My shiny new tablet ...

[Midgardsormr]

You might need to update your video drivers, too. It's amazing how much difference that can make, even when it shouldn't.

[Mr. Anubite]

By "freeze-jump-freeze" do you mean when you lift the pen off of the tablet far enough and point to another part of the tablet, the pointer jumps to that part of the screen instead of traveling there like a mouse would?

That's supposed to happen. I'm not sure why, but thats considered a feature. when you lift up the mouse and drop it somewhere else, the pointer doesn't move. If you lift up the pen and bring it down somewhere else on the tablet, the cursor will jump to the pem's new location.

[Midgardsormr]

That is because the tablet's surface is mapped to the extents of the screen. That functionality can be changed in the software. On the Intuos, at any rate. If the controls for the Bamboo are similar, there should be three tabs in the Tablet Properties window, one of which says "Mapping." Change the Mode from "Pen" to "Mouse," and it will behave more like a mouse.

If you don't like working at the edges of the tablet area, or you want to conform a 4:3 tablet to 16:9 proportions, you can set the Tablet Area to "Portion" in order to limit the tablet's function to only a smaller rectangular portion of its surface. That does reduce the functional resolution of the device, though.