three monitors.

The tutorial that came with it was good for learning the basics. However, it is a "Flash" interactive tutorial and the response is not the same as on your desktop or with apps.

On my Mac running Snow Leopard, I found that all the gestures worked as advertised, except the DRAG feature. The user manual (a PDF on the DVD) said to re-install the drivers and had a link to Wacon to find the latest driver. The re-installation was easy and good, but did not solve the problem. The user manual also had a number for Tech Support. I called it and talked to a Support Person (IN THE US!). They were very helpful and did NOT treat me like an idiot like so many tech support people do. They walked me through several processes to figure out what was wrong, but it did not solve the problem. I AM happy to report that it was not the Tablet's or the Software problem, but MINE. I found that I was not performing the "gesture" quickly enough to Drag items. Once I figured that out, that feature worked as advertised.

I can safely say, that the Touch tablet will be able to replace my mouse. The transition is interesting, however. I have been using a mouse since 1985. People don't remember how long it took to learn the motor skills to use the mouse. Currently I am about 1/2 as productive with the Touch Tablet as I am with a mouse, but I've only had the Tablet 1 day... and I'm patiently getting better and faster.

The scroll gesture works well with Browsers, Email, Adobe Products and Word Processors... so far so good.

I have used the Gestures with a browser and love the Zoom/Zoom out gestures. It also works with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop (so does the rotate object jesture.) However, it is a little jerky and will take some getting used to.

The pen works VERY well with Illustrator and Photo shop. It take a little getting used to because to move the mouse to a location, you "hover" and don't touch the pad until you are ready to select it or draw. But I am rapidly getting used to it over the mouse. (Remember I've only had this thing 1 day.) I can see this as a real bridge between art skills on a pad and paper and tablet and computer.

Overall, I love this tool. People in other reviews are not satisfied with the edge response limitations of the tablet, but one quickly gets used to it, just like the mouse.

My reasons for the 4 rather than a 5 rating have to do with one issue. I am left handed. Although one can set the tablet up for left handed operation (and it works for a left hander in right hand mode - with a couple of concessions), there is a problem when one boots up the computer. Because the preferences for left handed operation are stored IN THE PERSONAL LOG ON, if you use the tablet in left hand mode, the preferences are not turned on before you log on. That means ALL the motions are reversed!!! A real bummer. But, what I have done is keep it in right hand mode (keeping the orientation of the tablet in right hand mode) and then making the consessions after I log in.

Summary.

Great tool. Learning curve about the same as it takes to learn the mouse the first time (which very few of us really remember). Has replaced my mouse. Is working well in Illustrator and Photoshop.

I just got the Bamboo Fun yesterday, so my review may not be as complete as it could be, but I will give my first impressions here. Let me start out by saying that I've been using a Graphire at the company I work for and an Intuous2 at home for about 7 years, so I have plenty of experience using tablets from Wacom. The size of this thing is huge... in a good way. At 13 inches, it literally is about the size of a Macbook, so you should be sure that you have plenty of desk space to fit this tablet. I always found the smaller 4x6 tablets to be tight, especially when doing graphic work, so this really lets you get to it.

Having using some multi-touch on a Macbook and an iPod touch, I found the use of this tablet pretty easy to adapt to. There are some gestures that do take a little bit of getting used to, such as the click and drag and the right-click. Once I had gotten used to it, it was pretty easy. You can access video tutorials on the use of the Bamboo in the Preference Pane in OS X. I would recommend taking a look through them before getting started. Once really nice feature are the 4 programmable buttons on the pad. I do not recommend re-programming the top button, which is set by default to such off the touch function. Why would you want to do that? So you won't accidentally brush the tablet with your hand while using the pen in Photoshop. This is a great help. My ONLY negative I find is that there is no mouse available for the tablet. Once in a while, I do appreciate the precision of a mouse and it would have been nice for that option.

Finally, there are those who would say "If you are going to do REAL graphics work, you need to get the Intuous". Bull. For years, the Intuous series had 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity while the Bamboo and Graphire only had 512. Well, the Bamboo is now comparable at 1024 as well. For a designer or freelancer on a budget, who wants some advanced features in a quality tablet, I cannot recommend this tablet enough.

UPDATE: After using the tablet for a week now, the first thing I would suggest is to download the latest drivers for the tablet from the Wacom website. For some reason, the tablet would recognize my dragging on it, but not clicking and the right-click gesture was not working well. After the driver update, all was better!

I love everything about the Bamboo Fun! For my desktop it's far better than a mouse. I do web development, graphic design, and photography so for my type of work it's sort of a no-brainer. There's so much more control with photo and graphics work using a tablet than there ever could be with a mouse.

