Many people have observed that drawing with a mouse is like drawing with a bar of soap. In conventional computer use, you slide your mouse around until you get the cursor where you want it to go, regardless of where the mouse is on the table (or on your thigh, if you roll it around on your leg like I do). That's ok for general menu control, but if you've ever tried to draw a line across the length of your screen with a mouse, you know it can be a frustrating and imprecise experience.

Graphics tablets fix that kind of control problem. These are plastic pads (or even flat-screen monitors, at the high end of the technology and price range) that let you use a pen-shaped input device for drawing or handwriting-recognition applications. The surface of the graphics tablet is mapped to the coordinates of the screen. So if you want to select a point in the upper left corner of the computer screen, you move the pen to the corresponding point on the upper left corner of the graphics pad.

This precision gives any user, and especially an artist, exact control of the cursor and the input. The pen provides better control and pressure sensitivity to replicate brush-stroke effects. For example, your paint program might put down more "paint" in your picture depending on how hard you press the pen to the tablet.

There have been a number of low-priced products for non-professional use as well, but most have left much to be desired in accuracy, features, or portability. A recent line of products that bucks this trend is Wacom's Bamboo Fun, which is available in two sizes: small (roughly 8 1/2 by 7 1/4 inches) and medium (roughly 11 by 9 ¼ inches) and four colors (black, blue, silver, and white). Bamboo Fun comes with both a pen and a mouse, and the tablet recognizes which one you are using and interacts with the right one automatically.

Both tablets also offer four user-definable keys and a touch-sensitive ring for scrolling and zooming. My 12-year-old daughter (the more active artist of my two children) picked it up in a heartbeat, mastering the difference between pen and mouse input in a few minutes. Bamboo Fun comes equipped with Adobe Photoshop Elements, Corel Painter Essentials, and a photo-effects package, Nik Color Efex Pro.

Connecting the pad to the computer is as simple as plugging in a USB cable. On a Macintosh, no software driver is required for installation, but you may need to install one on a PC, depending on the age of your operating system.

If you choose to use the bundled graphics software listed above, it'll take under an hour to install all three packages.

The small size of Bamboo Fun retails for $99, the medium for $199. Both are extremely portable and can slip into a computer case or backpack with ease.

If you plan to use Bamboo Fun as both your mouse and pen input device (and I have been doing so on the family computer at home), I suggest the medium size. The same size mouse comes with both, and it takes up a good bit of area on the small pad. That makes its use a bit tight.

Aside from that, I highly recommend Bamboo Fun. If you're looking to start working with a graphics tablet, it provides an inexpensive way to get started without compromising on features or functionality.