Disclaimer: Huion sent me the WH1409 tablet for this review.

Huion Giano WH1409 wireless graphics tablet

The Huion Giano WH1409 can be considered the bigger brother of the DWH69, also wireless, that was released around May 2015.

The working surface area of this tablet measures 13.8 by 8.6 inches. It's huge! It measures around 17-inches diagonally. Drawing on such a large working area tires my hand faster than working on a smaller tablet (I use a Medium Wacom Intuos currently).

The highlight of this tablet is its wireless feature. The USB wireless receiver can be found behind the tablet, kept behind a latched holder. Throughout my usage, I did not encounter any lag or disconnection.

The wireless receiver also acts as a flash drive with 8GB of storage capacity. It's quite handy to store files in case you need to bring the tablet around. Transfer speed of the USB feels like USB 2.

Both the tablet and pen comes with built-in batteries that you can charge with the USB cables provided. I've been using the tablet for a few weeks with the initial charge. Even if the tablet or pen runs out of battery power, you can still draw by using them in wired mode.

These are the indicator lights that show you that the tablet is switched on, pen is working, and battery level.

The drawing surface has a matte texture with a feel that's similar to Wacom tablets. The pen draws with a good tactile feel and friction.

The pen

The pen has a nice comfortable non-slip grip and comes with two buttons. Weight is light but not too light. Just right.

A pen holder and four space nibs are provided. The replacement nibs are hidden inside the pen holder.

The pen has no eraser at the back. It's just a charging port.

Driver installation and features

Before you install the Huion drivers, make sure you uninstall all other tablet drivers first. e.g. Wacom drivers.

After installing the driver, you'll be able to get the pressure sensitivity to work and also customize the 12 shortcut keys on the tablet.

I've tested the tablet in Windows 7, 8.1, Windows 10 and Mac OS 10.10.5.

On Mac OS

On Mac OS, the tablet works perfectly.

Brush strokes on the Mac are almost flawless. Occasionally there will still be some jitter, but it's really a non issue and you really have to look out for it specifically to see it.

Here's a drawing using Photoshop (Mac). It's great. All the strokes turned out the way I want them to be.

On Windows

My experience with Windows and the tablet isn't satisfactory. Actually my main issue is the compatibility when it comes to working with Photoshop.

There's slight jitter when it comes to using Photoshop (Windows) with the default Huion driver. The workaround is to install Lazy Nezumi Pro to make the jitter go away and create beautiful smooth strokes. However, Lazy Nezumi Pro cost USD $35. This is quite strange because there's no such issue with Photoshop on the Mac, and I'm using the same version of Photoshop with different OS.

Drawn with Photoshop (Windows) with Lazy Nezumi Pro plugin.

If you have to work with Photoshop, you'll have to factor in the cost of Lazy Nezumi Pro.

Using with Illustrator (Windows) is satisfactory as it will smoothen out the brush strokes. The brush is able to detect pen pressure too.

Strokes in Mischief

Strokes in Krita

The jitter stroke issue seems to affect only Photoshop. I've tested the tablet with other Windows drawing applications without any problems, namely, Wacom Bamboo Paper, Mischief, Sketchable, Medibang Paint Pro, Krita and Autodesk Sketchbook (tablet version). In all these drawing apps, pressure sensitivity works perfectly and there is no line jitter.

I've tried Photoshop CS5, CS6 on Windows 7, 8 and 10 and there's the line jitter issue with all of them. So maybe this is more of a Photoshop issue than a problem with the tablet driver.

Conclusion

If you're using a Mac OS and thinking of getting this tablet, I say go ahead without hesitation.

If you're a Windows user, if you use Photoshop, you have to factor in the additional cost of buying Lazy Nezumi Pro to remove the jitter from Photoshop brushes. If you use other Windows drawing softwares, there's no problem.

Below are the pros and cons at a glance.

+ Affordable compared to Wacom tablets at the same size
+ Wireless tablet
+ Wireless pen
+ 12 shortcut keys are useful
+ Pen pressure works well
+ Replacement pen nibs are included
+ Works perfectly with Mac OS
+ Works with most Windows drawing applications except Photoshop
+ Drivers has lots of customisation
- Windows Photoshop brush strokes have jitter
- Working on this huge tablet can be tiring
- No eraser on back of pen

Availability

You can get the tablet and check out more reviews at
https://www.huiontablet.com/huion-wh1409.html

I've finally gotten myself a Surface Pro 4 after months of waiting. Yeah, just like the Surface 3 I reviewed weeks ago, I bought mine as a secondhand unit and saved a significant amount of money. I'm upgrading from the Surface 3 because I wanted a larger screen. I'll write a comparison review for these two tablets in the future, and also compare the Surface Pro 4 with the iPad Pro. For this article, I want to focus on the Surface Pro 4.

The Surface line of tablets from Microsoft is promising and with every new model, improvements were significant. Surface Pro 4 is a significant upgrade to the Surface Pro 3, especially as a tablet for drawing.

Mine's the model with 8GB RAM, 256GB of storage. i5 processor (2.4Ghz duo-core) with Intel HD graphics 520. If you're getting a computer to create art, I recommend at least 8GB of RAM and a good i5 processor. 128GB of storage is not a lot especially after installing Windows OS and the software which will take up around 20GB. Windows OS also uses RAM and recommends 2GB alone.

DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS

Here are the different configurations of Surface Pro 4 and their official retail price.

To me, performance difference between i5 and i7 processors are not that significant. However, the i7 models have significantly better graphics performance with the Intel Iris 540 versus Intel HD graphics 520 with the i5 models, like up to 55% better. If you are into 3D work, it makes more sense to get the i7 models. If you're just going for digital painting, sketching, the i5 is more than adequate.

BUILD QUALITY

The body is made of magnesium with a matte surface finishing that feels nice to touch. It weighs 786g which is a nice weight for a 12-3 inch tablet. But once you start adding the Type Cover, it becomes close to the weight of a 12-inch laptop.

Behind the tablet is the kickstand that helps prop itself up. You can use the stand in any position between the closed and maximum inclined position as shown in the photo on the right. The built in stand is incredibly convenient as you don't need to buy additional accessories to make the tablet stand.

Overall, the tablet just feels solid. I also like the inclined cutting on the sides that makes it easy to pick it up when it's laying flat on the table.

I bought the SP4 Type Cover as well and it's amazing. The front and back of the cover is made of some felt-like material. It's something akin to walking on luxury carpet. And it's also a place to clean off your finger oil. :-P

The keyboard buttons are nice with tactile response and good spacing between one another.

The cover latches on magnetically to the tablet with a very strong magnet. Once the cover is near the tablet, it will snap on automatically.

The annoying thing about the Type Cover is, if you're drawing, it's not comfortable to have the hand on top of the cover. So whenever I'm drawing, I always detach the cover. Microsoft should really make the cover wireless. That would be so cool.

If you type frequently, then it makes sense to get the Type Cover. If you draw more often than type, then you can save the money as the Type Cover is quite pricey. Or perhaps getting the Logitech K810 Bluetooth keyboard would be a better choice.

The screen has a resolution of 2736x1824 and has great viewing angles and rich colours. It has a glossy screen so it's best to use the tablet indoors, and without any lighting from behind.

PORTS

In the picture from left to right are the power port, USB 3 and mini-DisplayPort.

One USB port is better than no USB ports. This allows you to plug in all sorts of USB devices, like scanner or USB flash drive, or an external hard drive for backup. Very helpful.

The mini-DisplayPort enables you to work with an external monitor. No mini-DisplayPort cable is supplied though. I use this one by Accell. After you plug it into an external monitor, you can choose three ways to display:

• Extend the desktop from your SP4 to the monitor
• Mirror the SP4 to the monitor
• Use the monitor as the main screen and turn off SP4's screen

At home, I like to use the SP4 plugged into my Dell 27-inch monitor, which actually has a lower resolution than SP4's at 2560 by 1440. There's absolutely no lag whatsoever when it comes to moving windows around, switching applications, or doing 3D work with Sketchup. As the resolution of the screen is so high, it's much more user friendly to work on a larger screen.

When plugged into an external monitor, you can choose to work on the tablet as if you're drawing on a Wacom tablet.

Hidden behind the stand is a microSD slot. You can get a 128GB microSD card for USD $50 for extra storage.

SURFACE PRO 4 PEN

This is the new Surface Pen designed for the SP4.

One side is cut flat and that's where there's a strong magnet that will latch on to the side of SP4. Surface Pro 4 Pen has a felt-like tip compared to the hard plastic tip of the Surface 3 Pen.

Surface 3 Pen already offers a nice drawing experience. The change to a felt tip really makes the drawing experience even better because it introduces just a bit of friction to make it less slippery on the glass screen. Since it's less slippery now, it's makes it easier to control. That's a really nice touch. As a new tip, it's still quite smooth and you need to use it for a while before you can feel the additional resistance kicking in.

The pen needs to be powered by an AAAA battery with life rated to be around a year.

Here's how the tip looks like after two months of use. It bent slightly. Also, the plastic that's holding the felt tip has cracked slightly. It still works. The tip is still firm and does not wobble.

The pen now supports 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity and you can adjust the pressure curve using the app called Surface. Default setting is fine, but I prefer to adjust it so that I've to press harder for a thicker stroke. However, I feel that the old Surface Pen with 256 pressure levels offers slightly better pressure sensitivity when it comes to drawing softer lines, at least on the drawing app Mischief.

Microsoft has also released Surface Pen Tip Kit with 4 tips with different amount of friction. There are two hard smooth tips and two felt-tips with more friction.

Unfortunately, SP4 Pen buttons only have limited customisability, e.g. clicking to screenshot, launch One Note or some desktop application. If you know of a workaround, let me know please.

Oh, the button at the back works as an eraser at times when the app supports it.

BATTERY LIFE

Battery life is around 5-6 hours when using it for drawing, sometimes even less depending on the software and also brightness of the screen. This is a bit disappointing because it still cannot compare with laptop's battery life. It's best to have the battery is fully charged before you head outdoors for drawing.

WINDOWS OS

Windows 10 a desktop OS but you can also install tablet apps on it. When it comes to productivity, I feel that desktop software is better compared to using tablet apps. It's great to have such a huge variety of software to choose from.

There are still some bugs with Windows 10 but none critical. Bugs are always annoying. E.g. The tablet showing black screen even when it's on, which forces you to restart, Windows Start button occasionally not working when it's being clicked.

DRAWING EXPERIENCE

When it comes to accuracy in tracking, latency and the feel of the tip on the screen, I'm more than satisfied with the SP4 and its Pen.

Tracking is accurate. The cursor is always under the tip regardless of the tilt of the pen. There's no parallax error as the screen isn't too big to begin with, and there's no noticeable gap between the display and the glass surface.

Here's the list of applications that I've tried:

• Mischief (ver 2.1.4) - desktop app - Excellent
• Artrage Touch - tablet app - Excellent
• Sketchable (ver 3.0) - tablet app - Excellent
• Sketchbook Pro for Tablet - tablet app - Excellent
• Sketchup - desktop app - Excellent
• Krita (ver 2.9) - desktop app - Excellent
• MediBang - desktop app - Excellent
• Paint Tool Sai (ver 1.2) - desktop app - Excellent
• Photoshop CS6 - desktop app - Excellent
• Lightroom 5 - desktop app - Excellent

Pressure sensitivity works wonderfully with most drawing software, with the exception of Photoshop at least on the Surface Pro 4 (more on that later). The sketch above is drawn and coloured with MediBang.

While the tracking is not instantaneous, it has never made me frustrated before. Sure the strokes may come out slower behind the pen tip but it's like some micro-second lag. For drawing, the lag is not significant, but for writing or taking notes the lag is not a pleasant experience.

The main downside to the drawing experience are the drawing apps whose user interface are not optimized for high resolution small screens. For example, in Photoshop and MediBang desktop software, their menus and buttons are just too small making it a challenge to accurately click on something you want, either with the cursor or finger. There's a workaround though, which is to use another app called Artist Pad to create bigger buttons.

Overall, the applications on SP4 runs fast and breezy.

Palm rejection as a feature is not found in many drawing apps that I've used, except for Sketchable. It's a good feature to have but not a deal breaker. This means you have to lift your hand off the screen when drawing. If you really want palm rejection, you can actually turn off the touch screen and have it register only the Surface Pen (via disabling the HID-compliant touch screen feature through Device Manager).

Oh, about Photoshop... I'm using Photoshop CS6 Windows and I cannot get the pressure sensitivity to work with the SP4 pen. CS6 doesn't have touch features and does not support pinch zoom or finger panning. It's really not an application I recommend to be drawing with on the SP4. I can't say anything about the Photoshop CC as I've not used that.

Some sample strokes from Mischief. Generally speaking, most digital stylus would have that problem of wobbly diagonal lines when drawing them slowly. That wobby line issue is present but it not so significant. The software or OS does correct the slow diagonal lines to make them straighter and smoother.

When I'm creating line art, the issue with wobbly line is not that big a problem and I usually don't notice it.

Overall drawing experience. It still feels like you're drawing with a digital stylus. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. But the main thing is, the SP4 pen is very capable. Drawing experience is satisfactory.

COMPARED TO IPAD PRO

I'll put out a more detailed comparison to iPad Pro in the future. The short review is, iPad Pro's hardware is as powerful as Surface Pro 4. The only significant difference is the variety of apps in the app store of iOS and Windows Store. There should be no problem finding alternatives but the two apps I really miss on the iPad are Paper by FiftyThree and Procreate. However, there are also apps not available on the iPad, such as all the desktop apps.

Each platform has their own strength and weakness, and also their own must-use apps.

It really depends on what you want to do with your tablet. For me, the SP4 just has more functionality. For simple things like uploading files to a website, e.g. uploading a picture to DeviantArt, you can't even do that with the iPad because they have no file system. Many times I want to browse the desktop version of a webpage and on the iPad I find it difficult to do so at times because some websites will automatically direct you to their mobile site with no option to choose the desktop version.

iPad Pro weighs 713g so it's lighter.

I've used the Apple Pencil and I feel that it's provides slightly better drawing experience compared to SP4 pen. It really feels less like a digital stylus on the tablet and more like traditional. That I feel is because the way the Apple Pencil is designed which is longer and the firm tip mimics the firm tips of pen and pencil. However, the Apple Pencil tip is still real smooth on the glass surface.

The biggest thing for me with the SP4 is you don't have to transfer your tablet sketch to your main computer to work on it further. You're already working on computer running desktop software. I still prefer the SP4 because of the additional functionality which I find extremely useful, and really improves productivity.

COMPARED TO CINTIQ COMPANION

I've not used the Cintiq Companion 2 before so I can't really make an informed comparison. The only thing I can say is, the pressure sensitivity on the Surface Pro 4 works very well, but it certainly cannot match the sensitivity of Wacom Intuos tablets.

One thing I noticed is it's more challenging to creating lines of alternating thickness. If you look strokes from Mischief from above, you'll see that when I release the pressure, the lines tend to be a bit more jittery. But the thing is, when you're testing for such things, they will show up, but when you're actually drawing, at least for me, this is not something that I see in practice.

CONCLUSION

While I bought my Surface Pro 4 secondhand, I've to say that it's worth the money even at its original retail price.

This is a well designed tablet with specifications powerful enough to run demanding software. If you have the budget, you can even configure a more powerful machine additional storage, graphics, RAM.

For digital painting and sketching, I recommend the 8GB RAM, 256GB Storage, i5 model or better.

Overall, I'm generally impressed with the snappy performance and drawing experience. The only thing I don't like is the battery life which can be better.

If you're looking for a tablet for drawing digitally, the Surface Pro 4 is a good choice.

Pros
+ Sturdy build quality
+ Has USB 3 port for extra functionality
+ Has mini-DisplayPort to extend working space on external monitor
+ Has microSD slot for additional storage expansion
+ Nice weight for its size but too heavy for handheld drawing
+ Built in stand with many positions
+ Pressure sensitivity of Surface Pen is good
+ Surface Pen feels good to draw on the screen
+ High resolution of 2736 by 1824 on a 12.3-inch screen
+ Screen has good viewing angles and colours
+ A larger screen feels better to draw on, e.g. more canvas space
+ Good stereo speakers
+ Able to install desktop and tablet apps
+ Snappy performance
+ Surface Pen is included
+ Lots of different configurations available

Cons
- Battery life could be better
- Desktop apps not optimized for tablets usually have small menus and user interface
- Surface Pen buttons have limited customization
- Surface Pro 4 Pen is slightly less sensitive than old Surface Pen
- Windows OS is so customizable it can be confusing, or not easy to find what you need
- Windows 10 still slightly buggy

AVAILABILITY

You can check out more reviews on Amazon. Below are direct product links to various configurations of the Surface Pro 4.

