Gear Review: XP-PEN 15.6 Artist Pro Tablet

The XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro Tablet is one of the newest flagship digital art tablets from XP-Pen, a technology company founded in Japan in 2005. Since then they have expanded with offices in Taiwan (2008), and the United States (2013).

The Build

One of the things I appreciated when I first put my hands on the tablet was how it felt. I won’t lie, I was apprehensive about spending the money I did. When I started working with digital art tablets years ago the technology was hit or miss, and while companies like Wacom built decent products, I always felt they were over-priced. Over the years more companies have sprouted up with offerings for digital artists: Huion, and most recently Parblo have become fixtures in the game, creating reasonably priced tablets for the everyday artist. However until now these products have felt cheap, and breakable–the drivers and software full of bugs and they overall lacked efficiency when creating art.

When I purchased this tablet and began to open the box I was immediately surprised by the overall quality of the build. It has some weight to it which is appreciative. The screen has an anti-glare coating, which actually also helps create a little bit of drag when using the stylus. It feels more like drawing on paper, than a nice piece of tempered glass. The shortcut buttons, and wheel are rubberized and feel sturdy when being used.

The Stylus is comfortable and very responsive, however the placement of the shortcut keys on the pen leaves something to be desired. I find myself constantly clicking them in error. Luckily the driver software is intuitive, and it was easy to configure and disable the buttons–for me, they are unnecessary.

The tablet also comes with a slew of accessories (8 Extra pen nibs, drawing glove, tilt-stand) other companies would charge you a premium for.

I’m happy to report that I’ve been pleased with the tablet thus far and have integrated into my multiple workflows seamlessly. I believe I have found my forever tablet, reasonably priced–and on par with the big wigs like the Wacom Cintiq.

I haven’t run into many issues working with the tablet aside from some that are more likely related to my computer than they are the hardware or drivers. Sometimes the assigned “work area” of the tablet will become unresponsive, or actual project the cursor onto my second screen. This is easily remedied by just unplugging the hardware at the tablet itself, allowing it to power down, and then reconnecting it to the PC. It’s not a common issue, and doesn’t effect my ability to draw efficiently.

Compared to the abundance of issues I had previously with my Wacom Cintiq, the XP-Pen tablet has been relatively hassle free. This is a terrific piece of gear for a budding illustrator or pro, and having used the Wacom Cintiq I will argue that it’s hard to compete with its price point–you get much more bang for your buck with the XP-Pen.

Specifications