I've come to find that Anything by Wacom is just sex when it comes to drawing tablets. They've got the art down, and I believe that anything else is probably going to be inferior in some tremendous way.

I started out with a little 4x5 inch tablet to use for my 3d modelling skinning process, when I was painting skins for game models. I'm trying to learn how to draw and paint a little more detailed now, so I needed to move up to something bigger.

I scored an Intuos 9x12 (I think...its at home so I can't double check) and its amazing. The only problem I've had with it is that for some reason I can't convince photoshop that the eraser end of the tablet should change to the eraser tool...but everything else works like a champ, and I believe the tablet is worth nearly 300 dollars. I got it by trading some double bass pedals.

Thats just my thoughts on the subject though...I'm going to probably attempt to tablet trace a map within the next few days. Check out some of the map sfrom Dungeon Magazine, and you'll see what I mean about how it appears some of their finest cartographers actually use CC2 to layout maps, then trace over them perhaps digitally.