Verdict: Sketch is up there with the best of the best vector image editors for macOS, complete with excellent management and organizational tools, and a price tag to match. See Also: Alchemy Alchemy is a bit of a wildcard. Photoshop and other commercial tools can be expensive, but drawing software doesn't need to be. This list of the best free drawing software is just as powerful as some of the more expensive offerings. 6 Best Desktop Computers for Graphic Design-2018! Desktops for Animation! HP, Dell, Mac desktops for professionals & graphic design, Animation students! Home Hardware offers one of the best free kitchen design software platforms. They have an online option dedicated to kitchens and includes several templates to work from (or create your own from scratch). Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch Small Tablet. Previously known as the Bamboo Fun and Touch, this is an ideal drawing tablet for anyone looking for an affordable way to go digital.It’s ideal for drawing and painting and, with the additional purchase of the Wacom Wireless Accessory kit, can be hooked up to your PC or Mac without any pesky cables to get in your way.
Best Overall All-In-One
Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IE
The Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IE delivers potent processing, discrete graphics and a lovely 4K touch screen, all in a stylish, yet affordable design.
Best Value All-in-One
Acer Aspire Z24
The Acer Aspire Z24 packs a punch for under $1,000, delivering strong processing and decent all-around performance for the whole household, along with built-in Amazon Alexa support.
Best for Photo/Video Editing
Apple iMac with 5K Retina Display (27-inch)
The Apple 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina display is a must for photo and video editors, thanks to its stunning display and potent performance, but it's also a great choice for anyone who wants a capable desktop.
Our top pick for all-in-one PCs is the Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IE, which packs a gorgeous 4K display and discrete graphics into a sleek design.
If you're looking for something less expensive, our value pick is the Acer Aspire Z24, which offers a decent all-in-one PC for under $1,000.
All-in-one PCs are a great middle ground for those seeking a great home computer — they take up less room than traditional towers, and offer more screen space than most laptops. These unique PCs pack their components, ports and monitors into a single unit, allowing you to easily prop one onto your desk, plug in and get to work (or play).
Latest News and Updates (August 2019)
How Much Do All-in-One PCs Cost?
All-in-One PCs run the gamut from affordable to premium pricing. Budget-friendly systems can be found for less than $1000, but will generally be limited to full HD resolution displays and low-powered Celeron and Pentium processors. Premium desktops can cost $2,000 or more, and boast 4K displays, the latest Intel Core i7 processors and discrete graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD.
Since these units are always plugged in, you might want to also invest in a good surge protector to make sure your all-in-one stays in good shape.
Best Overall All-In-OneAsus Zen AiO Pro Z240IE
SPECIFICATIONS
Display: 23.8-inch display with 3840 x 2160 resolution | Special Features: USB Type-C | Processor: Intel Core i7-7700T | Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050
Reasons to Buy
Strong general performance
Reasons to Avoid
Minimal support for modern gaming
The Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IE delivers potent processing, discrete graphics and a lovely 4K touch screen, all in a stylish, yet affordable design. Equipped with an Intel Core i7-7700T processor and Nvidia GeForce 1050 graphics card, this stylish all-in-one delivers strong performance, a gorgeous 4K display and a healthy feature set.
Best Value All-in-OneAcer Aspire Z24
SPECIFICATIONS
Display: 23.8-inch display, 1920 x 1080 resolution | Special Features: Amazon Alexa | Processor: Intel Core i7-8700T | Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 630
Reasons to Buy
Potent six-core processor provides plenty of oomph
Glare-reducing touch screen
Reasons to Avoid
Display limited to 1080p
Slow hard drive
The Acer Aspire Z24 offers a surprising amount of power and some unexpected features, all for under $1,000. The sleek-looking all-in-one packs a punch, delivering strong processing thanks to a six-core Intel Core i7 processor, backed up with plenty of memory and storage, including 16GB of Intel Optane memory.
The end result is decent all-around performance for the whole family. But the Aspire Z24 has one more trick up its sleeve,with built-in Amazon Alexa support and integrated far-field microphones, giving you a whole range of voice-interaction features.
Best for Photo/Video EditingApple iMac with 5K Retina Display (27-inch)
SPECIFICATIONS
Display: 27-inch, 5120 x 2880 display | Special Features: Siri | Processor: Intel Core i7 processor | Graphics: AMD Radeon Pro 580 graphics
Reasons to Buy
Plenty of graphics muscle
Familiar iMac design
Reasons to Avoid
Awkward port placement
No height adjustment
The Apple 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina display is a must for photo and video editors, thanks to its stunning display and potent performance, but it's also a great choice for anyone who wants a capable desktop. Movies and photos look stunningly true-to-life on the iMac's 27-inch, 5120 x 2880 screen, and with a powerful 7th-gen Intel Core i7 processor and AMD Radeon Pro graphics inside, there's plenty of performance muscle to power any of your editing duties. Even with its new upgrades, the latest iMac retains its stunningly slim design, and includes Apple's Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard.