128 GB, 4 GB RAM, Intel Core M3 (Dual 0.9Ghz)
Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP)

128 GB, 4 GB RAM, Intel Core i5 (Dual 2.4Ghz)
US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP)

256 GB, 8 GB RAM, Intel Core i5 (Dual 2.4Ghz) - Recommended
US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP)

256 GB, 8 GB RAM, Intel Core i7 (Dual 2.2Ghz)
US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP)

256 GB, 16 GB RAM, Intel Core i7 (Dual 2.2Ghz)
US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP)

512 GB, 16 GB RAM, Intel Core i7 (Dual 2.2Ghz)
US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP)

Artisul D13 is the latest pen digitizer display from the Taiwan-based company UC Logic. A pen digitizer display is a monitor that you can draw on.

The pen digitizer display market space is getting more competitive every year. That's good news for digital artists because competition improves products and also keeps prices competitive.

The Artisul D13 competes with the Wacom 13HD which has been out since 2013 and the Bosto 14WX from 2015.

UC Logic's technology has been used by other companies to manufacture pen digitizer displays for years, so they aren't exactly a newcomer.

The unit I'm reviewing is on loan from UC Logic. I've used it for several weeks on Windows 10, and Mac OS 10.9.5 & 10.10.5.

Packaging

The unit came safely packed. You have to open three boxes to get to the monitor.

There's a big brown box with two smaller boxes inside that contain the monitor and stand respectively. The stand is optional and sold separately.

The things included are

• Artisul D13 monitor
• HDMI cable
• USB cable
• USB Y-cable
• Power plugs: double round, double flat and the T.
• Pen, case and stand
• 9 replacement nibs
• Manual

There's no driver disc so you have to download the latest drivers from Artisul's website.

Hardware and design

Build quality is surprisingly good. Everything feels sturdy.

The unit is slim like a tablet. The matte material used for the buttons and the left side feels nice to touch and have firm feedback when you press them.

Other parts are hard textured plastic and the edges are finished off with glossy plastic. On the back are large pieces of rubber to prevent slipping on the table.

There are only HDMI and USB ports on the Artisul D13. If your computer doesn't have HDMI port, you'll have to spend additional money for an adaptor, e.g. DVI to HDMI or mini DisplayPort to HDMI, and I'm not sure how well that will work.

There are two ways to power the display. If your computer has a USB 3 port, it may be enough to power the display without using the power outlet. The second way is to extend the USB cable with the Y-cable to draw power from the power outlet.

Either way. you have to connect the USB cable to the computer so that the stylus can be detected.

The optional stand cost USD $45.95.

The stand is useful to prevent the neck strain from drawing on the monitor that's flat on table. It also helps prop up the screen vertically so that you can view it straight on instead of staring down all the time which is really bad for posture.

The stand is easy to fix on with the quick-release latch. The monitor can then be place on top of it. There are rubber supports on all the important areas to prevent slip. There's no locking mechanism, as such, you can use the stand with any other tablet.

These are some positions of the stand.

This is how it looks like when the cables are connected on the right side. The lighted power switch is further down. Note that there are no buttons for calibration which is done through software.

The screen

The unit I received has a screen protector already pasted on it. The screen protector is just a thin film on the glass. It's matte with some texture that provides more control while drawing. To me, it feels like drawing on a Wacom Intuos or those Huion tablets. This is definitely better than drawing on slippery glossy glass.

The screen resolution is 1920 by 1080. It uses an IPS panel so the viewing angles are decent.

Colours are good but I think they could be better because they might be affected by the screen protector. Also, the colour gamut isn't exactly excellent so that affects the colours as well. Overall, I find the colour reproduction satisfactory for the price.

Colour calibration is required to get the colours to show properly. I find the default to be on the warm side, with a tint of yellow. On Windows, a colour calibration app is provided with the installation of the driver. On Mac OS, you have to calibrate it using System Preferences.

Drivers

Few things to note.

1. Make sure you uninstall other tablet drivers before installing Artisul D13's.

2. Connect the monitor to your computer before you install the drivers. The monitor has to be detected first.

On the Mac, after driver installation, you can find the driver settings inside the Applications folder.

On Windows, the drivers are separated at two locations: Start menu and taskbar. See below:

At the Start menu, you can find the colour calibration app and a digital manual with helpful troubleshooting tips. On the taskbar, there's a small tablet icon that when click, gives you the options to customize the monitor and stylus.

These are the settings you can change with the driver:

• Functions of the clicks and two shortcut button on the stylus
• Right-handed and left handed option
• Functions for the tablet's shortcut buttons and wheel
• Pressure sensitivity
• Calibration for parallax

For the monitor's shortcut buttons, they are pre-assigned to specific tools and commands for specific software, namely Photoshop, Illustrator, Clip Studio Paint and Corel Painter.

At the time of this review, Mac users have the ability to customize their own keyboard shortcuts. I was told that functionality will be added in the Windows drivers in the future. Having the ability to customize your own keyboard shortcuts is definitely better than being restricted to the shortcuts provided by the driver.

Pen

The stylus comes in a sturdy case with a magnetic latch. 9 replacement hard tips are provided. The stylus feels a bit light and probably could be slightly heavier. It's not battery powered.

Parallax

The gap between the glass and the LCD screen contributes to some parallax. That picture above is shot with the camera from the left so the parallax looks quite obvious.

Calibrating the stylus' cursor is required to minimize parallax.

The picture above show what it's like from the point of view when drawing. It took me some time to get used to it and after that I don't find it to be a big issue.

Drawing performance

Pressure sensitivity works well and the strokes taper nicely for all the drawing software that I tested with, namely Photoshop, Illustrator, Mischief and Medibang Paint Pro.

These are sketches on Photoshop with the round brush.

These are sketches with the Mischief app.

Glitches

Initially, I faced some glitches but they have all been resolved. I still want to list them here so that they can help others.

Mac glitches
First, there's this thin horizontal line that runs across at the top of the screen. Second, the screen seems to display white pixels static. These two problems are something I would associate with bad cable connection however it does not affect my Windows machine. Turns out it really is a problem with the cable because the replacement cable mailed to me solved the problem instantly.

Windows glitches
The glitches on my Windows machine were caused by the driver but after support staff sent me the latest drivers, everything was resolved.

My original problem was the Artisul D13 does not like to work with other monitors. When I use extended display mode and click on the Artisul, the cursor and apps will disappear. If you're using only the Artisul D13 alone, there's no issue. Anyway, with the new drivers, there should be no problems with extended display mode anymore.

The other issue is with cursor tracking which will be off whenever I'm in some drawing app. To solve that, just go to the display settings and "change the size of text, apps and other items" to 100%, and use the same resolution (1920 by 1080) for both screens.

Warranty and support

A one year warranty is provided for the monitor.

If you have problems, you can also submit a ticket to the support forum. They actually have someone who troubleshoots problems on the forum and is quite responsive.

Conclusion

After solving the initial problems were with the faulty HDMI cable and drivers, I've now used the display for a few days without additional problems.

Overall, in terms of value, it's great for drawing. The pressure sensitivity works well, lines come out as expected, and the overall build quality of the product is good. So yeah, it's worth the money, and it's cheaper than the Cintiq 13HD.

I can't compare the performance against the Cintiq 13HD though since I've not used that before. But if I were to choose between the D13 and 13HD, I'm leaning towards the D13 because of the price difference which to me is quite significant.

One last thing, read the manual first, and also the digital manual after installation. There are useful information to setting up the monitor.

Pros and Cons

+ Good build quality
+ Tactile buttons with good feedback
+ Can be powered by USB 3 port
+ Stand can be used for other tablets
+ Stand can be adjusted to many positions
+ Cheaper than Cintiq 13HD
+ Runs cool, only the bottom right is slightly warm
+ Wireless and battery-less pen
+ 9 replacement nibs provided
+ Rubber at the all the right places to prevent slip
+ Pressure sensitivity works great
+ Strokes taper well and have no jitter
- Windows drivers are at different places: Start menu and taskbar
- Parallax exists, corrected by calibration
- Windows drivers can't customize specific keys or combos (yet)
- Only HDMI port. Perhaps adapters should be provided or as option to purchase

Availability

You can find the Artisul D13 on Artisul's website or if you want to support Parkablogs, you can get it from the following Amazon links below:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es

What's the best iPad Pro size for artists?

It really depends on your personal preference.

Size

The 12.9-inch version is more enjoyable to draw on compared to the 9.7-inch because of the larger drawing surface area. It's like drawing on an A4-sized paper vs A5.

Remember you still have to consider the user interface taking up space. The surface area of the big iPad Pro is two times larger than the smaller iPad Pro. Even after having palettes around the screen, there's still ample space to draw on. Personally for me, I find myself zooming in less to draw. With the small iPad Pro, you may need to zoom in more often.

RAM

The 12-9-inch has 4GB RAM compared to the 2GB RAM on the smaller iPad Pro.

The amount of RAM will affect certain software features. For example when working with Procreate on the bigger iPad Pro, you can get 57 layers when working on an A4 canvas while you can only get 19 layers with the smaller iPad Pro. Apple's iOS is great at managing memory but if you're a heavy user, you might find the iPad Pro slowing down as you open a lot of apps while working on a heavy digital graphics file at the same time.

True Tone

This is a new feature introduced in the smaller iPad Pro.

Apple says that the smaller iPad Pro will note the ambient lighting and adjust its screen "to match the light in your environment". It says "reading anywhere is more natural and comfortable — almost like looking at a sheet of paper".

The benefit to artists is not clear. When you pick a colour, you pick it because you want that colour. However with Tru Tone, it's going to adjust the screen's colours so basically that means you will get a colour shift in your artwork. If you're primarily drawing on a white screen, then perhaps the Tru Tone will make you feel like drawing on actual paper because of the shade, but when it comes to digital painting, there's going to be that unwanted subtle colour shift.

Portability

The smaller iPad Pro is clearly more portable. It weighs 437g vs 713g.

Let's talk about putting the iPad Pro on the lap to draw. I can't hold the big iPad Pro for a few seconds before I start to feel the strain on my hand. You definitely need something to prop up the big iPad Pro. With the small iPad Pro, it's not much of an issue but the strain will come in later.

Ideally, it's best to draw with the iPad Pro on the table.

Experience

It feels more immersive to draw on a larger canvas. It just feels more cramp on the smaller iPad Pro.

Personally, I find it more natural to draw on a larger area. And when you look at the artwork at a larger size, it's also more satisfying. Apple Pencil is almost flawless so the overall drawing experience is satisfying.

I prefer the larger iPad Pro. I believe the trade off for most people is going to be portability. As I mentioned in the beginning, which size to get will depend on your personal preference.

This article looks at various Surface Pro 4 alternatives for digital artists who want a portable tablet to draw on. I've only included alternatives that run Windows OS and support a pressure sensitive stylus.

Since the first Microsoft Surface was released in 2012, competition has been relentless in this tablet/convertible/whatever-you-call-them space. Manufacturers compete outdo each other by coming up with the best portable pen display device every year. Thanks to that, we have benefitted with variety and competitive prices.

Let's take a look at the various pen display tablets available today with pros and cons. By the way, the pros and cons are relative to other tablets.

Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (Oct 2015)

I should mention Surface Pro 4 first to use it as a benchmark to compare with other models in terms of price and performance. I've been using one for several months and have also written a detailed review from an artist's perspective. It's a good improvement from Surface Pro 3 but it can certainly be better. Hardware is good. My issues are with the OS.

+ Has ports for USB 3, mini-DisplayPort, microSD
+ Vibrant 12.3-inch screen with 2736 by 1824 resolution
+ Many configuration available: Max 16GB RAM, 1TB storage
+ Multi-position stand
+ 786g or 1078g with Type Cover
+ Comes with Surface Pen stylus
+ Surface Pen's pressure sensitivity works well but...
- Surface Pen has issues with taper strokes in Photoshop
- 5-6 hours battery life
- Fan turns on often for unknown reasons
- Optional Type Cover cost USD $100++

Vaio Z Canvas (Dec 2015)

The Vaio Z Canvas is the most powerful tablet in this list. The base model uses a Intel Core i7-4770HQ quad-core 2.2Ghz with Iris™ Pro Graphics 5200 which has more processing power than SP4's dual-core. It's also priced quite competitively because it comes with a bundled keyboard. Just for reference SP4's Type Cover cost USD $100++.

+ Pressure sensitivity stylus is slightly more comfortable with the grip
+ Wireless keyboard is included
+ Stylus included
+ Ports included: 2x USB 3, mini-DisplayPort, HDMI, SDcard, Ethernet
+ Vibrant 12-inch 2560 x 1704 IPS screen
+ 95% Adobe RGB
+ Physical shortcut button to disable palm rejection
+ Multi-position stand
+ Many configurations: Max 16GB RAM, 1TB storage
- Fans run constantly but not noisy
- 4-5 hours battery life
- 1.20 kg or 1.54kg with keyboard
- 68% Adobe RGB

For the same price you pay for SP4, you get a faster machine with the Vaio Z Canvas and get a keyboard. But the power hungry processor takes a toll on battery life.

Samsung TabPro S (Mar 2016)

The 12-inch Samsung TabPro S is a nice addition to Samsung's line of tablet. Previously, they had the 12.2-inch Galaxy Note Pro but it runs on Android so the drawing apps that are available are limited. Now that it's running Windows 10, you have the variety of desktop software available to you. You can think of this as a competitor to Surface 3 rather than Surface Pro 4 because it uses a dual-core 900 MHz. I've used the Surface 3 (Intel Atom 1.6Ghz Quad Core) before and find the speed satisfactory when used with Photoshop and other drawing applications. So by comparison, TabPro S' speed should be adequate for casual drawing.

+ Vibrant 12-inch 2160x1440 resolution AMOLED screen
+ 693g weight not including keyboard
+ Bundled with keyboard cover
+ 7-8 battery life
+ Does not get hot
+ 99.9% sRGB, 86.6% Adobe RGB
- Intel m3-6Y30 dual-core 0.9Ghz that max out 2.2Ghz
- Limited configuration: Max 4GB RAM and 256GB storage
- One USB Type C connector
- No kickstand but you get the keyboard
- PRESSURE SENSITIVE PEN IS NOT AVAILABLE YET

I'm hesitant to list the processor speed as a negative point because it really depends on the tasks you do. If you want to edit photos, this is not the right machine. If you are a casual artist, then the TabPro S should be sufficient to meet your needs.

Most important thing to note is the pressure sensitive stylus is not available yet. There's no confirmation to whether or not it will eventually be released although Samsung says that they are developing it.

The main advantage over the Surface 3 is the larger 12-inch screen.

Huawei Matebook (Release date unknown)

Huawei Matebook will find it difficult to compete with Samsung TabPro S because the specifications are rather similar. Nice thing is they have included several USB Type C adaptors.

+ 12-inch 2160 x 1440 IPS screen
+ 640g without keyboard
+ Configuration available: Max 8GB RAM, 512GB storage
+ Adapters for USB Type C to power, micro-USB and USB Type A
+ Pressure sensitive stylus support
+ 85% sRGB
+ Rated 10 hours battery life (will be lower in real life)
- Intel dual-core m3 up to 3.1Ghz
- MatePen stylus is not included

Lenovo Miix 700 (Nov 2015)

Don't be confused by all the Miixes. Miix 700 has a 12-inch screen, Miix 300 a 10.1-inch and Miix 3 with only 8-inch.

Miix 700 is slightly heavier but has good number of ports onboard.

+ 12-inch 2160 by 1440 resolution screen.
+ Configuration: Max 8GB RAM, 256GB storage
+ 780g or 1.11kg with keyboard
+ Detachable keyboard included
+ Pressure sensitive stylus support
+ 1x USB 3, 1x USB 2, micro-HDMI out, micro SIM, microSD
- 5-6 hours battery life
- Intel m7-6Y75 dual-core 1.2Ghz up to max 3.1Ghz
- Stylus not included. It cost USD $40 and comes with 3 replacement nibs
- Palm rejection a bit iffy
- Jitter when drawing slow diagonal strokes (pen discussion here)

HP Elite X2 and Spectre X2 (Dec 2016)

HP Elite X2 competes with Surface 3/Samsung TabPro S/Huawei Matebook rather than SP4 because of its lower spec configuration.

