I have start using the 3D mouse (round thing with blue lighting) and a pen tablet for more than 10 years.
The 3D mouse is helping moving a 3D CAD model in software like Rhino for example. It is so much smoother and faster to see the model in the right view than using the normal mouse and click right.
It takes a bit of time to get use to it, but everybody I know cannot work without it passing the first week of use. It also helping moving drawing into Photoshop so you don't need to use the keyboard to zoom. This hardware is saving lot of time in general.
The pen tablet is a typical hardware to work on Photoshop.
3D mouse is from 3DConnexion – Tablet from Wacom
