I'm looking to purchase a tablet, so...

Don't get an intuos5, it's absolutely no different to an intuos4 aside from the fact that it looks a little different and the touch features are improved. But the touch features are not supported in most programs anyway, and the most important part of the tablet, the pressure sensitivity, has not been touched on at all.

If you're going to get an intuos, get an intuos4. It has 2048 levels of pressure, where as the intuos3 has 1024. If I were you, I wouldn't bother with the touch features. They would be great if they worked, but unfortunately things like rotation are not supported in any programs I have used. It doesn't even work in SAI :/


However, as I'm sure you know, intuos tablets are expensive. To get a small from amazon costs £187, which is about $250CAD I believe.

So my advice would be to get a bamboo pen and touch. The new gen, which again has very little difference aside from appearance to the last, costs about $120. But an older one would cost you around $100, maybe about $70 if you were to get a used one.
If you shop around you could undoubtedly find an even better price.

The reason I suggest a pen and touch as opposed to just a pen is because the pen and touch has expresskeys while the pen does not.

Both have 1024 levels of pressure by the way.

If you don't think you'll use the expresskeys, just get a Bamboo Pen. It would be much cheaper too c:

I wouldn't go and buy an intuos right off the bat because there is a chance that you will not like using a tablet, and you may take a while to get used to using one. If it turns out that you're not comfortable with using a tablet, you don't want to waste $150, $200 if you were to buy an intuos5, on something you don't like to use.

Intuos4s are very nice tablets, but the people who are recommending them to you are not thinking it through in terms of cost, nor are they taking into account that this will be your first tablet.
Try a cheaper model before going for the big guns, ay? C: