We may heard about graphic tablet , but not know much about it. So I would like to share some my opinion about this kind of product.

With the developing of the computer art painting, the graphic tablet comes out. Using the graphic tablet to draw, just like the painter draw with his palette and brushes. When we watch the TV, we can see that lots of lifelike characters. It is draw by the graphic tablet. That are so perfect so that the keyboard or palette can’t comparable with graphics tablet.

The graphic tablet mainly makes for designer, artist, add agencies, as well as vector flash animator. But as a amateur, it is also a good choice for us to use a graphic tablet to draw.

What is a graphic tablet ?

Normally we can call it pen tablet, drawing tablet, pen pad, digital tablet, graphic tablet, and so on. It is a device connects with your computer and then transfers information into the computer. It is combined of a tablet and a pen with sensitivity. It looks like a pen tablet, but it is much different from it. The digital tablet usually makes for designers, artist designers; advertising company and they can use such kind of product to draw, paint and write.

As the keyboard, mouse, the hand-painted plate is a computer input devices. When you draw on the tablet, it will transfer your action into the computer, and then you can see the things you draw. And with the cartographic software such SAI, Photoshop, Adobe image, you can draw any kind of picture you want.

How to choose a proper graphic tablet for yourself?

Now I will show you several concept of the hand-painted plate. Pen sensitivity, Resolution, Report Rate,Active Area, these several concept is very important to a hand-painted plate.

1.Pen sensitivity means when you draw with the pen on the tablet, how it will reflect on the computer. If you push hard, the line will be thick. If you push the pen slight and the line you draw will be slender. Now there are three levels of the pen sensitivity, 1024, 2048, and 8192. The higher, the better.

2.Resolution. There are several common levels of the resolution, 2540, 3048, 4000, and 5080. The resolution means the accuracy of the tablet. When we draw on the tablet and enlarge the canvas to 800%, and then you can see the line is combined of little lattice. If the lattice is smooth and uniform, that means the resolution is high enough. And the picture you draw will looks much more nature and beautiful.

3.Report Rate: the report rate means when you draw on the tablet, how many time does the graphic reflect on the computer. Most time , there are several level to describe the report rate: 100,150
200
230
233 and so on.

4. Active area: The active area means the working area of the tablet. As this parameter, it doesn’t mean the higher the better. If the active area it too big, you will feel very tired too draw on it. And it is easy to get your arm harmed. The size of 5*8 inch or 6*8 inch is good for drawing. And also the most popular size for people who buys a graphic tablet.

XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro affordable drawing tablet monitor

Nowadays more and more people get used to draw with a graphic tablet, and with many kind of cartographic software, their creativity on art are express thoroughly. The advance of the technology makes our life and work become much easier, and also it reflect on the art working. Drawing on a tablet is not just a fashion but a normal in our daily work.And many companies are working on this area to make this kind of product better. Such as Wacom, XP-Pen , Huion.

The best manufacturer is Wacom , it is the leading in this field. And it sets many industry standards for his follower. But also its price is higher compared with many other brands. And there are several other brands I like which are from China. As we all know, china is famous with its productivity. And nowadays, they become much more professional in design.



I like the XP-Pen most, for it active social community activities on the internet, fans who love XP-Pen can get together to share their work and feeling on their page. And also the XP-Pen has produced many really good and not expensive products. Especially the Deco Series & Artist Series attract many people. I think it is really a good choice for those who can’t afford the high price of the Wacom.

I have been using wacom intuos 4 for many years. Wacom may be the best, but not by as much as they used to be; and for the price that they are asking... at some point you have to be looking at the diminishing returns.

I purchase a XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro drawing tablet with screen last week and by far I am really satisfied with this little graphic display tablet. The Artist 12 PRO is an advance version of Artist 12 .

The XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro graphics tablet has the coveted 8192 pressure senstivity, as well as tilt functionality,the stylus is battery-free and wireless . and The Artist 12 Pro’s 11.6 inch completely laminated IPS display enables 178-degree viewing angle with 1920*1080 high resolutions. There is a red color dial interface and 8 hotkeys customizable in the right side that facilitates smooth workflow.

I tend to use my monitor tablet more for better hand-eye tracking. It feels better to me so I do the majority of my work on it. I would never go back to a regular tablet, the Artist 12 Pro is so natural.

