I'd like to thank XP-Pen for sending me an Artist 15.6 Pro tablet to try out. I used it to draw this piece entirely. It has been a great experience playing around with the tablet and I totally recommend it! I'll elaborate further below. Also ask me any questions you might have about the tablet.
The tablet itself is very well built, plastic but not fragile. Very lightweight, paired with a laptop and I say it’s a good mobile studio. It even stays cool to the touch during long drawing sessions. The thing I’m most blown away by is the precision of the stylus. There’s little to no parallax whatsoever and lines came out smooth.
I’ve tried other drawing tablets in the past and even owned a Wacom Mobile Studio and it didn’t have quite the drawing experience this one has. Not to mention how loud the Wacom Mobile Studio was, the Artist 15.6 Pro obviously does not have this problem since it does not have or need a fan.
Although I do not use the the express keys very often (as I usually use keyboard) for my shortcuts, it is still very nice to have 8 shortcut buttons. And by far the most tactile scroll wheel ever, the clicks it makes is so satisfying and enjoyable to use.
I found the colors to be fairly accurate to my primary monitor (Dell U2412M) I use for professional work. Saturated but not unnatural. Brightness was great for me, but I usually tend to dim my monitors a bit as I can’t work for long in front of a super bright display.
Another great pro that I found out half way into my drawing was that the Artist 15.6 Pro could be powered with just the USB cable and HDMI cable attached, instead of having to plug in the AC Adapter(The red USB pictured). Seems to work very well with my MSI-GS65 Stealth Laptop, in fact I worked on the whole piece on it
Oh it also comes with a glove and a stand! Not one with the most angle adjustment or elevation, but a nice little perk nonetheless.
Now for the cons, of which I have very little of really.
First and foremost though the drawing experience is great, there is a need to exert a little more pressure than your usual touch for the screen to register your strokes. I’m not sure if this is a driver problem or a hardware one. You will get used to it within a few minutes, but sometimes you might not get the result you are used to if you are light handed.
Speaking of drivers. I have found that I needed to uninstall my past Wacom drivers in order to install and have XP-Pen’s working. I wish there was a workaround for this, but I haven’t found one. It’s not so much a con as it is inconvenient as I’d like to use display tablets for some things and a regular drawing tablet for others.
Overall I will have to say I had a very positive experience with the Artist 15.6 Pro. It’s a great size for on the go as well as drawing for hours on the couch. Priced reasonably well at around $450, I wished I had something like this when I was starting out and it’s definitely able to handle professional work. If you would like to support me or would like to purchase the Artist 15.6 Pro please consider clicking the links below! US: http://bit.ly/2R9TnJX UK: http://bit.ly/2NHT36t AU: https://bit.ly/2xaP4dk EU: https://bit.ly/396KkTc
