I took the plunge and bought one of these (A5 size) for just over 200 quid. Very impressive and will obviously do a lot more than I'm doing with it. Don't know how it works, must be magic! In fact I needed to draw a straight line so I placed a wooden ruler across it as a guide and the pen even worked through that!
The thing is I noticed after using it for about an hour that the bottem edge of the active area had risen slightly, and further investigation revealed that it doesn't appear to be held down at the bottom but is anchored firmly at the top. The thing is I'm now worried that I might catch it and cause damage. Has anyone else experienced this? I could tape the botom edge down but this is hardly invisible, I had thought about a few dabs of glue. Any comments?

bodegg... Welcome aboard. You will learn to love your Wacom.

The tablet may be designed so that you can lift the film and place something under it to use as a guide to trace. My first tablet was made like that.

Also, to draw a straight line (at least in Photoshop). With the brush tool selected click with the pen (or mouse), hold down the Shift key, and click where you want the line to end.

No rulers needed. :)

You'll not regret your purchase, BTW don't let those express keys go to waste, assign them to you most used shortcuts.

Sounds to me if its falling apart already that it way have been dropped at some point. I got the same one as you, and there should be no harsh edge at the bottom of the active area. DON'T GO WITH THE GLUE! you will devalue it, they are very durable and it will retain a second hand Ebay value if you dont wreck it.

To draw a straight line as someone said hold down the SHIFT key and click twice at both ends of the line you want. Or keep it continually held down while painting to constrain the angle of your stokes to 45 degrees

There are no signs of impact so I'm pretty certain it's not damaged. The active area usually sits nicely in it's recess in the clear plastic top but it only lifted after my sweaty palms had been in contact with it over a long period. I may just put a bit of sticky tape on the corners.