Technology Specifications :

Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080 pixels, Full HD

Display Colour Gamut: 72% NTSC, 100% sRGB

Resolution: 5080 LPI

Pen Pressure: 8192 levels

Tilt: 60 Degrees

Ports: HDMI/USB

Size: 351.52 x 225.38 x 12.9 mm

Active Area: 256.32 x 144.18 mm

Brightness: 250 cd/m2

Contrast Ratio (Typical): 700 : 1

Number of Colors: 16.7 M

Report Rate: g200 RPS (Revolutions per Second)

Response Time: 14ms

Hand Input Resolution: 5080 LPI (Lines per Inch)

Viewing Angle:178°

System: Windows 10/8/7 (32/64bit), Mac OS X version 10.10 or later

official site: https://www.xp-pen.com/product/479.html

What's in the box?

The tablet comes in a white box with a front view image of tablet with a pretty drawing displayed on it.

The things that come in the box:

XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro tablet

XP-Pen PA2 battery-free pen

Pen holder

Combined cable (USB type-C to USB type-A, HDMI, and USB type-A for power)

USB type-A extension cable (for power)

USB power adapter

Outlet adapters for international power outlets

HDMI to Mini-DisplayPort adapter

Pen nib replacements x8

Anti-fouling glove

Screen cleaning cloth

User manual

Warranty policy and warranty card

“Thank you” card

fully laminated Display

The XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro has an active drawing area on tablet of 11.6 inches diagonally, which gives it a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080.

The display has an impressive gamut of 72 per cent of Adobe NTSC , which is actually same with the Wacom Cintiq 16. However, the colour accuracy is good, but not perfect, so you'll need to use a colour calibrator to fix it to avoid your artwork's colours being inaccurate when printed.

The screen is capable of being extremely bright, and brightness can be conveniently adjusted by buttons on the side of the tablet.

The 12 Pro's screen is laminated and bonded, That's where they reduce the space between the screen and the glass to increase accuracy and reduce the parallax. The low levels of parallax are very similar to the Cintiq. It's noticeable, but minor, and you'll get accustomed to it quickly.

The pre-applied, and replaceable film cover's anti-glare properties reduce reflections considerably. this is to give your pen more grip and improve control when drawing. Because the 12 doesn't have etched glass, the tablet surface is slippery, feeling more like a phone screen than paper.

The Artist 12 Pro comes with a free, anti-fowling glove, because the palm will often stick to and smudge a display when drawing.

Battery-free Stylus PA2 support tilt and pressure

This tablet uses the newest XP-Pen PA2 battery-free pen. It has a rubber grip with a plastic top, and has a nice shape with a bulge near the bottom to allow for an easy and comfortable grip on the pen.

The stylus is battery-free and boasts 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity, as well as 60 degrees of tilt functionality. Also what I have to say is that the pen sensitivity is really awesome. Feeling that you are using a real pen to draw or write.

I have checked several XP-Pen's model . They make lots of model, such as Artist 12, Artist 13.3 Pro and Artist 15.6 Pro, Artist 22E Pro and so on. It is really hard to decide. But after I have compared XP-Pen’s graphic tablet, I found that almost all XP-Pen's tablet is 8192 levels of pen pressure sensitivity for precise pressure control and the resolution is 5080. It is better than most other brands'graphic tablet at the same price.

Tilt support is another things that has always set Wacom apart until recently. I can confirm that the tilt definitely works but I don’t use it in my work so it’s hard for me to tell how well it works.

I like the feel of the Wacom pen more, but this is still one of the best pens i have used on a Cintiq alternative and for a lot of folks, they just aren't going to be able to tell the difference.

The stylus comes with a plastic pen holder that houses eight replacement nibs and will definitely keep your stylus safe while travelling, and the holder opens to become a pen stand.

Connection

The XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro has a USB type-C port on it to connect to the combined USB/HDMI/power cable. Also if its connected to laptop. It will take the power from laptop, so we can work remotely without direct power support also.

The 12 Pro's USB connection cable allows you to both connect the display and draw power with the same cable, you don't need to attach it to an AC adapter. It can even be run from an external power bank, which adds to its portability.

Install Tablet driver

The XP-Pen tablet driver are extremely easy to install. Just go download the latest version directly from XP-Pen's site and remove all other tablet drivers you have on your computer before installing it.

Once you’ve installed the driver and plugged in your tablet, the XP-Pen driver icon should appear in the system tray in the bottom right. You can access the tablet settings by clicking on that. The installer will also create a shortcut on your desktop for opening the settings.

8 hotkeys and 1 Red Dial

The Artist 12 Pro has eight built-in shortcut keys positioned down the side of the tablet, alongside the new red dial, which can be programmed to zoom in and out, alter brush sizes, and so on. It works on most of the software so far, but sometime you will find it will be a lot of trouble when you use on some other kind of software, but when I contact to the XP-Pen service center, they response to me quickly and with patience. It makes me feeling so good.