Best All-in-One for ArtistsMicrosoft Surface Studio 2
SPECIFICATIONS
Display: 28-inch, 4500 x 3000 touch display | Special Features: Pulls down for drawing, included stylus | Processor: Intel Core i7-7820HQ | Graphics: Nvidia GTX 1070
Reasons to Buy
Excellent design lets you use as a desktop or drawing board
Excellent display quality
Best-in-class pen support
Reasons to Avoid
Inconvenient port placement
The Microsoft Studio 2 ($4,199 as tested) is the best thing around for anyone who does digital art, thanks to a gorgeous touchscreen that drops down low for comfortable touch and pen use. The better-than-4K display looks amazing, the touch screen supports both the Surface Pen and Surface Dial and the design is top-notch.
Best All-in-One for ProsApple iMac Pro
SPECIFICATIONS
Display: 27-inch, 5120 x 2880 display | Special Features: Up to 128GB of RAM | Processor: Intel Xeon W processor (8, 10, 14, 18 core options) | Graphics: AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64
Reasons to Buy
Enormous amounts of memory
Excellent display
Reasons to Avoid
No HDMI ports
Mouse is inoperable when charging
When it comes to all-in-one systems, they just don’t come more powerful than this. The Apple iMac Pro reclaims to Pro title with way more power than any consumer will ever need, making it the perfect addition to the video studio, the audio engineering booth or the architect’s office. Equipped with a 10-core Intel Xeon processor, workstation grade graphics and a mind-bending 128GB of RAM, this machine is pure power.
Best All-in-One For AudioDell XPS 27 7760
SPECIFICATIONS Download twitter app for mac.
Display: 27-inch, 3840 x 2160 display (touch optional) | Special Features: Integrated Soundbar | Processor: Intel Core i7-7700 | Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 570
Reasons to Buy
Excellent 4K touch screen
Great keyboard and mouse.
Reasons to Avoid
Nearly inaccessible ports
The Dell XPS 27 7760 makes an encore as the best sounding all-in-one around. This sweet sounding all-in-one has a 27-inch 4K display, potent Intel Core i7 processing, AMD’s latest Radeon RX 570 graphics card and a built-in, 10-speaker soundbar that will blow you away. If you want big, bright sound without an external speaker set, this is the PC to get.
How We Test All-in-One PCs
Every all-in-one we review goes through a variety of benchmark tests in Purch Labs as well as long hours of real-world use. As with our laptop reviews, we use a colorimeter to measure the brightness, color accuracy and color gamut of each all-in-one's display.
For performance, we use the Geekbench 4 test to measure a system's overall processing abilities. We also run a custom spreadsheet test to see how long a PC takes to match 20,000 names to addresses. To evaluate each system's hard drive speed, we measure how long it takes to copy 4.97 worth of files.
If an all-in-one has discrete graphics, we run it through many of the same benchmarks we use for gaming PCs. That includes 3DMark Fire Strike, as well as the built-in benchmark tools of games like Rise of the Tomb Raider, Hitman and Grand Theft Auto V. If an all-in-one is made to support virtual reality, we'll also run the SteamVR Performance Test.
Most importantly, we spend a ton of time simply using each all-in-one PC for everyday activities. We watch movies, do work, play games, and blast music on the speakers, all to get a better sense of which ones are worth your money.
Your guides
After interviewing five professional artists, researching 23 drawing tablets, and testing 11, we’ve found the Wacom Intuos S to be the best drawing tablet for beginners. The Intuos works on Windows and macOS with most popular art programs, and it offers the most precision and control of any tablet under $100. The Intuos S’s pen and tablet buttons are among the most customizable we found thanks to excellent software.
Our pickWacom Intuos S
The most compatible, customizable, and precise graphics tablet beginners can get for less than $100.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $78.
The Intuos S is Wacom’s least expensive entry-level tablet, perfect for beginning digital artists looking for a reliable graphics tablet that will last for years. It includes Corel Painter Essentials 6 for drawing and painting or Corel AfterShot for photo editing, which makes it an exceptional value. It has a 6-by-3.7-inch area to draw on, and it’s compact enough to use on your desk or to throw in a backpack with your laptop and the lightweight pen to create artwork anywhere. The Intuos S connects via USB; if you’d prefer a Bluetooth connection, we recommend the Intuos S with Bluetooth for around $20 more, although we don’t think most beginners need that.
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Also greatHuion 1060Plus
The larger Huion 1060Plus gives you more room to work but is not as customizable or precise as our top pick.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $83.