Note that there's also another product called the Spectre X2. The main difference is the Spectre X2 comes with two USB Type C but does not come with the pen.

+ 840g and 1.23kg with keyboard
+ Configuration: Intel Core M3/M5/M7, Max 8GB RAM, 512GB storage
+ Ports: 1x USB Type C, 1x USB Type A, microSD
+ Active stylus included with Wacom AES
+ Multi-position kickstand
+ Good keyboard included
+ 5-6 hours battery life
- Intel Core M3/M5/M7 (dual 1.2Ghz up to 3.1Ghz)
- 12-inch 1920 x 1080 resolution screen
- Screen colours not that great

Asus Transformer T300 Chi (Mar 2015)

Asus Transformer T300 Chi is another Surface 3 competitor except with a larger 12.5-inch screen. It's difficult to stand out among other brands because there are so many alternatives. I guess the highlight is the battery life.

+ 7-8 hours battery life
- Not full size ports: Micro USB 3, micro HDMI, microSD card reader
- 12-5-inch screen with 1080P resolution
- Intel M-5Y71 (dual-core 1.2Ghz up to 2.9Ghz)
- Limited configuration: Max 8GB RAM, 128GB storage
- 0.72kg or 1.43kg with keyboard
- Average keyboard

Toshiba dynaPad (Jan 2016)

The Toshiba dynaPad is quite a stylish 12-inch tablet.

+ 12-inch 1,920 x 1,280 IPS screen
+ 576g or 997g with keyboard
+ Wacom AES pressure sensitive pen included
+ Ports: Micro HDMI, 2x Micro USB 2.0, multi-card reader for microSD/microSDHC/microSDXC
+ Rated 8 hours battery life
- Intel Atom x5-Z8300 quad-core 1.44Ghz
- Limited configuration: Max 4GB RAM, 64GB storage
- Keyboard not included

Other accessories

If you want to get any of these tablets as your main computer, having a keyboard is essential. However, not all tablets come with bundled keyboards. The OEM keyboards may be nice, such as those type covers designed specifically for the tablet, sometimes they can be quite expensive.

As an artist who uses a lot of keyboard shortcuts, I look for keyboards that are wireless. With wireless keyboards, you can put them on the side so that your drawing hand is not over on top of the keyboard. That's one reason why I don't like the Microsoft Type Cover. If I want to draw on the SP4, I have to detach the keyboard so that it does not get in the way of my hand. That's where the Vaio Z Canvas' wireless keyboard gets it correct because it's battery powered and you can place it beside your screen.

So for artists, I recommend you get a wireless keyboard instead. The keyboards I recommend and have are the Logitech K810 and Microsoft Universal Foldable Keyboard.

I like the Logitech K810 so much I bought an equivalent version for Mac, the Logitech K811. These are battery powered Bluetooth keyboards. You can charge them with micro-USB cables, those commonly used by Android phones.

Microsoft's Universal Foldable Keyboard's main advantage is it can be folded, thrown into a bag and be transported easily. The downside is there's this gap in the middle. So you might have to retrain your muscle memory when hitting some keyboard shortcuts that are across the gap. This Bluetooth keyboard is also powered by rechargeable battery and you can charge it with a micro-USB cable also. Very convenient.

A mouse may not be required if you already have the stylus. Personally for me, I prefer a mouse when using 3D software because most of those software make use of three button mouse. Anyway, Logitech makes the best mouse so just go check out the many reviews on Amazon. I recommend the Bluetooth Logitech M557 mouse. Do not get those mouse that require a USB wireless receiver because the tablet may not have a USB port, but almost all support Bluetooth connection.

Conclusion

So which one should you get?

Fastest and powerful for those with bigger budget
The quad-core Vaio Z Canvas is the fastest followed by Surface Pro 4. Since they have more powerful processor, their battery life aren't the best. Also they have fans so you may hear them blowing out hot air, especially so for SP4.

Lightest
Toshiba dynaPad is the lightest at 576g. Stylus is included by Keyboard is not. So you can get your own Bluetooth keyboard which I feel is better that way. Downside is it max out at 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. The next lightest is Huawei Matebook at 640g before the bundled keyboard is included. SP4 is 786g by the way.

Best screen
Vaio Z Canvas's screen support up to 95% Adobe RGB. Next up is Samsung TabPro S with 86.6% Adobe RGB

Best connectivity
Vaio Z Canvas has 2x USB 3, mini-DisplayPort, HDMI, SDcard, Ethernet

Cheapest for the budget conscious
Toshiba dynaPad (4GB RAM, 64GB storage) official retail is USD $569 and comes with a stylus. Lenovo Miix (4GB RAM, 64GB storage) is around USD $700 and the $40 stylus is not included.

Prices can change quite fast, so just visit the links I've provided to check the latest price (and reviews) on Amazon.

Slowest processor
Samsung TabPro S uses Intel m3-6Y30 dual-core 0.9Ghz that max out at 2.2Ghz. The next faster processor used is the dual-core 1.2Ghz that max out at 3.1Ghz. Samsung TabPro S does not have a stylus out yet so we can't determine if there's going to be lag when drawing digitally.

Most well designed
From all the reviews I've read, all these tablets seem quite well built. The Toshiba dynaPad probably is more stylish. Anyway, they are all tablets so the design is not going to be too extreme.

Best battery life
Both Samsung TabPro S and ASUS Transformer T300 Chi have the best battery life around 7-8 hours. It's usually going to be less when you're using it for drawing. Unfortunately for other brands, their battery life varies from 4 to 6 hours.

XP-Pen 22HD is a pen digitizer monitor, another one of those Wacom Cintiq competitors to enter the market recently. Competition is fierce. And each year, the products just get better and we have more variety.

XP-Pen is a company started in Japan in 2005 and was only recently incorporated in USA in 2015. They have been producing the technology for making digital tablets since 2005. I've never heard of them until I saw the XP-PEN 22HD which, if I'm not wrong, is one of the earlier products sold under their own brand.

By the way, the unit I have is a review unit sent to me by XP-PEN. Thanks! I've used it for a few weeks and now it's time to share my opinions. In this review, I'll talk about using it on both Mac and Windows.

Packaging

There's nothing too special about the packaging. The monitor was packed safely with thick padding inside a brown box which is inside another bigger box.

This is how the monitor looks like after set up.

The items included are:

• The display
• mini-DisplayPort to HDMI adapter
• USB cable for connecting the display and computer
• HDMI cable
• VGA cable
• 2x stylus pen with stand and 8 replaceable nibs
• Power cable
• Charging cable for the pen
• Manual and driver CD
• Black glove

Connection ports

The ports on the back of the display are for power, USB, HDMI, VGA and DVI

Important thing to note is while there's a DVI port, there's no DVI cable included.

If you're using a Mac, you can output using mini-DisplayPort and HDMI. A useful mini-DisplayPort to HDMI adaptor is included. For PC users, just make sure your graphics card has either HDMI or DVI ports (with your own DVI cable). Avoid using the VGA cable if you want the best image quality.

Build quality and design and specifications

This is an IPS panel running 1920 by 1080 resolution. Colour reproduction is good. I did not need to calibrate the colours out of the box. Viewing angles are good too with very minimal or indiscernible colour shift when you move your head around.

The screen is quite glossy so if you have light coming from your back, you're going to see reflections.

Design of this monitor, the front especially, reminds me of Apple Cinema Display because of the rounded corners, black bezel and glossy screen above the actual LED screen. Other than that, the rest of the monitor is uses those hard plastic. Overall design is actually quite similar to the Ugee 2150 and Huion GT 220 with minor differences.

Menu buttons are all at the bottom right. There are basic adjustments for the brightness, contrast, gamma and colour settings. The power indicator light is in a small "tunnel" and you can only see it when you look straight which is great because it won't be distracting.

One thing I don't like about the monitor is the cables come out from the bottom. The cables prevent you from tilting the monitor all the way down. If you put the monitor all the way down, the stand is going to lift off the surface because of the cables beneath. Having said that, at the lowest position where it's not affected by the cables, it's still a good comfortable angle to draw from.

This would be the lowest position you can get without the cables interfering with the stand.

The position is still comfortable to draw on. I'm just afraid of the damage that the cables might sustain when you move the monitor up and down constantly. The cables are generic cables so they should not be too expensive to replace, but it would have been better if the design had taken into account of the cables beneath. Small issue overall.

Pen

The pen supports 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity. There's no tilt sensitivity. Almost 70% of the pen is the rubber grip. It has a nice light weight and doesn't slip. The side has two buttons that you can customize by there's no eraser.

It's a battery powered pen so you need to charge it with the charging cable provided when the power is low. You can still use the pen while charging.

Drivers

I've used the monitor on both Windows and Mac. Drivers are installed and work fine the first time. That's great!

The drivers don't have a lot of features. Things you can adjust would be the pressure sensitivity of the pen, pen buttons and parallax calibration.

This are the Windows dialog boxes for settings. As you can see, part of the dialog boxes are cropped off and there's no way for me to resize them. Strange.

On Windows, to find the driver settings, look at your taskbar. It could be a small tablet icon hidden in an icon group. On Mac, you can find it in the Applications folder.

There's some parallax error as the glass is above the LED screen. Most pen digitizer displays have parallax error and it's compensated by the driver. How you do that is to click on 5 points that are shown on the screen and the driver will auto-correct the cursor so that it will appear to be directly beneath the pen nib. It works well. There will still be some slight misalignment because you'll always be moving your head around. In actual practice when drawing, it's not a big issue.

Drawing performance

Let me list the apps that working fine for me. If you are using this display and want to share with others the software that works for you, just share your info in the comments section.

App compatibility

Windows
Photoshop CS6 - Works fine
Medibang Paint - Works fine
Sketchbook Pro - Works fine
Bamboo Paper - Works fine
Mischief - After a while the software freezes
Paint Tool Sai - I don't have the license so I can't test it
ArtRage - Works fine
Corel Painter 2016 - Works fine

Mac
Photoshop CS6 - Works fine
Medibang Paint - Works fine
Mischief - Works fine

These are strokes from Photoshop CS5 (Mac). Pressure sensitivity works well. Strokes are smooth without jitter and they taper well. The lines come out exactly the way you want them to be depending on the pressure you apply.

This was drawn with Photoshop on Mac. There's something wrong with her leg. Don't look there. LOL.

It works well on Medibang Paint (Mac) as shown above.

Overall drawing experience is great except for the apps that have problems, specifically Mischief on Windows which freezes after a while. Mischief for Mac is fine.

These are strokes from Photoshop on Windows.

The hard pen tip works well on the screen. It's not too slippery compared to hard tips on the Surface Pro 4 or iPads for example. In rare occasions, the tip will make a squeaking sound. Again, not something unexpected because it happens with hard tips drawing on glass. It's a minor issue because it happens rarely. The alternative to remove that is to apply a matte screen protector but that will affect the sharpness of the screen. I like the way the pen nib and glass works now.

Monitor does get warm at the bottom. Not sure how I would describe it but it's like those laptop-type of warm.

Multi-monitor setup

As for multi-monitor setup, it's best to use both screens at the same resolution of 1920 by 1080.

There's nothing much to say about the mirror mode. But when you're in extended mode, note that you can extend your mouse cursor over to the other monitor because, well, your pen doesn't work on your other monitor, so you still have to use your mouse.

So it depends on how you want to arrange your setup.

I'm mostly using this as the main monitor.

If you're using dual screens, you can place the 22HD by the side and use it as a drawing screen. That way, with your main screen, you can move your mouse around anywhere even onto the extended desktop. That's just a suggestion. Anyway, this screen is good enough to be used as a main screen because the colour reproduction is good and image is sharp, oh, and it's large enough too.

Conclusion

The XP Pen 22HD is a good product in the sense that it's performs predictably. The strokes come out the way I expect them to be and so far there hasn't been any driver glitches, with the exception of the Mischief app on Windows. But overall, I'm quite satisfied at how it works.

The price point is undoubtedly very attractive. It's less than half the price of a Wacom Cintiq 22HD. I'm not sure if the Cintiq 22HD can reasonably justify that huge price difference. Even though I did not buy the XP Pen 22HD with my own money, it's pretty clear that this is still quite worth the money. I personally don't think there isn't anyone who's not tempted at the attractive price for this sort of functionality.

I'm not a fan of any particular brand, but just someone who when using a product wants it to work as advertised. And in this case, it works well.

If you're using this display, I would love to hear about your experience too, and you can help other artists.

Pros
+ Good built quality
+ IPS panel with good colour reproduction and viewing angles
+ 2 pens include
+ Spare nibs included
+ 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity works well
+ Input for DVI and HDMI, and has adaptor for mini-DisplayPort to HDMI
+ Works well with most Windows and Mac graphics app, except Mischief (Windows)

Cons
- Glossy screen prone to reflections, depends on your working environment
- No shortcut buttons on the monitor itself
- Gets warm at lower right after a while
- Wires behind prevent the display for going to it's lowest possible position
- Parallax that's compensated by software settings

Availability

You can find the XP Pen 22HD and more reviews on Amazon. The reviews are generally favourable.

Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp

This article looks at the different graphic tablets available for digital artists currently. I'll also provide my personal recommendation from the tablets I've used, and also from those reviewed by guest artists on Parkablogs. Whenever possible, I've provided links to detailed reviews on the blog.

I'll be updating this article as and when there are new products worth mentioning.

The types of tablets

There are roughly three main groups of tablets, the normal tablet without a screen, monitors you can draw on, and tablets with screens.

1. Normal tablet

This would be the tablets without screens. They are among the earliest form of devices to help artist transition into creating art digitally.

The two most common brands would be Wacom and Huion. Wacom came into the market early and is still dominant today. Huion is the aggressive competitor that sells tablets at really attractive prices. Wacom's products are well know over the years and it's common to hear artist recommend them without second thoughts. However, Huion has also been releasing products regularly and with each release they get better.

For beginners with limited budget, I recommend the Wacom Intuos. Check out my detailed review if you haven't. It supports 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity, stylus with replaceable nibs and the option to have touch gestures and be wireless. Price is reasonable although not as cheap as the Huion.

Shown above is the huge Huion Giano WH1409 and Wacom Intuos (medium size)

If you really want to get the best bang for your buck, then you can consider Huion tablets. Almost all of Huion's tablets are significantly cheaper the Wacom's at the same tablet size. There are two that I recommend. The first is the Huion H610PRO with 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity and a lot more physical shortcut buttons. Second, if you prefer wireless, the huge Huion Giano WH1409 or the smaller more comfortable size Huion DWH69.

The downside to Huion tablets is sometimes their strokes are not as smooth, especially when using Photoshop. For models that I've tested, I find that I often have to install a plugin called Lazy Nezumi Pro smoothen out the lines. That's an incredibly useful plugin but it's not free. However, even after considering the extra cost of Lazy Nezumi Pro, Huion tablets are still cheaper. And my problems only applies to strokes in Photoshop. Also note that not all Huion tablets have this problem. So be sure to check out more reviews.

If you have more budget or want something more professional, then get the Wacom Intuos Pro. They are more expensive, but have more features, such as support for 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity including for tilt, wireless kit is included and comes with more physical shortcut buttons and controls.

Check out more reviews on Amazon with the following direct links:
Wacom Intuos | Wacom Intuos Pro | Huion H610 | Huion Giano WH1409 | Huion DWH69

2. Pen digitizer display

Over the years, those monitors where you can draw on started coming out. All links below will be to their individual detailed reviews.

By the way, these are monitors and you need to connect them to your computer. They are not wireless. And they need to be plugged into power.

Wacom lead the charge and their Cintiq series and the current lineup consists of 13HD, 22HD and the humongous 27QHD.

Shown above is the Artisul D13

Competition in this space is relentless. There are so many but I'll just recommend the two that I've used so far which worked quite well for me, namely the Artisul D13 which has a 13.3-inch screen, and the XP-PEN 22HD which has a larger screen.

After using several pen digitizer displays, I can say that 22-inch is a good comfortable size to work on. You may not want a screen that's too big because it's tiring to move your hand on such a screen (I'm referring to the Wacom Cintiq 27QHD).