As I've used it more, I've gotten more used to the pen, which is probably the fastest way to work with your computer. When I first started, I used finger touch since it was something I was already familiar with from working with the touch pad on my laptop. That's what the tablet is like when used with your finger - a giant touch pad, but it's so much better because of the space you have to work with for motion. Plus, there are certain usability things that make using your computer and software so much easier - like finger gestures. You may have heard of mouse gestures, which are in some web browsers that have add-on software that allow you to swipe left and right to perform a back or next click in your browser. Well, with the Bamboo tablets, you can navigation backwards and forwards with a finger swipe left or right in any software on your computer. It's not just isolated to web browsing. This one thing makes a tablet really convenient for computer use.

The more I use it the more I find that certain types of activities are best done with the fingers and some are better with the pen. Surfing the web, for example, is definitely a finger touch activity. Photo manipulation or working with files in my web development apps is definitely a pen job. Every user could have their own style of using a tablet but that's what great about it.

There is definitely a learning curve with this thing so if you decide to give it a try, be patient and make yourself use it a lot for at least a week. The first day I had mine I was already thinking of returning it. It felt awkward and slow. Now though... I wish I had gotten one a long time ago. I now dislike having to use a mouse for many things.

This isn't for everyone though. If you are just a casual computer user, you may not find this as valuable as someone who edits photos, does graphics, etc.

I will preface this review by stating that I am not a graphic artist and I did not buy this tablet for graphic work. I use tablets as an alternative to keyboards and mice as I find them more comfortable.

I am relatively new to working with tablets but I have quickly become very dependent on my Intuos4. I like being able to write instead of type, which is in many ways easier on my hands. When I saw the Bamboo Fun [Pen and Touch], I had to try it. What better way to work with the computer than to use a touch pad and still write like I am holding a pen and writing on paper? I researched it out, watched any demo I could find and made the decision to commit. Though it's a fine tablet and it works as advertised, it does not suit my needs. There are some things I would change with the design, too, which I will discuss below.

The Bamboo Fun [Pen and Touch] is a pleasant-looking device, very thin and taking up a modest amount of desk space. It follows a design look-and-feel of Apple devices, very smooth, simplistic and masking its real potential.

My first observation - the USB cable is a permanently attached cord, which is a design decision that really should be changed. If the cable fails, the tablet fails. Most USB devices have a detachable cable, so I am not sure why Wacom elected to make this device with a permanent cable. I suspect (rather, I hope) that this will change down the road on future versions, but for now it is what it is.

The install did not go well, and I realize I am the exception to the rule. Because I had previously attached and installed drivers for the Intuos4, I uninstalled the drivers before trying to attach the Bamboo. The uninstall did not work as I expected, as Windows loaded up drivers without hitting the installation media when I plugged it in. As a result, the touch portion of the pad allowed me to move the cursor but tapping and dragging did not work at all. I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling the tablet, and on the second attempt it installed properly. The tutorial loaded and I was able to practice some of the new hand gestures available to me.

Most intriguing of the features available is the ability to use two fingers on the pad simultaneously to zoom in and out and to rotate images, but there is a catch - it is application-dependent and does not work the same with different applications. Also, at one point I tried to scroll and I got a zoom action instead.

Digging deeper, I discovered that the device simply maps the hand gestures to the same events that would be associated with a good mouse and in fact the documentation suggests making sure the actions that would be associated with mice should be mapped the same as if using a mouse instead of the tablet. In a nutshell, this tablet is a glorified laptop touchpad with scroll wheel events mapped in. Properly mapped, this tablet performs very well.

As I worked with the touch portion of the Bamboo, I had some trouble with the two-finger gestures. I closed a lot of Windows inadvertently and the events were not mapped uniformly (as mentioned above). However, the most frustration came because of the way I rest my hands on the desk (which affects the way I rest my hands on the tablet). I found I frequently would have more than two fingers on the tablet simultaneously just because of the way I rest my hands, and as a result I was working against myself with this tablet. Also, because I would hold the pen while trying to use the touch features, the pen would disable touch and I would get nothing.

Using the pen with this tablet worked as expected. It has 1024 pressure levels, which is fine for the average user like me or someone who is a little more creative. Wacom offers more sensitive tablets with more pressure sensitivity which is more in line with professional artists' needs. That said, I can see the difference when doodling with the pressure levels. Some upgrading from a simpler tablet will be thrilled; someone downgrading from a more sensitive tablet will be unhappy.

I uninstalled the Bamboo and went back to the Intuos. Most of the problems I had with the Bamboo are personal preference, though some of the issues are design related.

This really is a good tablet and I can recommend it to people who want to completely get rid of mice and other pointing devices. There are a lot of good features in this tablet and it works as advertised. Unfortunately in my case, it did not suit my needs.

