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® RGB≧91%，sRGB≧123%
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 Artist13.3 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
amazon US : https://www.amazon.com/XP-PEN-Artist13-3-Full-Laminated-Graphics-Function/dp/B07VPHR6GD