The Artisul is USD $200 cheaper and XP-PEN is less than half price. If you're going for the brand, then perhaps Wacom is attractive. But I'm telling you, the Artisul D13 and XP-PEN 22HD both work very well. On Mac OS they are almost flawless although on Windows there are some glitches. You'll have to read my reviews to get the details.

If you don't have table space, or want something portable, perhaps you want to bring it to the office, then get Artisul D13. If you want a big screen, get the XP-PEN 22HD.

I will recommend the Artisul and XP-PEN monitors without hesitation just because they work as well and the price is too attractive. The respective direct links are below:
http://www.amazon.com/Artisul-Portable-Digitizer-Display-Sketch/dp/B017O...
http://www.amazon.com/Artist22-22-Inch-Display-Graphic-Adjustable/dp/B01...

3. Portable wireless tablets

These tablets are like those pen digitizer displays mentioned above but they are wireless, battery powered and portable.

Even in this space, there are so many options to choose from.

If you want the best digital sketchpad, it's the iPad Pro. Read this review by digital artist Rob Sketcherman. Pressure sensitivity is excellent and you have access to lots of apps. The downside is the limited functionality of iOS because there's no file system you common see in desktop OS. Generally speaking, the iPad Pro is the companion to your desktop or laptop because it can't get everything done.

If you want everything done and in one package, then the Surface Pro 4 is more suitable. Read my review. It's a versatile tablet that you can draw on and the best thing is it runs Windows OS so you can install all sorts of desktop software. The pen is good but not as good as the iPad Pro.

There are many alternatives to the Surface Pro 4 but I feel that most of them are compromised in some way.

So the choice is pretty clear. If you already have a computer as your main workstation, then it makes more sense to get the iPad Pro. If you want an all-in-one, then get the Surface Pro 4.

Below are direct links to Amazon for you to check out more reviews:
iPad Pro reviews | Surface Pro 4

By the way, there are a lot of convertibles (those laptops with detachable keyboards) in the market. Be careful of those because even if they have touch screen, those screens are not meant for drawing purposes. Unless it specifically mentions stylus support, you should assume that the touchscreen is only meant for use with fingers.

Before you buy, think about your needs

Pressure sensitivity
Most tablets come with 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity. You probably won't notice the difference between that and 2048. It's not something to worry about because most if not all tablets have good implementation of pressure sensitivity.

Do you need the screen?
I actually still prefer using a screen-less tablet because I prefer to use a high quality monitor. While all the screen tablets and pen digitizer displays I mentioned above use IPS panels, they are still not as good as a standalone monitor. With a separate monitor, I get to choose on that has better colour gamut, a non glossy screen and a much higher resolution with sharper text and everything.

The advantage of the screen is you can see the lines appearing beneath your stylus. It's more intuitive.

Either way, you'll get used to it.

Pen accuracy
Pen digitizer displays usually have parallax error but that is corrected for with the driver software. It's not much of an issue after you calibrate your screen and cursor.

Palm rejection
Pen digitizer displays offers perfect palm rejection simply because they only detect the stylus and not the finger. Same applies for the screen-less tablets unless you've chosen to get one with touch features.

For screen tablets, iPad Pro offers the best palm rejection. Surface Pro 4 is not too bad. Note that there are certain software that allows you to turn on strict palm rejection, meaning after you turned that setting on, it will not detect your fingers so there's no way to accidentally leave stray strokes.

Palm rejection is a very useful feature because it directly impacts your drawing comfort.

The software you use
There are lots of software options for both tablet and desktop OS. If you specifically have to use a certain software, then you must choose your device based on what it can support. For example if you need to use Photoshop, then you cannot get iPad Pro unless you already have a desktop that has Photoshop.

Note that with iPad Pro, even though it uses iOS, you can still use desktop software. There's this app called Astropad that allows you to mirror your desktop onto the screen of the iPad Pro. This enables you to use Photoshop on your iPad Pro which would otherwise not be possible.

Touch features
These are finger gesture shortcuts. They are quite convenient to have but okay to do without. It's not a deal breaker. I prefer keyboard shortcuts because I've been using them for years. Old habits die hard.

Pen tilt
Only Wacom Intuos Pro support pen tilt. And only certain brushes in Photoshop support pen tilt. If you already know the brush you commonly use, then you will know the answer to whether or not you need pen tilt.

Table space
This is quite obvious. If you don't have much space on your table, then you should choose the portable screen tablets or smaller pen digitizer displays.

Portability
Do you need to draw on the go while you're outdoors. If so, then screen tablets are your only choice. Note that the Artisul D13 is small and compact and easy to bring around, but you need a power supply for it.

Conclusion

I've mentioned the tablets and monitors I recommend. There are are many more alternatives available but I did not mention them because most of them have some issues that affect user experience, or maybe the device is old and you can spend your money more wisely by getting newer products in the market.

I hope this article is helpful.

If you have any questions, just let me know in the comments section.

The Huion H610 Pro is probably the most significant competitor to Wacom Intuos tablet since Wacom has been around. There are almost close to 1,000 reviews on Amazon currently and most are favourable. Since my blog features lots of tablet reviews, I thought I should review this too.

The set that I have was bought off eBay from some unknown seller which was surprisingly selling at a cheaper price compared to Amazon. However, when the box came, it was knocked up pretty badly. Thankfully, the items in are still in working condition.

Build quality

Build quality is good. It's comparable to Wacom Intuos, perhaps the Intuos Pro feels more premium, but it's definitely as sturdy as the Intuos non-Pro. Shortcut buttons on the left have a firm feedback when pressed.

The tablet connects via a detachable USB cable.

Stylus and its holder

The stylus is lightweight, feels a bit cheap, but personally I prefer stylus that is light.

You can detach the stylus holder to reveal 4 replacement tips. There's also a metal nib remover to help you remove the nib from the stylus.

The grip section is a hard matte surface. Drawing with it for long is comfortable enough. There are two buttons on the stylus and each can be customized to a specific keyboard shortcut through the tablet settings.

The stylus is powered by an internal battery and you have to charge it with the charging cable provided. Battery life is good. It can last for weeks until the next recharge. Because the charging port is at the back, there's no eraser button.

Shortcut buttons

The shortcut buttons on the left are great. By default, they have been assigned shortcuts to Photoshop, so you can shortcuts to the Brush tool, Hand, Brush sizes, Zoom, Undo. Each button has a small icon that reflects the function. If you use other software, you have the option to reassign those buttons.

For left-handers, you can change the orientation of the tablet through the tablet settings.

In addition to the physical shortcut buttons, there are also 16 soft keys located at the top of the drawing surface. You can set each of these keys to keyboard shortcuts or menu functions as well.

I don't use these soft keys because in order to use them, I need to look at them. Compared to the physical shortcut buttons, I can use them without looking at them. It's good to have them though if you do need access to more shortcuts.

Drawing experience

Drawing experience is great.

The drawing surface is around A5 size but slightly wider because it's designed for wide-screen monitors. The drawing surface is matte and when the nib is on it, there's a tactile feel to it, again very similar to Wacom stylus on their own tablets.

The 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity works well. The stylus is very sensitive. Strokes taper well. Basically, the stylus works as expected, except when it comes to certain applications (more on that below). There's no tilt sensitivity though.

Driver

Let's talk about the drivers first.

I downloaded the latest driver on Huion's website instead of using those from the CD provided.

With the tablet driver, you can change things like keyboard shortcuts to the buttons on the tablet and stylus, pressure sensitivity and mapping area of the tablet (best left at default).

Software support

I've only managed to use the tablet on Mac OS so I can't speak for Windows. These are the apps I've used:

MAC OS:

• Photoshop CS5: Works fine
• Illustrator CS5: Works fine
• Mischief: Works fine
• Sketches Pro: Works fine
• Medibang Paint Pro v8.1: After the stylus is lifted off the surface, the stroke continues until the stylus is far away.
• Krita v3.1: After the stylus is lifted, the cursor hangs in place until you draw again. But you won't be able to see the cursor until the nib touches the drawing surface.

WINDOWS

• Photoshop: Works fine
• Paint tool sai: Works fine
• Manga Studio/Clip: Works fine
• ArtRage: Works fine
• Sketchbook Pro: Works fine

How well the tablet works depends on the software. I've read a handful of reviews saying that it doesn't work with Photoshop CC Windows, but there are many others who reported no problems.

If you are using this tablet, please share with me your experience.

Conclusion

The tablet is definitely very affordable when compared to Wacom Intuos non-Pro. The drawing surface is almost A5 and that's a comfortable size to draw on. It's priced under $80. For Wacom Intuos at this size (medium), they usually sell for twice the amount.

The downside is its performance really depends on the drawing application you're using. Wacom Intuos typically work without issues with most drawing applications.

If you're using going to use Photoshop, I would say go ahead and get it. If you use other software, do some research first to see if your software actually supports this tablet.

Oh, the difference between H610 and H610 Pro is the non-Pro has a resolution of 4,000 LPI. By the way, the Wacom Intuos has 2540 LPI. So if you want to save even more money, you can go for the H610.

Below are the pros and cons at a glance:
+ Affordable compared to Wacom tablets at the same size
+ Plenty of shortcut keys
+ Pen pressure works well
+ Drawing surface has slight texture that's similar to Wacom
+ Comes with 4 replacement nibs
+ Build quality relatively good
- Has issues with certain graphics software (I've only tested on Mac though)
- No eraser on back of pen
- Battery powered pen (but battery life is good)

Availability

Check out more reviews of this tablet from the Amazon links below:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp

Here's the New Huion 1060PLUS. I've actually reviewed the previous model that I borrowed from a friend. Writing this review feels like deja vu to me because many features are the same but there are definitely some improvements to this new model.

This unit was sent to me by Huion for review purposes.

For this review, I was only able to test it on a Mac because I no longer have a Windows computer. However, I will definitely test it again in the future on Windows.

Evolution

Alright, let's go through how this tablet has evolved. To make it short, it evolved from 1060 PRO to 1060 PLUS to the NEW 1060 PLUS.

Here are some new features in the NEW 1060 PLUS.

1. They are now using micro USB port instead of mini USB port. Basically, it's that same micro USB cable used for charging Android phones.
2. The USB cable head to the tablet is now an L shape
3. A sleeve for holding the pen is build to the side of the tablet
4. Streamlined the top design
5. A softkey shortcut link to Huion's website at the bottom right of the tablet
6. 2 indicator lights instead of the Huion logo lighting up
7. Drivers now included on the build-in 8GB microSD memory card

This is how the tablet was packaged inside the box.

That's the pen holder with replaceable nibs and the nib remover within. They have also included another pack of replacement nibs. It feels good to know that I probably won't run out of nibs anytime soon or years later.

The pen actually comes with a cap. It's nice but you can't put the cap at the back of the pen so I predict this is going to get lost easily.

There's one cable to connect the tablet to the computer and the other is the cable for charging the battery-powered pen.

This is the pen. It's still battery powered. Battery life is still fantastic so the hassle of having to charge it is really not a big issue.

There are two buttons on the pen and you can customize them to selected common functions. The pen is lightweight, feels alright for long periods of usage. The grip section is matte for the improved grip.

That's the pen in the pen holder sleeve by the side.

Also included is a glove. It's useful for those who find it awkward or uncomfortable when rubbing your hand on the tablet. Sometimes when the palm is sweaty or oil, it does get make the tablet surface look really oily. The glove keeps everything clean and also provides a more comfortable drawing experience.

As mentioned by Lirch in the comments section, this glove is more for those who use screen tablets to deal with the palm rejection problem. I might probably use it with my iPad instead.

These are the physical buttons aka ExpressKeys (left) and the SoftKeys (top). I wished they had printed the SoftKeys labels with more contrast because when using them, I need to see where to hit and the lack of contrast does not help.

About the 8GB microSD card
The drivers are conveniently located inside the memory card. On a Mac, you need to eject that memory card properly if not you'll get the "Disk Not Ejected Properly" dialogue box. I get that dialogue box all the time because I don't keep my tablet plugged in all the time and I unplug it often without ejecting the memory card. This is just how the Mac works. No such problem on Windows.

In my review of the previous model, I said that position of the USB cable to the side of the tablet means that my hand is always on the wire. The new model uses a L-shape connector and that's no longer a problem.

Drivers

That's the driver screen where you can customize the pen buttons, pen pressure, ExpressKeys and SoftKeys.

For the previous model, I mentioned that I wasn't able to get the Mac's Option key detected with the driver. That problem has been solved. Assigning shortcuts like Option+Command+Z for Photoshop's Step Backward is no longer a problem.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to test the tablet on Windows yet so I can't talk much about the Windows driver and software compatibility. I'll update this review in the future when I am able to.

This is a sketch drawn on Photoshop CS5 on the Mac. Everything works as expected. I needed to tweak the pressure curve slightly but after that the strokes come out just the way I want them.

The strokes are smooth, there's no jitter, no lag and they taper off smoothly.

The pen supports 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity but not tilt. It's just as sensitive as any of the Wacom tablets available today. You can also hover a good distance over the working area, perhaps 1-1.5cm, and the tablet can still detect the pen.

The tablet is 10 x 6.25 inches and this is a really comfortable size to work on. It's not too small or too big.

Conclusion

I'm very satisfied with the performance on the Mac. I did not face any problems, and the drawing performance is just as expected.

Pricing is very competitive. It's significantly cheaper than the Wacom Intuos and it even packs more features such as the many shortcut buttons.

I'm more interested to find out if it works equally as well on Windows so I'll update this review soon. I had issues with the previous model and Photoshop.

If you need help from Huion, you can check out their support group on Deviantart at http://huionartistsupport.deviantart.com

Availability

Check out more reviews on Amazon (affiliate links below). Use the coupon code FU7WQ259 to get an additional 5% before 30 September 2016.

Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp

The Acer Alpha Switch 12 was released in mid 2016 into a market that's already crowded with tablets and 2-in-1s. I was interested in this tablet for two reasons. First, it's comes with a pressure sensitive stylus. Second, it is significantly cheaper and comes with almost the same specifications as the Surface Pro 4.

My review will be from an artist perspective, someone who wants to draw and use a tablet like a digital sketchbook.

To give you the bottom line upfront, hardware is fine, all the issues come down, again, to the Windows tablet platform.

Specifications

Let's look at the specifications.

• Processor: Intel i3-6100U (dual 2.3Ghz), i5-6200U (dual 2.3 - 2.8Ghz), i7-6500U (dual 2.5 - 3.1Ghz)
• RAM: 4 - 8GB
• Storage: 128GB - 512GB
• Screen: 12" QHD (2160 x 1440) 3:2 IPS
• Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 520
• Weight: 910g, or 1.25kg with keyboard
• Ports: Full size USB 3 and USB Type C
• Extra storage: microSD card slot
• Price: USD $599 - $1049

The unit I bought is the mid-range model with Intel i5-6200U with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. Official retail price is USD $749. Mine's a secondhand unit so it's cheaper. Equivalent SP4 currently cost USD $1050 without the $100 Type Cover). The price advantage is significantly in Acer's favor.

The included microSD slot is great.

There are two things going for the Acer Alpha Switch that's not available on the SP4.

Alpha Switch uses liquid cooling instead of fans. This guarantees silent operation however I do find the back to be warmer than the SP4. It's not a big issue unless you're one who touches the back often. However, the screen feels warm too, so it can be felt when drawing. I'm not sure about your threshold for heat but it's not like super hot. May or may not be a deal breaker.

Keyboard is included. The keyboard has a stylus holder that comes in the form of a sleeve pasted onto the back of the keyboard. Unfortunately, the stylus holder looks and feels weak. I've already torn off the sleeve by accident. If you take out your Alpha Switch from the bag and the pen gets hooked onto something, it's easy to tear off the sleeve. It's a nice feature but the implementation is bad.

The keyboard is well built, mainly because they copied the SP4 Type cover down to the matte material used. It attaches to the bottom of the tablet using strong magnets that snap into place. Typing is comfortable for a detachable keyboard. There's backlight too. Downside is the trackpad is small.

Depending on which model you buy, the Acer Active Stylus Pen may or may not be included. If not, that's an extra $40.

Screen

The screen resolution is 2160 by 1440, 16:9 ratio. That's lower than SP4's 2736 x 1824 resolution, and that's a good thing. SP4 suffers the problem of having tiny user interface from older graphics software, such as those from Adobe CS5 & CS6. I'm happy to say that 2160 by 1440 resolution is satisfactory for use with all the graphics software I've tested. User interface of the OS, Adobe software is small but not frustratingly small. In short, 2160 x 1440 is extremely usable.

