Wacom Graphire4

If lack of deskspace is a concern, I can highly recommend a trackball, as it only takes up a relatively small space on your desktop, and best of all doesn't have to move around! The one I have (Kensington expert mouse) behaves just like a USB mouse with 4 buttons and a wheel, so it works out of the box.

uhidev0 at uhub1 port 2 configuration 1 interface 0
uhidev0: Kensington Kensington Expert Mouse, rev 1.10/1.00, addr 2, iclass 3/1
ums0 at uhidev0: 4 buttons and Z dir.
wsmouse1 at ums0 mux 0

And the nice thing about a trackball is that you can set the sensitivity rather low (for improved accuracy), and when you want to move the pointer to the other side of your desktop, you can just kick the ball, and let it roll over there. So both high speed and good accuracy combined, without having to fiddle with mouse acceleration tresholds that are never right.

Besides: did I mention it feels much better on the wrists too? I used to have an RSI problem when I used a mouse for prolonged periods (I even used to switch between right- and left-handed mousing just to give my right hand wrist a rest). Since I've been using a trackball, I've had no more pain in my wrists.

On the downside, they are rather expensive when compared to mice. Probably because they don't sell as many of them.

> I never used a tablet, would you say they're useful as pointing devices (mouse-replacements) in their own right, or do you use them mostly for graphical work and use a mouse on the side for normal X navigation?

Actually I use both. My desk is rather short on space, so I have to shuffle things around now and then, and if my tablet is closest, I just use it (it's easier than cleaning my desk). It takes a while to get used to using a tablet and getting a feel for mapping a position on the tablet to the screen. At first you tend to start from the middle and work your way to the desired spot at first which feels rather clumsy. :)

> Using a mouse for copy/pasting, I regularly miss start or end of a block by one character (yes, cleaning helps) or have to lift and re-start selecting because I reach the border of the (small, cluttered) deskspace, is a tablet useful in that case?

I've done a bit of experimenting just now, and, interestingly, I do seem to miss the first/last character less often. It might be because you only have to add slight pressure to the tablet to register a click, so it takes less time and one doesn't move past the first character in the meantime.. but I don't know. It seems to work well for me at least.

They're *very* useful as a mouse-replacement. A while ago I stopped using mice for regular use, mainly due to my fingers not liking the short movements of clicking and starting to get painful at times. I tried a trackball which started off being a big improvement, but within a couple of months started to have similar problems there too (thumb, from spinning the ball).

At this point I got a Graphire3 and never looked back. My current main desktop (Opera and a bunch of ssh sessions) runs Windows because the tablet didn't work on *BSDs, but I think I'll be changing that soon now (thanks mk!).

It's well worth trying one out, and play with the settings to see what works better for you (sensitivity, absolute/relative positioning etc). It takes a little while to get used to hovering the pen above the pad, (as opposed to how a touchscreen works), but much easier than, say, switching keyboard layout.

I think A6 (4x5) works well for mouse-replacement, the larger ones are probably better for detailed drawing (and in particular if you want to trace larger pictures: I was surprised at how well the signal travels through quite thick paper/card).

As a bonus, if you have a Zaurus you can use the pen as a (more comfortable) stylus when you're at home, which helps reduce the chance of losing the Z stylus on a busy desk :)

Wacoms don't use batteries in the pen, they work by induction. So try not to drop the pen too hard, as the core and sometimes coil can be broken (typical symptom: only the eraser end works, drawing tip doesn't). They're not exactly fragile but it can happen (wacom europe support is good and pretty fast in their web-forums).

The plastic nibs at the tip of the pen can wear out eventually after (very) heavy use, but they're quite cheap to replace and mine have lasted well. I think that's more likely a problem using them for drawing than for mouse-replacement.

I tried a cheaper (aiptek) tablet before I got the Graphire, but it wasn't too much fun, if I'd kept it the cost of batteries would soon have paid for a Wacom anyway...