Don't even forget the foldable tablet stand that you can install on the back of the tab and lift it with just few angle, makes the drawing more comfortable. There are no mounting holes for mounting to a stand or a VESA mount.

Drawing Experience

XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro Screen drawing tablet need to be plugged into a computer to function. The software for it measures out how hard your pressing down so it has a weight pressure in it and only reacts to a pen so that way your fingers aren't moving the mouse when your drawing.

This product is amazing. Colors are even better than my monitor. Easy set up and great definition. I've used Wacon intuos tablet for more than 5 years. But I feel more excited for this tablet with display. Works perfectly with photoshop for some photo manipulation and full on digital art. The pen works really good its well balanced and doesn't need charging. I like that its portable an very light also doesn't heat.

Thing is it makes you work faster. Or at least that's how it worked for me. When you're drawing on a screen-less graphics pad, it might have a different ratio than your monitor and that's a bit weird when you first try it. So if you draw a circle on the tablet it will never look like a circle on your monitor, but that changes when you have a graphics display. For me, it was nice that it decreased the production time. If you're doing a lot of work on it, you might feel a difference. I went from drawing 8 hours on a piece to only 2 or so. Of course, that might differ for each individual. With screen is mostly useful for tracing line-art.

Pros:

-Easy setup

-simple software

-Colors are great/ full HD resolution

-Great size for on the go with a laptop

-No pen delay/no pen battery

-THE SHORTCUT KEYS ARE MARVELOUS

-the scroll wheel is awesome

-Uses type C connection

-pressure is a advertised

-comes with a tablet stand and glove

-extra pen tips/pen case

Cons:

-Some issues with the specific drawing apps

Conclusion

A Standard Tablet can totally get the job done - but if you are a hardcore illustrator/modeler, you love sketching in notebooks, painting etc, and you've got the money I'd recommend a XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro. Where you put the pen is where you draw - there's no learning curve, there's no disconnect, the screen real estate is fantastic , plenty of buttons and Red Dial to customize shortcuts, etc. it's amazing.

Attracting design makes me love it at first sign. I think this is most important thing for a product. It is not attractive at first sign, it is hard for people to choose it. We all love beautiful things, right. So the outward appearance is very important.

I can't say that XP-Pen is perfect and they can replace wacom. While for this competitive price and good service, it is a good choice for people who would like to buy a drawing tablet with no much cash. Just as the daily use and dress, someone can easily afford the best things without hesitation. But I think also part of people would think twice and carefully make a decision. And the XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro is an amazing entry-level screen drawing tablet and is super fluid and has no lag at this low price. You deserve it.

I bought the $250 on the XP-Pen official store , here is the link . You can check it for more information.

https://www.storexppen.com/buy/artist-12-pro.html

I've been using an Intuos (using a Pro M now) for around six years, It was a model that didn't have a display screen. and I've been using the iPad Pro+pencil combination for a little over a year. I do 2d digital art semi-professionally, mostly involving linework/comics. The software I use (Clip Studio Paint) is available both on Windows and IOS.

The best thing about a pen display is drawing directly on the screen. It's easier to be accurate and you don't have to develop the hand-eye coordination of looking at a screen vs where your hand is. Besides that, there's basically no difference, as long as you have a good monitor.

Wacom is expensive and they can justify their prices by having market dominance in the drawing tablet and monitor industry, but other brands have released products that work just as good for a lot less.

Wacom is the industry standard, so you pay a premium for a premium product that all the professionals use. But after reading and watching reviews of the other tablet brands, I decided to buy XP-PEN Artist 13.3 Pro because it was my first drawing monitor purchase and it was only a little over $300. Other than its small screen, I really have nothing bad to say about it and I enjoy drawing on it.

I've had the XP-PEN Artist13.3 Pro since August and I absolutely love it. The display is big and beautiful and there's no lag. The screen feels great to draw on. Not exactly "like paper" as some have said, but it definitely feels nice. Nice glide but with just enough resistance to feel like an authentic drawing experience.

It's super good, every version gets amazingly better, it's also very large, great for animating and painting for 1/3rd the price of a Cintiq.

First Impressions

The product arrived on time.The packaging was pretty impressive .

The box was very well, I loved the packaging it has a beautiful and very firm and strong box so in case you are shipping it far away rest assure the package is well protected.

The overall build quality is solid. Edges are all rounded off. It actually looks quite good.

XP-Pen Artist13.3 Pro is one of the most affordable Cintiq alternatives out there, price-wise. It’s really a good choice if you’re cash-strapped, as long as you don’t mind drawing on a smaller screen.