As for the sRGB gamut range. That's a bit tricky to determine. I've read reviews online and websites are claiming different results. There are 81%, 89%, 96% and even 101%. Who are you going to believe? To make things worse, Acer themselves do not release the sRGB gamut information.

Anyway, for the price I paid, I'm not expecting a high end IPS screen. From my naked eye, the screen looks bright and colours are vibrant. That's good enough for me. I'll not be checking physical colour proofs against this tablet screen. If you're looking for a tablet with precise colour accuracy, then you need to spend more money on other options. If you just want a budget digital sketchpad, the screen quality is more than satisfactory.

One downside of the screen is, I can't seem to turn off the auto-brightness feature. I mean I've already turned that off in Windows settings, but whenever I open a graphic software and a white canvas is being presented to me, I can see the screen slowly brightening up. I'm not sure if that's a feature or a bug. Anyway, it does not become super bright, it just becomes slightly brighter as if the tablet thinks that you would work better on a brighter screen. Weird.

If you want to use an external monitor, you can do so via the USB Type C port with a USB Type C to HDMI adapter. The tablet is powerful enough to drive a 2560x1440 external screen and itself. It's best to plug into a power source as this drains the battery. I don't have a 4K screen to test it with.

Stand

The stand behind the screen is U-shape. At the bottom is a rubber grip that prevents it from slipping and it works great. You can use the stand in any position but you only get the advantage of the rubber grip with the tablet in 45 degrees to vertical position.

The only downside is, to deploy the stand, you have to fiddle with the small recessed slot to pull the stand out. Not a big issue.

Battery life

The battery probably last 5-6 hours when doing normal stuff like web surfing or checking emails. Reduce another hour or two when you're using graphics software such as Photoshop. There's no quick charge for the battery but charging time is not that bad.

The battery life is not too different from the competing Windows tablets, SP4 included.

Stylus

The stylus feels well built with a nice weight. It uses one AAAA battery. The pen is not always powered on so you need to click one of the two side buttons which will turn it on instantly.

The tip feels a bit like a felt tip so there's additional friction provided when drawing on glass. It's not a hard tip on glass that will give you the sound of the solid tapping sound. There's no information on whether the nib can be replaced with it gets worn out.

Accuracy is spot on with the cursor always underneath the tip. Latency is good. Hover distance is a bit short though, 0.5cm, but it's not too different from competition.

The stylus supports 256 levels of pressure sensitivity with technology from Synaptics.

Drawing performance

The stylus still suffers from that slow diagonal line jitter problem. It's not new. Most Windows tablets and iPad non-Pros suffer from this problem. It's the most annoying problem for digital artists working on tablets. If you draw moderately fast to fast, you won't see this problem.

It affects all the drawing software I've tested (see below) with the exception of ArtRage Touch. For some reason ArtRage Touch actually corrects for that jitter and produces smooth lines!

Below's the list of applications that I've tried. 'Fine' means it works but there's jitter problem. 'Excellent' means it works without any issues.

• Mischief (ver 2.1.5) - desktop app - Fine
• Artrage Touch - tablet app - Excellent
• Sketchable (ver 3.0) - tablet app - Fine
• Sketchbook Pro for Tablet - tablet app - Fine
• Sketchup - desktop app - Excellent
• Krita (ver 2.9) - desktop app - Excellent
• MediBang - desktop app - Fine
• Paint Tool Sai (ver 1.2) - desktop app - Fine
• Photoshop CS6 - desktop app - Fine
• Lightroom 5 - desktop app - Excellent

To get pressure sensitivity to work in Photoshop, you need to install Microsoft Wintab drivers. Photoshop also suffers from the jitter problem but you can use a plugin called Lazy Nezumi Pro to counter that problem. With Lazy Nezumi Pro enabled, you can get smooth strokes. However, I do find that the software would sometimes behave weirdly, the most common problem being the inability to switch to other tools after pressing their tool button.

Strokes in Photoshop with Wintab installed.

Strokes in Photoshop with Lazy Nezumi Pro plugin in action.

Then there's the problem with Wintab as well. With Wintab on, when I use Mischief, I would get stray strokes. Then I have to use a hack to turn of Wintab whenever I use Mischief, and turn it on again before I use Photoshop.

Anyway, all these problems that sound like software problems are common problems faced by Windows tablets. It's not a hardware thing or Acer's fault. It's just that Windows isn't built that well as a tablet platform. Each time I see these issue come up, again and again, I can only sigh.

Another issue is it's quite difficult to achieve the thinnest of strokes. The 256 levels of pressure sensitivity may be responsible for this. Compared to the SP4, the SP4 pen requires slight pressure on screen to draw a thin line. With the same amount of pressure applied on the Acer screen, the line is much thicker. And there's no way to adjust the pressure sensitivity curve. So the only way to get the thinnest line is to adjust the brush size, of course.

The screen supports multi-touch so for software that supports the feature, you can zoom, rotate or pan.

Conclusion

General performance of Acer Switch Alpha is snappy. I've not experienced any slowdowns. Startup is quick and apps all launch quickly. If you're buying it as a general purpose tablet, I think it's quite worth the money.

As a tablet for drawing, it's not as good as the Surface Pro 4 mainly because the 256 levels of pressure sensitivity on the Acer do feel limited. Both still suffers from the pen jitter problem with selected graphics software so there's no advantage to either side.

Also be careful when you install other tablet drivers, e.g. Wacom or Huion. They may conflict with Window's already wonky stylus support.

Pros
+ Sturdy build quality but does not look as good compared to competition
+ Has fullsize USB 3 and USB Type C ports
+ USB Type C can be used with an adaptor to connect to an external screen
+ Has microSD slot for additional storage expansion (128GB limit)
+ Nice weight for its size but too heavy for handheld drawing
+ Built in stand with many positions
+ Rubber grip with built in stand
+ Surface Pen feels good to draw on the screen
+ 2160 by 1440 resolution is optimal for 12 inch screen
+ Screen has good viewing angles and colours
+ A larger screen feels better to draw on, e.g. more canvas space
+ Able to install desktop and tablet apps
+ Snappy performance
+ Silent operation from liquid cooled system
+ Lots of different configurations available, but no 1TB storage option
+ Good stereo speakers

Cons
- Pressure sensitivity of 256 not as good as competition
- It's difficult to achieve light strokes
- Battery life could be better
- Stylus may or may not be included
- Stylus buttons have limited customization
- Tablet gets warm easily. Liquid cooled not as effective compared to fans.
- Installation of Wintab drivers required for use with Photoshop and Paint Tool Sai
- Windows support for stylus is wonky

Availability

You can find the Acer Switch Alpha 12 and more reviews on the Amazon product links below:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp

Wacom has just released a new line of tablet PCs called MobileStudio Pro. You can probably call them the iPad Pro or Surface Pro 4 alternatives or competitors. It looks like Wacom has chosen not to continue with the Cintiq Companions after just two generations. While the names may differ, MobileStudio Pro in essence will take over Cintiq Companion as Wacom's offering of a mobile drawing device. From the specifications I've seen, the new tablets have address many common complaints digital artists have faced on with the Cintiq Companion.

There are going to be two sizes: 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch. There are many configurations and below are the respective pricing:

13.3-inch MobileStudio Pro:

• i5 chip, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage: £1,399 / €1,599.90 / US $1,499.95
• i5 chip, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage: £1,649 / €1,899.90 / US $1,799.95
• i7 chip, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage: £1,799 / €1,999.90 / US $1,999.95
• i7 chip, 16GB RAM, 512GB storage: £2,299 / €2,699.90 / US $2,499.95

15.6-inch MobileStudio Pro:

• i5 chip, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage: £2,199 / €2,599.90 / US$2,399.95
• i7 chip, 16GB RAM, 512GB storage: £2,749 / €3,199.90 / US$2,999.95

As usual, UK and Europe prices are much higher. Just for comparison purposes, a Surface Pro 4 with 8GB RAM 256GB SSD is now selling around USD $1,050. An Apple Pro 256GB model cost $1,000 without the $100 Apple Pencil. Pricing of the MobileStudio Pro is right at the top among Surface Pro 4 alternatives.

Let's take a look at some key features.

High resolution screens

MobileStudio Pro 13 and 16 supports resolutions of WQHD (2560 x 1440) and UHD (3840 x 2160) respectively. Using such high resolutions on such small screens means that if you're using old graphics software such as Adobe CS6 and older, user interface elements such as buttons, menus are going to be too tiny to be used. This is the most common problem faced by digital artists and designers who buy into tablets or laptops that feature such high resolution screens. Sure you can change the settings to work with a lower resolution, but I am not sure if your work will look pixelated on screen.

Wacom says they are using a new etched glass surface to give you that pen and paper feeling.

Impressive Adobe RGB gamut support

MobileStudio Pro 13 and 16's screen gamut are at 96% and 94% Adobe RGB. This is really impressive and a welcome for artists and designers who work primarily for print (CMYK) output. Now you don't need a spare monitor just for checking colours.

Storage and RAM

The MobileStudio Pros support 4-16GB RAM and 64-512GB SSD storage. Booting, opening and saving files are going to be fast. There is also the option of expanding storage yourself with the included SD card slot (good move), but I guess that's more for photographers.

Graphics card

This is where it gets interesting. The 13.3-inch model uses Intel Iris Graphics 550. The 15.6-inch model uses either the Nvidia Quadro M600M 2GB or the M1000M 4GB workstation grade graphics card. Nvidia Quadro are the graphics cards recommended by 3ds Max and Maya. So now, these tablets are good enough to run powerful 3D software.

Weight

The small one weighs 1.42kg while the larger one is 2.2kg

Pressure and tilt sensitivity

The new Wacom Pro Pen 2 now supports up to 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity! I am not sure how different it will be in terms of performance when compare to 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity. But wow. Tilt range and levels still remain at 60 degrees and 60.

The pen has an eraser at the back. Carrying case for the pen is included.

Shortcuts

There are 6 physical ExpressKeys and a Touch Ring. There will also be onscreen controls, radial menu and precision mode, all these are features available in their other products. It is a touch screen so it supports figure gestures too.

3 USB-C ports

If you need the rectangular USB port, you will need to buy an adapter. To connect to an external monitor, you do it through the USB-C port too, and you need an adapter as well. The Apple Macbook 3-in-1 adapter is fine, but too bad you cannot charge the battery with it.

Cameras

There is a back 8MP camera and front 5MP camera. The back camera is a Intel® RealSense™ R200 3D scanning camera.

Battery life

Battery life is rated to be 6 hours. For processor intensive tasks, that is going to draw the battery significantly, especially things like video editing or 3D rendering.

It runs on Windows 10

One of the main problems with Surface Pro 4 and the alternatives is the compatibility of the Wintab driver and graphic software. That compatiblity issue often affects whether or not there is pressure sensitivity support. I hope Wacom has included all the drivers nececessary because finding drivers and workaround is the tedious part of using Windows tablets as digital sketchpads.

Many such tablets that come with stylus suffer from the slow-diagonal-wavy-lines problem. The only tablet that does not have this problem is the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. This problem and the Wintab driver problem is why we can't get the perfect Windows tablet for digital artists.

You have the option of Windows 10 Home or Professional depending on the model you choose.

Wacom Link

This is an adapter that lets you attach MobileStudio Pro to a PC or Mac and use it like a Cintiq.

Other things to note

The 3-position mobile stand is not included. There is no keyboard folio but Wacom do offer an optional wireless Bluetooth keyboard. It might be cheaper to get the wireless Logitech keyboard instead.

Release date is expected to be in November 2016.

Conclusion

The new MobileStudio Pro may be pricey but Wacom has certainly included lots of features to make it feel worthy of your money. Actual performance should be a huge step-up from Cintiq Companion 2 because of the better specifications.

For more information, visit these links below
http://www.wacom.com/en-us/products/pen-computers/wacom-mobilestudio-pro...
http://www.wacom.com/en-us/products/pen-computers/wacom-mobilestudio-pro...

One year ago, Wacom came up with the Bamboo Spark, a device that can digitally record what you write on a normal notepad with the included Wacom ballpoint pen. This year, they have released a new model called the Bamboo Slate. The functionality of Bamboo Spark and Bamboo Slate is essentially the same.

The target users for this sort of device would be those who take a lot of notes and want a quick way to turn them into digital notes. The paramount question you should ask yourself before buying is whether you have time to scan. The second question is whether you prefer taking notes with actual pen and paper vs a stylus on tablet. I'll address these issues and more in this review.

For some reason, Amazon shipped my purchase without the typical brown cardboard boxes, opting to paste the delivery information all over the box's packaging. I wonder if they do that for USA customers too, and whether if it's going to be a problem when the item has to be returned.

The different models

The Bamboo Slate comes in three version, there's the Small Slate (A5), Large Slate (A4) and the Large Folio.

The Slates are basically clipboard style without the clip. They come with a slot where you can insert a notepad.

The folio is like a folder with cover, extra slots and a large side pocket for you to put stuff. It probably cannot fit the iPad Pro because that's larger than A4 size. For anything smaller, you can slot it into the large side pocket.

What's included

The items included are the device itself, a ballpoint pen, extra pen refill, the refill remover and micro-USB cable for charging.

The ballpoint pen uses those 6.7cm ballpoint refills.

The particular model of the ballpoint refill is ISO 12757-2 (MiniStar D). I tried a Zebra refill of same shape and size but it does not work for some reason. The Zebra refill has a silver coloured metallic body.

To replace the ballpoint refill. One just has to pull it out. It's slippery so the clip has to be pressed hard.

The pen clip is nice. Overall, the pen looks better compared to the one from Bamboo Spark.

The cross section is not exactly circular but triangular with bevel edges.

I've a problem with the pen. To get the ballpoint out, you twist the pen's back. When I'm using the pen, sometimes the side of my index finger knuckle area will accidentally twist the pen's back causing the ballpoint to retract. It has happened several times. So when holding, I have to make a conscious effort to hold the pen in a way to avoid contact with the pen's back.

Build quality

Overall build quality is great. The back of the Slate is cloth with the orange letters BAMBOO sewed on. I'm not a fan of cloth surface because they get dirty easily and it's diffcult to clean. I use cloth bound sketchbooks and they have the same problems.

On the front, the material use is some sort of faux leather with grid of tiny crosses. It's nice to touch and it goes around the edges of the Bamboo Slate.

That's the microUSB port. It's the same port used by most Android phones.

At the top left corner is a recessed area for slotting the pen clip.

The A5 sized dotted notepad comes with 40 perforated pages. The device is said to support notepads up to 8mm thick (approximately 80 pages). I've tried really thick notepads and not all strokes can be captured. So when getting new notepads, get one under 80 pages.

Here for example, I've used my own notepad that's attached with big clips. With notepads that have hard cardboard backing, you can just slide in the cardboard into the horizontal orange slot on the Bamboo Slate.

So how you actually use this thing?

Before you can use it, you need to pair it with your mobile device, either Android or iOS. And you need to download the Inkspace app from the app store.

Pairing of the Bamboo Slate and your mobile device is done inside Inkspace. There aren't a lot of buttons in Inkspace app so it's easy to find out where to get into the pairing process. Next is to press and hold the round button on the Bamboo Slate to get a blue light which will indicate that it's in the pairing process. Bluetooth is needed. Pairing process is quite fast and after it's done, the indicator light turns green.

Usage is straightforward and I've experienced no issues. Write when there's green light, and the light will turn blue indicating there's content, press button to save and the light turns green. Flip a page. Repeat.

Below are six features of the Bamboo Slate and Inkspace as marketed by Wacom:
1) Organize, edit, and share your notes on your iOS or Android Bluetooth enabled devices
You can send your files from Bamboo Slate to your computer, and do whatever you want with it.

2) Enhance notes and sketches by adding strokes, color or highlights with editable digital ink
This requires you to have software that enables you to do all those things.

3) Use live mode to collaborate and share notes and ideas with others.
This is interesting. In Live Mode, when you draw on paper, the strokes will appear simultaneously on the Inkscape app on your mobile device.

4) Export notes as JPG, PNG, PDF or SVG file formats.
When you export as a PDF file from the Inkscape app, the strokes are in vector format, basically outlined paths. You can open the file in Adobe Illustrator to work on it further.

