Wacom One by Wacom CTL-672-N Medium

What kind of “hand contamination” is the concern? As far as I know, Wacom tablets use the same types of plastics as other mice or trackpads you might already be using.

Other tablets come with a glove, but that has nothing to do with health concerns. It’s more about inonveniences related to palm on plastic:

• Tablet plastic can be kind of “sticky” (like a glass table) when you‘re trying to drag the stylus with your hand on the tablet. If your skin sticks and releases instead of just gliding smoothly, the stroke you are drawing might end up with unwanted bumps in it. A glove can allow your hand to slide smoothly across the plastic, for smoother stylus strokes. 
• When using a tablet with a screen on it, dragging your hand all over the screen can leave skin oil/grease all over the tablet display, like fingerprints. Some people wear a glove to keep the tablet display clean. Of course this is not a concern with a tablet like the Wacom One which does not have its own screen. 

Other brands work too, but Wacom is a safe choice for use with Macs…I plugged my first Wacom into a Mac over 20 years ago. I currently use an Intous Pro small model that was introduced last year. I’ve never used a glove with it, but if I get a tablet with a display I might consider a glove.

At a hobbyist level, the Wacom One should be great. What will you be missing by not paying for a higher model? The features below tend to be on the more expensive models:

• More levels of pressure sensitivity (usually not that important). 
• More expressive control through sensitivity to stylus tilt angle and barrel rotation angle; useful if you like shading with a real pencil tilted down to its flat side, or controlling the stroke of a real world brush by twisting it (as in calligraphy). 
• Shortcut keys or scroll ring that can be customized using the tablet driver software.
• Multi-touch gestures like a trackpad. 

If you won’t miss those, the Wacom One should be good to get started with.

There is a difference in buying a tablet for photo retouching versus expressive painting and drawing. Almost any tablet is good for photo retouching, but the expensive tablets tend to be better if you’re looking for the kind of control you would want for painting and drawing with fine art brushes and pencils.