Specifications:

Product dimensions: 39 x 25 x 1.4cm

Active area: 29.3 x 16.5cm

Screen: 13.3 inches with 1920 x 1080 resolution

Panel type: IPS

Colors: 16.7 million

Input: USB-C

Graphic ports supported: HDMI, miniDisplay

Pen does not require battery

Stand : Included

Visual Angle:178°

Pressure sensitivity: 8,192 levels + 60° tilt

Display Color Gamut: 88% NTSC , Adobe® RGBg91%sRGBg123%

Artist 13.3 Pro official site : https://www.xp-pen.com/product/464.html

Package Contents :

XP-Pen Artist13.3 Pro tablet

HDMI/Power/USB all-in-one cable

USB extension cable

HDMI to miniDisplay adapter

Pen and stand

8 replacement nibs

Wall charger and various international plugs

Manual, warranty card, cleaning cloth and glove

The packaging box features a very simple clean design. With this box, you lift up the cover to reveal the pen display and all the things included.

The fully-laminated Screen

When you first open up the box, the screen has a protector film over it which has to be peel off to reveal the matte screen protector. It’s a nice texture to draw on.

On XP-Pen Artist13.3’s screen there’s a screen protector that adds texture to the screen. The purpose for this texture is to add friction while you draw, and to hopefully make it similar to drawing on paper. also it can reduces glare and also protects the glass in the long run from scratches.

Calibration on the tablet is decent and does stray a bit towards the edges, but not so bad to ruin the drawing experience. I recommend calibrating the tablet before you draw if you are moving the tablet around.

XP-Pen Artist 13.3 Pro comes with a 13.3-inch screen, which provides you with a decent drawing area (the active drawing area is 293.76 X 165.24 mm). the tablet used an IPS panel so colour reproduction is quite decent. Some one will think this is small draw area, but you could get used to it if this is your first pen display, or if you want a portable one to take with you on the go.

This 13.3 inch pen display supports a 1920 x 1080 resolution. For a screen this size, which isn’t too big, everything appears sharp.

The colors are on point with 120% sRGB color space support in XP-Pen Artist 13.3 Pro , The viewing angles in this display are really good and you would notice no color shift or rainbow effect when looking off the axis. The display of tablet is sufficiently bright and you can easily use them in bright indoor environments.

XP-Pen Artist 13.3 Pro comes with a fully-laminated display. It results in better image quality with more vibrant colors.

In older displays ( artist 13.3 V2 ) when you draw on the tablet there is a small gap between where the strokes appear and the point where the stylus is actually touching the display surface. This is called parallax.

This small gap affects the drawing experience and makes you feel disconnected from what you are drawing.

One of the biggest advantages of laminated displays is that – they reduce parallax and the strokes appear exactly where you draw them on the screen.

The stylus support pressure and tilt

XP-Pen Artist13.3 Pro comes with a passive pen. The pen supports 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity and ±60° of tilt support . It does not use battery so it does not need to be charged.it has two side buttons but no eraser.

The front end of the stylus is made of rubbery silicone material that helps with a comfortable grip. The Stylus has the maximum width near the pen tip which slowly tapers off towards the back.

Weight distribution and balance are also optimized for better drawing performance and more control over the stylus. The pen is tip heavy which feels comfortable while drawing.

The pen comes with a pen holder to store it away while not in use. Inside the pen holder, you can find 8 replacement nibs.

Replacing the pen nib is something you ought to do when the current nib become pointy.

Anyone can learn to add tilt into their work space though and it can become another modifier when drawing. For instance maybe you want pressure to adjust opacity not size, and you want tilt to adjust size not opacity. This would be like how a real pencil works. Pressing harder doesn't make a pencil line bigger it just makes it darker. But tilting the pencil does make the line wider.

People who like to do digital painting may also find tilt useful as the hairs of a brush can be simulated in programs like Corel Painter where the shape of the digital brush changes with angle just like a real paint brush which can be spread out when pushed into the canvas, or thin lines if gently brushed, or thick lines if tilted.

I am an airbrush and pencil/charcoal person in real life and especially when doing digital airbrushing the tilt is important because many of the most basic airbrush strokes, dagger lines, etc all depend on the distance from the surface and the angle and direction the needle is pointing. I could never reproduce my airbrush techniques digitally until tilt and rotation was added. I use my Artist 13.3 Pro when I need those effects.

XP-Pen is a popular brand and they have a lot of experience with making graphics tablets and it shows in their products.