You only get vector PDF if you export from Inkscape app, not when you export the file from Wacom cloud.

Strange thing is, there are two layers of same content. So in Illustrator, I have to use the Pathfinder to flatten the duplicates by combining the top and bottom layers.

JPG and PNG files are 1748 by 2551 resolution, or 14.8 by 21.6cm at 300dpi. PNG has transparency.

5) Sync to existing cloud services: Inkspace, Dropbox, Evernote, and OneNote.
This allows you to download your files from your favourite apps.

6) Store up to 100 pages on your Bamboo Slate and sync later when reconnected.
You don't have to sync immediately whenever you write something. If you forget to bring your mobile device out, you can still store the pages inside Bamboo Slate, and sync to Inkscape when you're able to later.

For drawing purposes

It's quite accurate.

Here's the original scan.

And here's what was captured and overlayed onto the the original scan. I've changed the colour to green so that you can differentiate it from the scan (in black).

Bamboo Slate actually detects pressure. When you press hard, you get thicker strokes. When pressure is light, strokes are thinner.

Inkspace Plus

Inkspace is the basic version of the app. There's Inkspace Plus with additional features that Wacom's trying to promote. That's a monthly subscription service that cost, currently, at USD $3 per month. These are the features:

• Convert handwriting to rich text
• Search your handwritten notes
• Export in scalable vector file format (SVG)
• Store up to 50 GB of data (60,000+ pages of notes)

Conclusion

The Bamboo Slate is just the Bamboo Spark with a different look. Functionality is the same. Bambook Spark is cheaper so it might be more worth the money, but they are only available in folio style. It's good to have clipboard style too because there might be people who don't want the folio or extra bulk.

As mentioned earlier, I feel that this device is for people who takes lots of notes and don't have time to scan. If you need that functionality, then should serve your need. It works without flaws.

For drawing purposes, personally for me, I have time to scan my work, so I don't see myself using the Bamboo Slate much. While the ability to digitize and export vector strokes is good, I can do that by like the Live Trace feature inside Adobe Illustrator.

Overall rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Here are the pros and cons at a glance
+ Captures strokes rather accurately
+ Good build quality
+ Feels durable
+ Simple to use
+ Pairing the device with iOS or Android is easy and fast
+ Supports syncing to backup your work
+ Works with Evernote, Dropbox, Wacom Cloud
+ Can save your pages into multi-page PDFs
+ Battery life is good
+ It can sync in the background when your mobile device is in standby mode
- When saving the page, the 'downloading' dialog box does not appear instantly and makes you wonder if it's really working
- Ballpoint refill is short compared to standard ballpoint refill
- You cannot use other pens, e.g. fountain pens

Availability

If you want to get Bamboo Slate, visit these Amazon product links below:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp

If you want to get Bamboo Spark, visit these Amazon product links below:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp

Artisul D10 Pen Display Digitizer is the smaller variant of the 13-inch Artisul D13 released a few months ago. And Artisul is kind enough, again, to loan me one unit for this review.

What's in the box

Here are the items in the box

• Artisul D10 Pen Display
• HDMI cable
• USB cable
• 10 replacement nibs inside a case
• Pen

There's no power cable. The Artisul D10 draws its power from USB so this means you need a computer with powered USB ports. This is great because the fewer cables there are, the better.

Build quality

Build quality feels solid. I like the round corners. On the back are large pieces of rubber to prevent slipping. The unit is only 700g so it's extremely portable should you want to bring it around, or put into a bag.

On the unit are six physical shortcut buttons, each with a firm tactile feel when pressed. It can be used by left handed users as well, just change that in the settings.

The 10.1-inch screen came with a matte film protector already pasted on it. It does affect the image quality but in exchange you get a better drawing experience when using the plastic nib on the drawing surface.

The resolution is 1280 by 800 which is sufficient for a screen this size. All the graphic software are able to display user interface (e.g. buttons, menus) at comfortable sizes.

Brightness of the screen stated at 300 cd/m2 with a contrast ratio of 700:1. In actual use, the brightness is adequate, but definitely nowhere near 300cd/m2 which is the typical brightness of desktop monitors. When used in an environment with bright conditions, colours and contrast are affected, washed out. So it's best to work away from bright light sources. Working indoors with normal lighting overhead is fine.

The battery-less pen supports 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity but there's no tilt sensitivity. There's No eraser on the back.

This is the case with 10 replacement nib. There's no stand for the pen though. That tiny hole in the middle is to take the nib out from the pen. Just tilt the nib when it's in there to pull it out.

Connecting to the computer

Driver disc is not included so you have to download the latest driver at artisul.com/downloads.

Before you install, you should uninstall other tablet drivers on your computer. Uninstall any existing Wintab driver, or just rename it. Artisul driver will install its own version of Wintab so you don't want any conflicts. To check for existing Wintab drivers, visit these two locations:

• C://Windows/system32/wintab.32.dll
• C://Windows/syswow64/wintab.32.dll

After you have installed the driver, plugged in the display and it should be detected.

Picture left: For me, I'm using a Windows 10 tablet that does not have HDMI port. So I had to use a USB Type C to HDMI adapter.
Picture right: On my Mac Mini 2012, somehow the HDMI port wasn't giving any video signal and I had to use a Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter.

Driver settings

The driver settings allow you to customise the physical shortcut button, pen buttons and pressure curve.

For physical shortcut buttons, there are already pre-configured software-specific shortcuts that you can choose from, e.g. Photoshop Undo, Brush, Corel Painter, Illustrator. I discovered that the pre-configured Photoshop's Brush Size Increase shortcut wasn't working. Anyway, I was able to customize a keyboard shortcut to replace that so it doesn't matter. You can basically bind any keyboard shortcuts to those physical buttons.

Drawing performance

My experience with Artisul D10 are on Windows 10 and Mac OS 10.9.5. Overall drawing performance is fantastic with the exception of some glitches.

Windows glitches: Most graphics software I've used work fine except Mischief. I had to turn off Wintab for Mischief to work properly. If you use Mischief, you can use this hack to turn on/off the Wintab driver easily. But to use Photoshop, you have to turn on Wintab again.

Mac glitches: I wasn't able to get pressure sensitivity in Adobe Illustrator to work by default. The workaround is to install Wacom Intuos drivers. I know earlier I said to uninstall other drivers but this seems like the only way to get pressure sensitivity to work in Adobe Illustrator. So far, there has been no conflicts with the two drivers. This affects Mac's Illustrator only.

These are strokes from Photoshop CS5 on the Mac. Pressure sensitivity works well. Strokes taper nicely.

This is Adobe Illustrator CS5 on Mac. Strokes here are unable to taper to a sharp point.

Both Medibang Paint Pro and Mischief on the Mac work well.

There is minimal lag. Cursor under the pen tracks quickly. There's parallax error though but you can minimise that by calibrating the pen through the driver settings.

This is Photoshop CS6 on Windows. Occasionally, there are some strange stroke tapering effect. In other words, the strokes don't taper gradually and smoothly. Sometimes they would taper abruptly and end with a thin line. You can see that effect at the end of the spiral stroke on the left. This effect happens when drawing the strokes very quickly, e.g. cross hatching. If you draw deliberate strokes, then it's not a big problem.

To workaround the strange stroke tapering effect, one can use the Lazy Nezumi Pro (not free) Photoshop plugin.

With all other graphics software, pressure sensitivity works well and all the strokes taper nicely. I've tried Sketchbook, Krita, Paint Tool Sai, Sketchable, ArtRage and Wacom Bamboo Paper.

Warranty and support

A one year warranty is provided for the monitor.

If you have problems, you can also submit a ticket to the support forum. They actually have someone who troubleshoots problems on the forum and is quite responsive.

Conclusion

Drawing performance is satisfactory. There are some glitches but no big deal as they can be solved easily.

The only downside is actually the screen size. I feel that 10.1 inch is small. But since it's small, it's also cheaper. It sells for USD $350 currently. Compared to the $600 Artisul D13, this is significantly cheaper. I consider this to be quite affordable.

The performance is definitely good enough for professional work in my opinion. If you're someone who creates line art with Photoshop on Windows, that stroke tapering effect may be of concern. Other than that, the accuracy is similar to Wacom tablets. When compared to Windows tablets, this is definitely much more accurate because strokes do not suffer from any jitter.

Overall, I think it's worth the money. It's good for digital artists with limited budget, but still want a screen to draw on. With the D10, you can continue using the graphics software from your computer, either Windows or Mac.

Pros and Cons

+ Good build quality
+ Extremely portable at 700g
+ Tactile buttons with good feedback
+ Powered by USB 3 port
+ Just two cables required to make it work
+ Significantly cheaper than D13, but also smaller
+ Runs cool
+ Wireless and battery-less pen
+ 10 replacement nibs provided
+ Rubber at the all the right places to prevent slip
+ Pressure sensitivity works great
+ Strokes taper well* and have no jitter
- Windows drivers are at different places: Start menu and taskbar
- Parallax exists, corrected by calibration
- Only HDMI port so you might need an adapter
- Strange stroke tapering effect in Photoshop (Windows)

Availability

You can find the Artisul D10 at https://artisul.com

I was on Wacom's website and saw the Cintiq Pro that they have put on the front page. I clicked on the link and it brought me to a page with some product shots and a form to sign up for info on the actual release, which is suppose to be in December 2016.

There's no mention of any specifications though. Perhaps it could be similar to the MobileStudio Pro that was announced earlier.

Let's see the photos.

There are going to be two models, the 13 and 16. If they are of the same size of the MobileStudio Pro, then the exact screen size should be 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch, The WCP 13 is clearly going to replace the . The WCP 16 sits between the 13 and 22HD.

The pen, if it's the same on from the MobileStudio Pro, is going to have 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity.

To keep the design clean, it looks like they have not included any physical shortcut keys on the front. That's the Wacom Express Key Remote by the side. I guess the Express Key Remote is going to be sold separately to keep the cost down because that remote cost USD $100 on its own.

Looks like the screen is going to have some sort of texture. It's not totally glossy. From this angle, the display looks quite thin. There's a Thunderbolt (3?) port in USB-C. And is that a SD card slot?

There's no photo of the other side so we can't tell how it's going to be connected to the computer.

Is that a pen holder at the top? Looks like it's detachable because I don't see that in other photos. At the top right looks like some touch buttons. And there's a built in stand.

That's quite a bit bezel but big is good because at least there's space to rest the hand while drawing near the edges.

Looks like the stand only has one position. It also looks like the back is going to be thicker than the front.

That's all I can surmise from looking at the photos. I won't be surprised if the specifications are similar to the MobileStudio Pro. Overall, it looks like Wacom has taken the MobileStudio Pro and removed the computer. It's a good move because some might just want to get the screen alone. This is what Microsoft should have done for the Surface Studio.

This is a guest review by Annamarie

Hi there! My name is Annamarie and I work as a freelance artist. Today I will be reviewing the XP-Pen Artist10S that I purchased recently.

This is a pen digitizer monitor by the company XP-Pen that is aimed to rival the likes of the Cintiq 13HD.

I came across this tablet while researching a replacement for my old Intuos Pro Medium.

It must be noted, however, that this is a rebranded version of the Yiynova UC-logic SP-1001. There have been changes between the SP-1001 and the Artist10S though. Let us go over those changes!

Packaging

The product was securely packed and shipped in a normal brown cardboard box. The product’s packaging was a pleasant surprise. The package inside the cardboard had a white and black design with an image of the tablet, name of it, and the company’s logo on the front as well as an inked drawing next to the tablet picture.

It was a nice change of pace as most alternatives usually don’t have anything special or unique about the packaging.

Inside the box was another black box where the tablet and all the accessories were being held. The accessories were all separated into smaller black boxes consisting of the accessories, cords, and pen. The tablet was underneath the above mentioned accessories.

The items included were:

• The pen display
• USB/HDMI Cable
• Additional power cable
• A passive pen+8 replacement nibs
• Pen holder (which also doubles as storage for the nibs)
• CD Driver
• Manual
• Smudge Guard
• Cleaning Cloth
• HDMI to Mac adapter cable
• Power adapter (which includes switchable plugs in case you do use a different plug outlet in your region)
• Carrying case

The Tablet Design + Specifications

The Artist10S is made of matte black plastic that has a 10.1”screen. To the left of the tablet are 6 customizable buttons that you can assign to keyboard shortcuts. To the right side of it, where the logo is placed, is where your HDMI and Power cables will be plugged into. The tablet itself is pretty light and thin, yet surprisingly sturdy. It’s about half an inch thick overall, and the outer plastic isn’t too flimsy which makes resting your palm on the screen to draw not so worrying.

The 10.1-inch screen is actually an IPS display that has the resolution of 1280 x 800. When tablet is connected as an external monitor, it can either mirror the display, or be used as a second monitor (extending the screen). The resolution might be a problem to some if your monitor does not support the size, as it may cause your main monitor(s) to be stretched. The screen is slightly glossy which may also be an issue to those with bright light sources situated behind them while working, but if you have low lighting or have the lighting at a distance there should be no issues. As mentioned before, the screen has no real texture to it, so it may make drawing slightly harder for those who prefer having some resistance.

On the side of the tablet are two ports for cables that go to the computer's USB port, HDMI graphics port and the power outlet. Overall, it saves you from having an unnecessary and bothersome cord clutter on your desk which is greatly appreciated.

It must be noted that the tablet does not come with a stand nor has any built-in stand, which is slightly disappointing. The company does offer a stand for it separately for it with the price of $30.

Pen

The pen body is slightly triangular, 6 inches long, and is under half an inch thick. This may cause problems for people with bigger hands but it isn’t too uncomfortable. The nibs are a bit thicker than Wacom’s pen, but this is neither a negative nor a positive as it comes down to preference. There is no eraser either, however most alternatives at this price range don’t seem to have one.

This pen supports 2048 levels of pressure, which is the same level of pressure I've been using before so it didn’t feel any different switching over. It is also a passive free pen, so you never need to charge it or replace any batteries. It also has 2 buttons on the lower half of the body, but there is not much customization to them.

Drivers

Unfortunately I do not have a Mac system to test this on, so this will be only for Windows.

Drivers were easily installed with no issues and it was ready for usage immediately after installation. Something to note though is that I uninstalled all previous drivers I had on this my computer before installing as recommended.

The drivers don’t offer much beyond pressure adjustment/testing, calibration, and express key settings. The calibration offers a 4 point and 9 point option, and I highly recommend using one or both of them once you boot it up. When I first installed it, the cursor offset was a problem. It was not horrible yet bothersome enough to require fixing. After messing with calibration a few times to try and fix the parallax, I was able to get it almost completely on point.

The Drawing Process

Drawing on this device is delightful but with a few cons. For starters, the natural pressure curve is beautiful. It’s really nice and fluid, and works well with most, if not all, of the programs I tested out. The lag is small to none as well, with the cause being usually sketching too fast for the cursor to follow. So if you are a pretty fast sketcher, this is something to look out for. It is not particularly bad, as it only lags for about a second at worst. Below are some examples of work i did with this tablet!

I used this program with Photoshop CS6, Paint Tool Sai, Clip Studio Paint, Medibang Pro, and Open Canvas 6. The first image was done in Clip Studio Paint and the second was done in Photoshop.

Conclusion

The XP-Pen Artist10S is a great tablet for people who either prefer smaller screens or travel a lot but don’t want to break the bank for a Cintiq. It loses a bit in build quality and performance, but being less than half of the 13HD price, I think it does what it can very well!

Pros

• Decent build quality
• IPS panel
• Doesn’t take up a lot of space
• Passive pen, no battery required
• 2048 levels of pressure
• Bunch of shortcuts
• No cord clutter

Cons

• Small screen
• Glossy screen, doesn’t take glare well
• No resistance on screen
• Small parallax
• Overheats a bit on highest brightness
• Where To Buy It

The company offers the tablet for purchase via a store on both Amazon and Ebay. To add clarification, the eBay seller is XP-PEN themselves and not a random person. I ordered mine from eBay personally and it was shipped in good condition. :)

I was surprised when Lenovo Singapore invited me to their product launch. That was quite unexpected. But it's cool because I wanted to check out the new Lenovo Miix 510 and the Yoga Book.

And yesterday while I was at the event, I met my friends James Leong and Michael Ng. I found out that they have been testing the Yoga Book for a few weeks already. That is fantastic because they were able to give me lots of useful information regarding the Yoga Book.