This tablet is an excellent purchase and the best thing you can get before jumping up to the much pricier Intuos4 line. It's thin, sleek and stylish, the surface feels great, and the pen is near perfect.

My previous tablet was a Genius brand, which wasn't bad for $60, but this has many improvements. First off, obviously, the Bamboo Fun has touch sensitivity, making it a lot more versatile. The Genius tablet also felt a little cheaply made, and sure enough, the pen started breaking after a few months. Speaking of pens, Wacom is the only brand that requires no battery or cord to power the stylus, so there's that. Wacoms are also compatible with just about anything, whereas the Genius needs obscure workarounds for Macs or Linux.

Install was easy, with one hiccup. At first the pressure sensitivity didn't work, but I uninstalled everything and reinstalled it, and then it worked great. According to what I've read on the Wacom forums, most problems can be fixed that way.

I've read comments from some, wishing that the eraser on the pen could be mapped to different tools in Photoshop. I use GIMP, and it lets you map separate tools and even separate color palettes for pen, eraser, and touch. It's really handy to just flip the pen around for the fill tool and then use a finger to select, and feels very natural.

All right, now for the reason I didn't give this product 5 stars: The USB cable is permanently attached. Cords like this are notorious for failing well before any other part of the hardware, and instead of being able to buy a $5-20 cord you have to replace the entire tablet. One flaw in an otherwise excellent package.

My first Wacom tablet was the Original "Intuos" 4x5 back in 1998, I loved it so much that the next year I purchased the 12x18 monster! I currently use a Cintiq 21UX and a Fujitsu Tablet, so all my digitizers are screen based. I purchased this for my nephew as a gift as he wants to be a designer just like his uncle (good boy!). Below are couple of instructions I gave to him as he was trying to figure out the tablet.

From Mouse to Pen:
You will have to adjust to the cursor moving based on LOCATION instead of drag. The left top corner of the digitizer (tablet) is the left corner of your monitor, the bottom right is the bottom right. I've seen many people trying to use a tablet for the first time and they'll drag it half way and go back to the middle and try to drag the rest of the way (kinda like a mouse/touchpad) instead of moving to pen to the corner.

Yes, you can set it in options so that it acts like a touchpad instead of location accuracy but then why did you get a tablet? Well, Carpel Tunnel Syndrome people aside (a tablet is great for people with this ailment), the point of this tablet is for fast location accurate movement. You'll get used to it. Oh yeah, you can use the "touch" of this tablet to use it as a trackpad, but as others mentioned the Touch aspect is finicky at best, it just doesn't feel and act as good as your laptop touchpad.

Double Clicking:
Trying to double click at first by tapping quickly 2x with your pen also has a learning curve for some people. You can set one of your "thumb" rocker buttons to "double click" if you have a problem (by default it comes as TOP rocker = Right Click, and BOTTOM rocker = Pan/Scroll, you can change the BOTTOM one to "double click"). Or you can use the BUTTONS on the side for easy double click or right click.

Button Customization:
If you get a little more adventurous you can customize every available button (the 4 on the tablet and the 4 on the pen--yes, the tip and eraser count as "buttons") I actually use the BOTTOM rocker = CTRL-Z, so whatever I'm drawing I quickly press the rocker to UNDO my last couple of steps (in photoshop, just edit the keyboard shortcuts and change the Ctrl-Alt-Z into Ctrl-Z like everything else in the world--why did photoshop have to change this in CS4?) Every button is customizable so find your best combination of Pan/Scroll, Program Launch, double click, menu launch, etc.

Software:
I wouldn't recommend the Bamboo Dock, they are toys really. You can use your pen on Office 2003, 2007, 2010 to highlight, annotate, etc. Painter Essentials is a good software to play around with pressure sensitive tools, keep practicing on it! Photoshop is perfect for this pen as well. The best software for pure pen use (designed from the ground up to use PEN) is the Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 2011 if you're a student go to their website and you can get a student license with your .EDU address or you can download a 15 day trial version and see for yourself.

Q&A:
If the touch is not good, then why not just buy the cheaper WACOM PEN instead of Bamboo Fun?
Because the cheaper "Pen" has half the resolution and pressure sensitivity.
- Wacome Pen (CTL460) 512 levels pressure sensitivity and 1270 lines per inch (lpi)
- Wacom Pen & Touch (CTH460), Craft (CTH461), Fun (CTH661) 1024 pressure and 2540 lpi
- Wacom Intuos (the professional line) 2048 pressure (and TILT) and 5080 lpi

Of course the price reflects the advantages and if you're going to work on anything that requires pressure sensitivity (sketching, photo editing, etc) then the higher the better. Just to note, my original Intuos (1998) was 1024 pressure and 2540 lpi from what I remember, so that's plenty.

Hope this helped, I have set to receive emails from comments so I can reply to any particular question as well.