I used a Christmas gift card to buy the Bamboo Fun because a friend told me he got one as a Christmas gift. The cheaper Bamboo does everything the Bamboo Fun does except that it does not have an accompanying mouse. I chose the more expensive model because I needed a new mouse anyway.

This is one of those situations where what works for most people does not work for everyone. I use my mouse with my left hand, but I write with my right hand. I intended to use the mouse with left hand and pen tablet with right hand. Picture it. I’m sitting at my desk with both hands going…vroom, vroom! Well, you can’t do that with the Bamboo mouse because the mouse has to rest on the pen tablet. You can’t use the pen and the mouse at the same time. The good news is that the mouse does not require batteries. The bad news is that it isn’t as agile as my regular mouse, so I should have gotten the regular Bamboo. I can use my other mouse with left hand and the Bamboo pen with right hand, but that means two mouse pad spaces on my work area.

The pen tablet feature works with Corel Painter which comes with the package. I insert here my signature done with Corel Painter and saved as jpg.

I can insert this image in any document I want, which is a neat feature. I thought that I would be able to use the pen feature on all Word 2007 documents as in a tablet notebook computer. I think it works automatically with Windows Vista. However, to use the pen feature in Office 2007 while running Windows XP Professional, you have to purchase additional software called JustWrite. The free download is good for 30 days. Then it’s $29.95 for the license.

I have not figured out how to use the pen feature with Outlook 2007. I’m not even sure it’s possible if you run Vista. I can, however, insert my signature jpg above in my e-mail messages.

Included in the Bamboo Fun package is photo editing software which I have not experimented with at all. Maybe I can find time to tinker with that and let you know what I think.

So—-is the Bamboo Fun worth the $80 or $100 (depending on which model you choose)? I’m not sure yet. Since I haven’t even tried the photo editing features, perhaps I shouldn’t make a final judgment on whether this was a wise purchase. However, right now, I have to decide whether to pay the extra $30 for JustWrite in order to use it with MS Office. I have two days to decide.

I hope my observations are helpful to someone else who’s considering purchasing Bamboo. I welcome comments from others who’ve used this product.