So what's the difference between the Miix 510, Miix 700 and the Yoga Book?

The Miix 700 is a tablet that features an Intel m7 processor. The Miix 510 is a tablet that features up to 6th gen Intel i7 processor. The Yoga Book is a laptop with touch keyboard with no physical keys. So those are the main differences. You can think of the Miix 510 as a Surface Pro 4 competitor.

Here are the key specs for the Miix 510

• Processor: Up to 6th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 processor
• Operating System: Up to Windows 10 Home
• Graphics: Up to Intel® HD 520
• Memory: 8GB max
• Storage: 256GB max
• Display: 12.2 inch touch screen
• Resolution: 1920x1200
• Supports an optional stylus with Wacom technology
• Comes with a detachable keyboard
• Dimensions (W x D x H): (mm) : 300 x 205 x 9.9 (tablet ) / 300 x 205 x 15.9 (with keyboard)
• Weight: 900 g, or 1.25kg with keyboard
• Battery life: 8hrs
• Ports: USB Type A + Type C, mini HDMI

And the key specs for the Yoga Book laptop:

• Processor: Intel® Atom™ x5-Z8550 Processor(2M Cache, Quad-Core, Up to 2.4 GHz)
• Operating System: Android or Windows 10 Home
• Memory: 4GB max
• Storage: 64GB max
• Card Slot : microSD up to 128GB
• Dimensions: (mm) : 256.6 x 9.6 x 170.8
• Weight: 690 g
• Display: 10.1 inch touch screen
• Resolution: 1920 x 1200
• Battery life: 13hrs
• Ports: None except the microSD slot

Miix 510 quick artist impression

The unit on display did not have any respectable drawing applications but thankfully my friend came prepared. He managed to install the Leonardo drawing app onto the Miix 510 and we played around with it a little.

The form factor of the Miix 510 feels quite solid.

Just like the Surface Pro 4, it comes with a kickstand behind and a detachable keyboard is included.

The Miix 510 is compatible with the Lenovo Active Pen which uses Wacom technology so it does support pressure sensitivity. However, the stylus is sold separately. The stylus comes with a pen holder that uses one USB port space, leaving only the remaining USB Type C port.

Drawing with the stylus is very responsive. I felt no lag. There's no parallax error because the screen is quite thin. Pressure sensitivity works fine. Unfortunately, the stylus suffers from slight jitter when slow diagonal lines are drawn.

Yoga Book quick artist impression

Yoga Book is an interesting product.

This is a 10.1 inch laptop with a touch keyboard that has no physical keys. The first thing that caught my attention was the size. This is really small, thin and light. It's a 690g laptop. On a hot day, you can probably pick it up to fan yourself with it. The only port included is the SD card slot.

Yoga Book comes with either Windows 10 Home or Android. If I were to get one, I would get one with Windows because there are more drawing apps on the Windows platform. My friend James Leong was using this with the Leonardo drawing app as well and there's no lag. However, he said that with other applications, he could felt some lag. The Intel Atom x5-Z8550 processor may not be powerful enough to run more intensive drawing applications.

The cool thing about this laptop is the touch keyboard has no physical keys. It's just a flat surface. With the included stylus you can draw on the keyboard surface just like you would on typical graphics tablets, e.g. Wacom tablets.

When you need to type, you can light up the keyboard with the press of a button. And when you want to draw, press the same button to switch to drawing mode.

Design of the hinge actually allows you to flip the keyboard all the way to the back. 360 degrees.

Another feature of the keyboard surface is it also allows you to put paper over it, and let you draw on the paper while it records what you're drawing. In this mode, it works like the Wacom Bamboo Slate and Bamboo Spark.

To prevent the paper from moving when you're drawing or writing on it, there's a clipboard to hold the paper down. It's magnetised and it will stick to the keyboard surface too. If the paper moves while you're drawing, there's going to be misalignment issues with the recording.

I'm not sure of the actual size of the paper so I can't confirm whether you can buy standard A5 notepads to use with the Yoga Book.

The included stylus uses two types of nib, the stylus nib and the ballpoint nib. To use it like a stylus, you need to use the stylus nib which is really just like any other hard tip nib. The tip is quite small though so it's good for drawing without blocking the screen.

The ballpoint nib is actually from those 7mm ballpoint refills. They use the Ministar refill here. I can't confirm if you can use other brands besides Ministar.

The pen supports up to 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity. I forgot to test for jitter when using the stylus tip though. Ballpoint tip has no problems at all and the laptop was able to capture all the strokes perfectly.

Conclusion

I wasn't able to test the Miix 510 and Yoga Book more extensively with the two hours I had. If I can get my hands on review units, I'll put out more detailed reviews. Meanwhile, you can check out my other drawing tablet reviews.

Huion makes a lot of drawing tablets for digital artists. The Huion Inspiroy G10T is one that shows us that Huion is capable of building high quality products as well, which is not to say that their other products are low quality. But the G10T is on another level in terms of build quality.

I've used this for a few weeks already ever since Huion mailed me a review unit, and now's the time to share my thoughts.

Here are all the items in the box:

• Tablet
• Pen case
• Pen
• 8 spare pen nibs
• Nib remover
• Charging cable for pen
• Wireless USB receiver
• USB C cable

The Huion Inspiroy G10T is a wireless graphics tablet. It works on either Windows 7, 8, 10 and Mac OS 10.10 or newer.

The current price is US $140. At this price range, it competes with the Wacom Intuos but it has a build quality to compete with the more expensive Wacom Intuos Pro.

The drawing area is 10 by 6.25 inches. The surface is smooth matte and offers a nice feeling as the pen glides on its surface. The bezel around the tablet is minimal and corners are rounded off. The tablet takes up a small footprint on the tablet, except that it's quite wide.

The back is a solid piece brushed aluminium. The build quality for the whole tablet feels sturdy and classy, high end. All other Huion tablets feature plastic bodies so when I first saw this tablet, I was actually blown away but the design and build quality. It's a step up from their other tablets, like the H610 Pro, 1060PLUS or the wireless Giano WH1409. The metal back and wonderful finishing make this feel like a premium product.

One of the key features is the touchpad on the side that comes with 6 physical shortcut buttons.

The trackpad works like those on laptops. You can use finger gestures on it, like pinch to zoom, double finger drag to pan, etc. Unfortunately, it does not work as well as it should be. First, you need to use an app that is capable of taking advantage of finger gestures. And even when in an app that supports finger gestures, it does not work that well too. It is like the finger gestures are bind to keyboard shortcuts. Rotating does not work well with the apps I've tested on. By that, I mean sometimes the app or touchpad would not recognise that I am rotating with my fingers. The same finger gesture would work perfectly on a smartphone, iPad or other mobile screen tablets. Even something simple like scrolling webpages with the touchpad is not smooth. Panning in graphics software is a hit and miss too.

That's the USB receiver should you want to use the tablet without cables.

You can still use the tablet while it's charging. It charges via a USB C cable. So there's no more fumbling on which side to inside the micro-USB cable. The battery included is a 2500mAh battery, about the capacity of smartphone batteries, and is supposed to last for 40 hours. Battery life is good. I've not had to recharge for weeks after the first charge. Of course if you use it more regularly then it would drain the battery faster.

That's the power button with the indicator light but the side of the drawing area. It would light up then the pen is in hovering or on the drawing area.

That's the pen case that comes with all the other accessories. It's also very well built and closes with magnets.

In it are the pen, 8 extra nibs, nib remover and the USB wireless receiver.

The pen also needs to be charged to before it can be used. The battery is inbuilt and the charging cable looks like proprietary ones.

Build quality of the pen is great and it's comfortable to use. However, the 2 side buttons are flushed too close curve of the body so it's difficult to feel them or know that they are there by feeling. Having the buttons more extruded would have been better.

The pen supports 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity and works very well.

Drivers

There are various settings that you can change, namely:

• Pressure settings
• Pen buttons
• Left and right handed use
• Customizable keyboard shortcuts
• Map the drawing area
• Rotate the workspace. E.g. Use the tablet in portrait mode

While the build quality is generally good, there are some quirks or driver related issues. I've tested the tablet on both Windows and Mac and here are my findings.

On the Mac

I'm on Mac OS 10.12.2. Huion recommends you use at least Mac OS 10.10. I tried Mac OS 10.9.5 and the driver works but I wasn't able to get into the settings dialogue box to change anything.

The pen does not work instantly upon reboot. You have to wait for the driver to load first.

• Photoshop CS5 produces dots initially and then works fine. You have to wait a while if it doesn't work initially. Quite irritating. Other than that, the strokes are smooth and taper nicely. I cannot Cmd+Space and pen click to zoom (but this works fine in Medibang).
• Medibang Paint Pro 10.2 can produce unwanted splotches randomly, often triggered by sudden change of pressure
• Illustrator CS5 works fine.
• Mischief works fine.
• Tayasui Sketches Pro works fine.
• Krita works fine.
• Affinity Photo and Designer work fine.

Photoshop CS5 (Mac). I had to wait a while for the pen to not produce dots. Another frustrating thing is I can't use the Cmd+Spacebar and click with the pen to zoom in or out. I can do that with a mouse, and with Medibang Paint Pro, but somehow that shortcut does not work here, even though the icon as I press down the keys clearly show the magnifying glass.

Medibang Paint Pro 10.2 (Mac). There can be weird splotches if you vary the pressure too drastically while drawing.

On Windows

• Photoshop CS5 crashes when tablet is used, e.g. pen clicks
• Illustrator CS5 works fine
• Photoshop CC brush does not paint
• Illustrator CC pressure does not work
• Medibang Paint Pro 10.2 works fine
• Mischief 1.5 can't move the cursor with the pen
• Whenever I click buttons on the task bar, it would read as a click+hold hence moving the buttons around.

There are many quirks in different software. I am not able to test this against a larger number or different versions of software but so far, it's quite frustrating to face so many bugs.

Conclusion

There are usually some bugs with Huion tablets but the amount of bugs with the G10T is more.

So while the build quality is excellent, the functionality is questionable. The combination of issues I've faced makes it a deal breaker.

How well the tablet is going to work really depends on which app and OS you're going to use it with. The touchpad does not work well with finger gestures so it is as good as not being there. More shortcut buttons would have been better.

When it works, it works really well. When it's not, it feels like you're spending extra money on features that don't matter because ultimately, you want to use this thing to draw. If you just want a tablet for clicking, like working with Lightroom, then yeah, go ahead. When it comes to drawing strokes, well ...

My recommendation is to read more reviews before getting one. That's just my opinion. I'm surprised that all the other reviews currently on Amazon are all positive: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

If your experience with your G10T is different from mine, I would love to hear from you in the comments section.

If you do want a wireless tablet, I recommend checking out the large Huion Giano WH1409 or the medium size DWH69 too.

Availability

You can find more reviews and the G10T at these links below.
Huiontablet.com | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp

Hi, I’m Iris. Let’s discuss the HK1560 monitor display from Ugee!

Disclaimer: I bought the UG2150 (absolutely love it, 100% recommend it), and was sent the HK1560 along with it to test out. It is fairly new, so if you are reading this at a later date, please continue to research if anything has changed. I got these through PNBOOTECH, other sellers might provide different accessories or customer care.

Overall, I think it is a really great tablet! I’d rate it approximately 4 out of 5 stars and I’d recommend it to most artists. But one issue with the display that I talk about later will show why I don’t think it’s as perfect as the UG2150 for example.

Even so, I actually think it is better than the comparable Wacom 13HD which, to me, is uncomfortably small. Somehow the couple of extra inches on the HK1560 are enough to make it a perfect size for home or away from home. The display is decent quality, and the pen is super responsive, and usual tablet concerns like cursor lag or parallax are totally acceptable and not a problem with the HK1560.

For reference, I have owned a Yiynova MSP19U+ for 3 years, and regular Wacom tablets (Intuos, Graphire), and I have tried Wacom Cintiq a little bit (24HD, 13HD).

The HK1560 is so light (bit less than 5 pounds, 2.27kg) and sleek. Its design is simple and practical. I could see myself or anyone else carrying this in a backpack or case, with a laptop, to a coffee shop or anywhere else to draw, take notes, or other work/hobby purposes. The HD resolution (1920x1080) looks crisp and nice on this monitor (HDMI cable provided)

The stand has a very fluid adjustment handle, good angle range, and is very solid. I tried to mount the HK1560 to my standard HP single monitor arm, but because the HK1560 is very light (not heavy enough to keep a lowered position on the arm) and the VESA monitor mount screws do not screw in far enough to mount it tightly (they fit in the correct placement but the holes are shallow, so it ends up too loose), using it with a monitor arm seems like it would be difficult to do. Maybe some monitor arms allow for lighter monitors though (the HK1560 is just a few pounds, most monitors are heavier), and you could find very short screws to make it work. That’s fine though, because the stand is good, and keeps this tablet simple to carry around. It doesn’t take up much space at all.

The tablet lacks express keys, which I never use, but I know this matters for some people. I suggest either placing your keyboard behind it to the side, or a small shortcut gamerpad (tartarus, or other remote controls being made for this recently).

The screen itself is glossy, clear, and clean (no dust inside or defects on mine). Some do not like this drawing surface because it can be very reflective in some situations, or because of its slippery surface. Personally, I think this is very easy to get used to, and I enjoy it, so I don’t understand those complaints. However, if you hate it, there are slightly textured screen films available, like MXH from Photodon. I got one for my Yiynova and enjoyed it, so I got one for my UG2150. Currently (December 2016), however, Photodon does not offer one that fits the HK1560 perfectly. They probably will in a few months. These diffuse light, making the surface more matte and textured, bringing the drawing feel closer to a Cintiq but not 100% the same (perfect for me though!). Some complain that this tablet is squeaky. Occasionally it can squeak, but using any screen protector and a tablet glove fixes most of it. I still prefer a small panty hose sock with a hole cut through it, over any tablet glove, as strange as that sounds.

Overall the drawing feel on the HK1560 is good but not perfect, like most Cintiq alternatives. The tablet does not overheat after being used all day, it only becomes a little bit warm in the center.

I love that you receive two pens, and that they are rechargeable by USB (two charger cables too!). The pens have a nice look, good drawing and button feel, comfortable weight distribution (weighs almost exactly as much as a wacom pen), and long lasting charge. I think the rubber seams on the pen can be improved, as they are visible and can be felt more than those on a Wacom pen when you drag your finger across (not a big deal though). I also think more variation in the nib textures would be great. They are all the same glossy plastic. While this is durable and fine, more choices would be interesting. You are also given quite a few of them! Additionally, the nib container doubles as a great pen stand.

With Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint (a.k.a. Manga studio), Paint tool Sai (I use version 1.1), Paintstorm studio, FireAlpaca, Zbrush, Blender, Sculptris, it works perfectly.

The range of pressure is wide (opacity and size respond very well). The lines follow the pen so closely, there is practically no delay. For sculpting or texture painting in 3D softwares, every change in pressure is present in your strokes as well. Very responsive.

With Krita, Autodesk Sketchbook and Mischief, I experience bugs while drawing and/or no pressure. This is because they do not support this tablet well yet. In time, they might. The Yiynova became more compatible with art software over time, so I think this will be the same. And programs like Krita are always being updated and improved. Please be aware that certain companies, Autodesk for example, may have exclusive contracts/deals with Wacom. (The tablet listing says it supports Sketchbook, and it's possible that it does! I use Windows 7 and don't update much, so maybe it works for others! Please check with other reviews.)

Note: I have a friend who purchased the UG2150, he uses it with windows 10, and for him Autodesk Sketchbook works perfectly (full pressure recognized when making a stroke). Since everything else I tried worked the same on both tablets, I assume the same for this point. So it will probably work for you! He also showed me how an older alpha version of Krita worked perfectly on his 2150, and then the newer version had the same bug happening between brush strokes that I experienced on mine. Knowing it worked in a past version of Krita, I think this should change in the future. I say this to reassure you that this and other display tablets are mostly compatible with softwares.

You can adjust your pressure curve in the tablet drivers, but I think in the future that max pressure while pressing even lighter should be enabled.

I’ve been told that Lazy Nezumi (and probably other methods) can help adjust the pressure curve/feel (how the pressure is interpreted). Some software let you adjust that in settings, too.

Calibrate the HK1560 with Windows display tools (very simple to do), and use LCD calibration websites like lagom.nl to get desired results with the settings buttons on the monitor.