The stylus performs good, totally on par with what you would expect from a premium tablet. The strokes are accurate with no signs of pen jitter or wavy lines. There are no issues of inconsistency or ghost strokes appearing. These pens have well-calibrated and smooth pressure curves with no weird pressure bump issues.

8 Hot Keys and 1 red Multipurpose Dial

XP-Pen Artist13.3 Pro comes with 8 hot keys. Out of which 7 buttons can be used for the shortcut . You could customize these keys to do all sorts of the shortcuts you do on your art program. For example, you could set one of the keys to switch to the selection tool(assuming you use it a lot), while having another one to activate a certain filter. The possibilities are high.

Buttons of the tablet is easy to press and have a satisfying click to it. the buttons are marked with raised dots to easily identify them without looking.

Multipurpose shortcut buttons are great as they allow you to perform multiple shortcuts with a single button.

the Artist 13.3 Pro has a freely rotating dial as their multi-shortcut button. It also has the same shortcuts like changing the size of brush and erasers, pan, zoom, and scroll. You can switch between these modes with the help of the mode switcher button. The roller makes a clicking sound after every 15° of rotation which adds a nice touch.

How to connect the tablet to the computer

The XP-Pen Artist 13.3 Pro is not standalone device and need to be connected to a computer.

The tablet comes with a hybrid 3 in 1 cable. The cable has a USB Type-C connector at one end and an HDMI port, Full-size USB and a power connector at the other end.

For connecting your tablet to the computer, first, you need to connect the single USB Type-C cable to the tablet. Next, connect the HDMI and Full-size USB cable to your computer and the power cable to the Power adapter. After that install, the driver and you are ready to go.

Some of the newer generations of laptops do not have an HDMI and full-size USB port. In that case, you can get a USB hub . It has all the ports you need for connecting your tablet.

The Driver and tablet settings

A driver is a software that helps the computer to understand pen and tablet data. The instructions for installing and setting up the drivers & controls were on the xp-pen official website and super clear .

Before you get to install the driver, it’s important you remember to uninstall any graphics tablet driver on your computer, either from Wacom or another manufacturer.

With the driver, you can change the pressure sensitivity, assign functions to the side and physical shortcut buttons and switch to left-handed mode if you want to. Some of the other settings include adjusting the color, contrast, brightness of the tablet and creating application-specific shortcuts.

It is very easy to install and I love the way everything looks and feels. I use both photoshop, paint sai, and clip studio and this tablet works great for all of those programs.

Drawing performance

Most of the functions such as sketch, paint, design and edit can be executed directly from the tablet screen, work naturally and intuitively.

There’s this inconsistency or the challenge of maintaining a consistently smooth line when drawing curves. When you’re testing for it, it’s going to show up, but when actually drawing with it, it’s not that big of an issue. Out of all the apps, Clip Studio Paint works perfectly without any of the wobble or stroke issues.

Enjoy Every Detail Artist13.3 pro driver can support 4K displays, allowing you enjoy every sharp detail and every soft line. The newest brightness adjustable buttons help you to find the most suitable lightness, offering you an comfortable drawing experience.

If you’re using Windows, the performance of the pen is better than on Mac. You get nicer looking lines.

Pros

- Good build quality and design

- Pen does not require battery

- 8 shortcut buttons are useful

- Smooth lines, no wonkiness at all!

- The lighting and color display matched my monitor

- No brightness issues

- All the shortcuts worked well

- The 13” screen is nice and there was no display compression , Screen has decent colour accuracy and viewing angles

- Pressure worked well and coloring my art was nice with the slant you can do with the pen

- Price is very competitive on this size , Great for art hobbyists!

Cons

- Matte screen protecter affects sharpness of the screen

- the bezels are huge!

Neutral

- The bigger sized models of these are probably better if you’re an artist so you can have more space to work with.

- If you use a small laptop, you may not have enough usb slots for all the cables you need to hook up for the tablet so this works better on a bigger laptop/desktop.

- Of course, you need to configure your pen settings and stability settings for your satisfaction with the tablet output.

Summary

It’s a great little drawing tablet! Full support for Windows 10, I definitely recommend this tablet to artists who cannot afford the Wacom price.

For anyone that wants one of those fancy Wacom Cintiqs but can’t afford one, this tablet might be a great alternative!

Warm Reminder: the drawing tablet could draw power from USB port, as that could mean the ability to use it on the go more easily than other pen displays.

XP-Pen Artist 13.3 Pro comes with a very basic tablet stand which is made of plastic. It has a single adjustable angle of 20 degrees.

If you want to buy this XP-Pen Artist 13.3 Pro graphic tablet monitor , check out the link blow

Official store : https://www.storexppen.com/buy/artist-13-pro.html