The display looks great right out of the box, but the colors and contrast were a bit too strong for me, so I calibrated a little. By the way, some settings in the menu do nothing or can't be changed (colors are on a blocked ‘warm’ setting for mine, so I had to make sure I calibrated it to a more neutral look, basing myself on greys and comparing to my other screen), I'd like if this were a little more flexible, like having a neutral setting build in. The display is good quality though, because it does well (but not great) with those tests (subtle and perceivable differences between hues/values/etc). It also does very well with displaying various images and video. However, the UG2150 does much better (as good as a good quality monitor). The HK1560 displays a bit more choppyness and banding in gradients of color (stripey sections instead of smooth blends). I noticed this when painting with low opacity; slight variations can look a little rough sometimes.

For most users, I think it’s totally fine. If you’re using it for watching videos, drawing in line mostly, inking comics, doing vector/illustrator work, collecting reference images, sculpting/modeling in 3D, it could go unnoticed. If you have another monitor to show you if your work looks different on another screen, that’d be best. I don’t think it would bother everyone, but for me it’s an important downside. I want smooth gradients and no patchiness. I have been told this is a little better on other models, and hopefully getting better with different production batches of this tablet so please check and ask others if this is still standard for this tablet.

Because of one current flaw I have noticed while testing it (I’m sure it’s related to the banding I mentioned above, too), I think that this model suits most users like I stated above (working only with lines, flat color, taking notes, almost anything), except for professional digital artists seeking a 100% accurate display (I often paint and check my illustration with a light and dark background, and make other quick changes). The display auto-adjusts contrast in certain situations (quick changes in dark or bright elements on screen in Photoshop, MSpaint, etc), creating flickering and inconsistent values and colors when painting in Photoshop and other software. I’ve shown this issue towards the end (at 44 minutes) of my long youtube video review of both tablets if you wish to see it in action.

Video Link with Timestamp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH2LmJG8tKI&t=44m05s

I imagine that this will be fixed as soon as possible, as it is something that can be corrected by changing a setting on other display devices, but so far this one does not allow disabling of this.

We have kept in contact about this issue, testing it on different computers and with different plugs, and they even let me trade in the first one for another one, to check if it was not just a one-time error. I really appreciate this effort.

I have also received an answer from them recently saying that this problem was present on maybe 20% or more of their first production batch of this tablet. They told me that in the future, this problem should not be present on this tablet, and that many of them don’t do it at all. I have no way of verifying this, so I choose to trust they will improve it and just let you know this information so you can make your own decision on what you think about it :)

To me, this is an important flaw for my usage of this tablet, but I think Ugee can and should fix this soon, making this basically a perfect product for any and all users.

I trusted this tablet before I bought it, since I heard that it uses nearly identical drivers as the Yiynova (UCLogic). The driver interface could be more appealing, and pen tilt support should be added eventually, but overall I think UCLogic makes a great tablet driver software!

When I contacted Ugee about the UG2150 and the HK1560, they were very informed and kind to me. The shipping was so fast, they arrived within a week, and were super well packed. (Thank you Tiffany and the team for your great service!)

One last note, just in case:
Please use the very simple user manual instructions to install, (drivers from the website are usually newer and better; choose according to your tablet model and system). Getting started with the tablet is so easy, if the steps are followed correctly. I’ve seen complaints from people online, and user error is almost always the cause. Sometimes Windows can cause the tablet to misbehave (also happens with Wacom. all types of tablets share similar issues and fixes). Disabling flicks, handwriting, digital ink, tablet input panel service, etc., will usually fix everything. Personally, I have helped a few people figure out tablet issues, or sometimes they find a solution by accident or trial and error, and personally I have barely ever had problems with mine. It all depends! Sometimes it just takes opening the driver and checking one thing, or rebooting.

Please be patient, look it up, ask questions, and understand that this is normal.

I hope I helped your decision! Good luck :)

Availability

You can check out more reviews on Amazon. Links below.

Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk

Two years has passed since I compiled the list of pen displays in 2015.

Here's the updated list of all the pen displays/monitors and Cintiq alternatives as of January 2017. If you want detailed reviews for specific models, check out the reviews I've published so far. This list below is a just guide that looks at the pros and cons of available options currently in the market.

This list does not include portable tables such as iPad or the Surface Pro 4. If you're looking for a portable setup, visit this article.

Why choose a pen display/monitor over portable tablets for drawing

One advantage that pen displays offer over portable tablets is the screen size. For the same price, you can get a pen display with a larger screen. A larger screen is more comfortable to draw on and easier on your eyes. It's like drawing on an A4 vs A5 paper. With a smaller screen, user interface may be small and you have to squint your eyes to see.

The other advantage is pen display technology has matured and offers better accuracy and sensitivity compared to tablets and their stylus. The only tablet and stylus combination currently that can match pen displays or tablets like the Wacom Intuos is, in my opinion, the iPad Pro and Pencil, but even that is a compromise because it's running a tablet OS, which brings me to the next point.

Pen displays allow you to use your existing computer, OS and desktop software. Note that there are tablets that run Windows 10 and can use desktop software, however because of the screen size, sometimes they are not the best choice to run those software, e.g. small user interface, or interface not design for small screen form factor. Moreover, such tablets are often not as accurate compared to pen displays.

So basically, if you're looking for large screen, accuracy and the ability to use desktop software, going with pen displays is the more appropriate choice.

Alright, the list of pen displays or Cintiq alternatives are arrange alphabetically according to brand.

Artisul

Artisul is a brand from UC-Logic, a company based in Taiwan. It is known for having its pen digitizer technology used in other pen displays, so much so that sometimes you can install its driver to use with other brands.

In recent years, they have released their own products, and they are the Artisul D10 (2016) and Artisul D13 (2016). I've personally reviewed both and I'm pleasantly surprised by how well they perform.

+ Good build quality
+ Tactile buttons with good feedback
+ Can be powered by USB 3 port
+ Stand can be used for other tablets
+ Stand can be adjusted to many positions
+ Cheaper than Cintiq 13HD
+ Runs cool, only the bottom right is slightly warm
+ Wireless and battery-less pen
+ Pressure sensitivity works great
+ Strokes taper well* and have no jitter
+ Relatively lightweight, compact, and hence portable.
- Parallax exists, corrected by calibration
- Windows drivers can't customize specific keys or combos
- Only HDMI port so you might need an adaptor
- Strange stroke tapering effect in Photoshop (Windows)

If you have limited budget, Artisul D10 and D13 are good pen displays to consider. The added advantage is since they are small, you can easily bring them around if you need to.

Bosto

Bosto is a company from China. These are the current pen displays they sell currently, arranged from large to small:

• 22HDX (my review)
• 22UX
• 22HD mini
• 22U mini (my review)
• 14WX (my review)
• 13HD

In short, the mini versions are the pen displays without the physical shortcut buttons. They are all IPS panels with 1080P resolution.

I've reviewed some but I'm not listing their pros and cons here because I'm not sure about their future. Their latest model is from 2015 so they may not be keen to be in the market anymore, and that may affect their customer support as a result.

Dell

Dell isn't a company that I would expect to go into the pen display market for creative professionals but in CES 2017, the Dell Canvas was announced.

Every since I saw the Microsoft Surface Studio, I had wished for that monitor to be sold separately. Dell Canvas is that monitor, except at a lower resolution.

This is a 27-inch pen display features a 2560 x 1440 resolution, and it supports 100% Adobe RGB. It also comes with a remote called the Totem that looks quite similar to Microsoft Surface Studio's Dial.

The best part is, the Dell Canvas is said to be using Wacom technology. The battery-less pen will support 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity and tilt.

The estimated shipping date is in April 2017.

Huion

Huion is probably the arch nemesis of Wacom. They probably have released more tablets and monitors than Wacom has in the recent years, and they are getting better each year.

This is the company that really pushes the Wacom the market leader and I like that because with competition you get better products. And in Huion's case they want to create products as good but sell at a cheaper price.

The pen displays that Huion is currently selling are:

• GT-220 v2
• GT-220 (my review)
• GT-190S
• GT-185 (my review)
• Kamvas GT-156HD

Huion pen displays have decent build quality. They support features like 2048 levels of sensitivity, IPS panels with good colour reproduction, extra replaceable nibs for the pen.

For some reason, the Huion pen displays work almost flawlessly on Macs. On Windows, more specifically with Photoshop, there's this slight jittery effect to the strokes, at least for the GT-220 ver 1 that I tested. It could be a non-issue if you're getting it for photo editing, but for drawing I prefer the strokes to come out perfect. Luckily there's this plugin called Lazy Nezumi Pro (not free) that smooths out the Photoshop strokes.

Huion has since released GT-220 ver 2 and that has been getting mostly positive reviews.

If you prefer a smaller form factor, there's the new Kamvas GT-156HD. Despite the smaller screen, the price is surprisingly similar to the big brother GT-220. The specifications of the smaller Kamvas is pretty similar to other Huion pen display, except it has physical buttons.

It features a 1080P screen with 14 express keys and touch bar, anti-glare screen, new driver and pen.

Microsoft

Microsoft Surface Studio is on this list because you can also use desktop software with it.

The 4500 x 3000 resolution screen is a beauty, and with the hinge system you can move it into any angle. It's a 28-inch 4500 x 3000 resolution screen. There's no mention of the exact gamut range it supports except that it supports a "wide color-gamut". Microsoft promises fast color profile switching between sRGB, DCI-P3, and Vivid (P3-D65).

The price insane, with the base model starting at USD $2,999.

My only concern is the accuracy and sensitivity of the Surface Pen. All other pen displays on this page feature excellent accuracy (after calibration) and sensitivity. I've used Surface 3 and Surface Pro 4 and they suffer from the common tablet-stylus problem of jittery strokes when diagonal lines are drawn slowly. Unfortunately, I've read online that this issue is still present even in the Surface Studio.

Monoprice

I always feel that Monoprice is a rebranded pen display. Their pen displays are similar in physical design to Huion, Ugee and Bosto mini. So it can be the case of identical pen displays coming from the same factory but branded differently.

There's the Monoprice 22 (2016) which looks like the Huion GT-220 and the Monoprice 19 (2014) which looks like the Huion GT-190.

Not just design, the specifications are also very similar. 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity, 1440x900 resolution, TFT panel with 16.7 million colours, 250cdm2 brightness, 700:1 contrast ratio.

So I really can't say who copied who. Huion, Monoprice, Ugee or Bosto?

Ugee

Ugee only has two pen displays, the 2150 (2015) and HK1560 (2016). Reviews for them are quite good on Amazon.

Here are the respective detailed reviews for both models:
http://www.parkablogs.com/picture/review-ugee-ug-2150-pen-display-monitor
http://www.parkablogs.com/picture/review-ugee-hk1560-pen-digitizer-display

The Ugee 2150 is very similar to the Huion GT-220. So the pros and cons are pretty similar.

Wacom

Wacom currently has lots of different Cintiq available but for simplicity's sake, I would just group them into two: the old and the new.

The older generation Cintiqs are the 13HD (2013), 22HD (2012), 24HD (2011), 27QHD (2015).

They are the only company with pen displays that also feature finger gestures (at an additional price compared to standard models). Build quality is excellent. Their drivers work with almost all software and generally have no issues (of course there are exceptions). The main advantage is they play well with all the Adobe software. And because a lot of artists use Wacom, whenever there are issues, you can usually find the same problem on forums, and maybe with an accompanying solution.

The Cintiqs from Wacom are quality products that command the additional price premium.

Those are the older models. Going forward in 2017, Wacom has released the Cintiq Pros.

There's a 13.3-inch model which features 1080P resolution, and the 15.6-inch model with the 3840 by 2160 (4K) resolution. The 15.6-inch model is the first pen display (not tablet) that I know of to have such a resolution. And such high resolution means you must work with recent software that have been updated to take advantage of that resolution. If you're using older Adobe software (CS6 and older), you're going to see tiny user interface.

The new Wacom Pen 2 features 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity and 60 degrees of tilt sensitivity (which currently is a feature only Wacom has currently). There are no physical shortcut buttons and are instead replaced by the Wacom ExpressKey which is extremely handy and sold separately.

If you want the best pen display and have the budget for it, then the Wacom Cintiq Pro is currently the best there is. Hopefully, they will come up with even larger sizes. 4K on a 15.6-inch screen just doesn't cut it for me. I like larger screens!

Wacom pens do not require batteries, just like the pens from Artisul, Bosto and the one from Dell Canvas.

Wacom Cintiq Pros color gamut support is at 87% and 94% Adobe RGB respectively.

XP-PEN

The physical design of the XP-PEN 22HD (2016) also looks similar to the Huion, Ugee, Bosto Mini and Monoprice.

I was sent one for review and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked. It actually had none of the Photoshop strokes issues that I've experienced with Huion. It works well with all the graphics app that I've tested on both Windows and Mac. Usually when I review such pen displays, there would usually be some issues with some apps but for the most of the apps except Mischief, the XP-PEN 22HD works almost flawlessly. Having a good driver really makes all the difference in functionality.

Usual specs are there. 1080P, IPS panel, 2048 levels of pressure.

Pros
+ Good built quality
+ IPS panel with good colour reproduction and viewing angles
+ 2 pens include
+ Spare nibs included
+ 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity works well
+ Input for DVI and HDMI, and has adaptor for mini-DisplayPort to HDMI
+ Works well with most Windows and Mac graphics app, except Mischief (Windows)

Cons
- Glossy screen prone to reflections, depends on your working environment
- No shortcut buttons on the monitor itself
- Gets warm at lower right after a while
- Wires behind prevent the display for going to it's lowest possible position
- Parallax that's compensated by software settings
- Pen needs charging

Yiynova

I've many Yiynova pen displays featured on the blog, from smallest to biggest:

• Yiynova UC-logic SP-1001 Pen Digitizer Tablet Monitor
• Yiynova MVP10U Tablet Monitor
• Yiynova MVP10UHD+IPS USB Digitizer Tablet Display
• Yiynova MSP19U+ Tablet Monitor
• Yiynova MVP20U+RH
• Yiynova MVP22U V3 Pen Digitizer Tablet Monitor
• Yiynova MVP22U+RH Pen Display Monitor

Reviews for their pen displays are generally positive. However, the latest model which is the MSP19U+V5 and the MVP22U(V3)+RH are from 2015. While not as new as the competition, their performance and drawing functionality are still good enough to compete. Hopefully, they will release new products soon.

They have a pen display with remote that feels like it was inspired by the Wacom ExpressKey Remote.

Detailed reviews

To check out detailed reviews of specific pen display models I've featured on this blog, visit
http://www.parkablogs.com/content/list-of-art-products-reviewed

Conclusion

So many pen displays, which one should you get?

If you want the best, go for Wacom Cintiq Pro, perhaps the Microsoft Surface Studio or Dell Canvas.

If you want the all round budget performer with a larger screen at affordable price, check out the XP-PEN 22HD or the Huion GT-220 v2.

If you want something compact, check out the Artisul D10 and D13, Huion Kamvas GT-156HD and Wacom Cintiq Pro.

If you want budget, then it has to be the smaller Artisul D10 and D13.

If you find this compilation helpful, share it with your artist friends.

"What's the difference between the Huion H610 Pro and the 1060 PLUS?" is the a question I get asked frequently. I've decided to answer this in blog and video so that I can link back to it in the future when I get asked again.

Here's the short summary, in terms of drawing functionality, there is no difference. The main difference comes in the physical design, and the 1060 PLUS has more physical shortcut buttons.

By the way, there are two versions of the 1060 PLUS. The new one is called the NEW 1060 PLUS. The difference is just in physical design.

Here's the long version.

Specifications are pretty similar. Drawing functionality is essentially the same for both tablets.

The main difference is PLUS has 12 physical shortcut buttons and there's a 8GB microSD card included. I usually recommend PLUS over PRO because of the extra shortcut buttons. Having the microSD card is useful too because you can store files or drivers on it and transport the tablet from office to home and have access.

The other difference is the physical design and look. The PLUS's surface area is one seamless piece where as the PRO is divided with a line to separate the drawing and button areas.

The L-shape cable for the PLUS is good design. With the horizontal cable that comes out from the side of the PRO, when I access the physical shortcut buttons, I always press my hand on them. With the PLUS, the cable is out of the way.

Price difference isn't too much, less than USD $10, so I always recommend getting the PLUS because the extra shortcut buttons.