If you need more drawing space because you prefer making large strokes on paper, or if you work full-screen on a monitor (or monitors) larger than 20 inches, the Huion 1060Plus is the best large tablet you can get for less than $100. It has a 10-by-6.25-inch active drawing area, a comfortable pen, and 12 customizable tablet shortcut keys. But Huion’s driver software doesn’t compare with Wacom’s, the 1060Plus isn’t as customizable as the Intuos tablets, and we found that—despite this model’s 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity—the slicker tablet surface gave us less control over line weight and opacity when drawing. Even so, the Huion is more than $100 cheaper than Wacom’s larger tablets.
Upgrade pickWacom Intuos Pro
The Intuos Pro is the gold standard of graphics tablets. It’s larger and more accurate than our beginner picks but much more expensive.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $300.
If you’re a professional artist or graphics designer, or if you’re ready to upgrade from your first drawing tablet, the Wacom Intuos Pro is the way to go. The Intuos Pro has superior build quality and the most precision and accuracy of all the tablets we tested, and it’s available in medium and large sizes. It has multitouch, tilt recognition, Bluetooth, eight tablet keys, and a nifty touch wheel. But it’s much more expensive—often around $350 and up—so we don’t recommend it for artists just starting out.
Everything we recommendOur pickWacom Intuos S
The most compatible, customizable, and precise graphics tablet beginners can get for less than $100.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $78.
Also greatHuion 1060Plus
The larger Huion 1060Plus gives you more room to work but is not as customizable or precise as our top pick.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $83.
Upgrade pickWacom Intuos Pro
The Intuos Pro is the gold standard of graphics tablets. It’s larger and more accurate than our beginner picks but much more expensive.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $300.
The researchWhy you should trust us
We spoke with professional artists who use drawing tablets every day and teach others how to use them: Victoria Ying, artist and illustrator of the book Meow!, whose work has appeared in the Disney films Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, and Moana;Cher Threinen-Pendarvis, author of The Photoshop and Painter Artist Tablet Book; Jim Mortensen, a supervising director at DreamWorks TV, known for his work on Breadwinners, Cool It, and Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh;Rhoda Draws (yes, that’s her real name), an artist, Corel Painter Master, and author of several books on creating digital art; and Carolyn Dickey, who was a print designer for a fashion company at the time of our interview.
Melanie Pinola has been reviewing tech hardware and software for over a dozen years for sites such as Lifehacker, Laptop Mag, and PCWorld, and she has been drawing and painting as a hobby for much longer. (As an aspiring artist in the early 2000s, she bought the Wacom Graphire tablet, one of the company’s earliest graphics tablets for home users.) To get some beginner opinions, she also enlisted the help of four other amateur artists with no previous experience with graphics tablets.
Justin Krajeski has been reviewing laptops and accessories for Wirecutter since 2016—he has spent time with all kinds of devices, from ultrabooks to portable hard drives. As a kid, he drew mythical creatures around the ring holes in his notebooks; as an adult, well, he still does.
Who this is for
Ever try writing your signature with your mouse or a laptop trackpad? Yeah, it’s terrible. Imagine trying to create a detailed sketch or to precisely retouch a photo with those tools.
A drawing tablet, also known as a graphics tablet, lets you use a pen or stylus and translates your strokes from the tablet to your computer screen with an impressive degree of precision. It’s much more natural and comfortable to use than a mouse or touchpad, whether you want to paint, illustrate, animate in 3D, create a comic, or retouch photos.
This guide is for anyone making their first foray into creating digital art or retouching photos. A beginner drawing tablet is an accessory that you can attach to any computer and monitor, which makes it versatile and useful for years to come. If you’re interested in a graphics tablet but don’t want to spend a boatload of money on an accessory you might not use every day, our picks are for you.
A drawing tablet, also known as a graphics tablet, lets you use a pen or stylus and translates your strokes from the tablet to your computer screen with an impressive degree of precision.
We don’t recommend pro tablets (such as an iPad Pro or Microsoft Surface Pro) or graphics tablets with a screen (such as the Wacom Cintiq line) for beginners because they’re prohibitively expensive. If you’re dipping your toe into digital art, you should try an affordable graphics tablet first to see if it meets your needs. And graphics tablets with screens aren’t necessarily preferable—as artist and illustrator Victoria Ying pointed out, your hand can block parts of your art while you’re working. Screen-less drawing tablets have a “harder learning curve,” Ying said, “but a lot of my friends working in feature films prefer it to the feeling of a Cintiq or iPad.”
We also didn’t consider any paper-based devices that convert your writing or drawing on paper to your computer, such as the Wacom Bamboo Slate, the Livescribe pen and notebooks, or the Evernote notebook. For this guide we were looking for a graphics tablet for drawing, painting, illustrating, and animating that could last years without requiring a paper refill.
How we picked
Based on our research, expert interviews, and testing, we found that the most important features for a drawing tablet (in order of importance) are:
Wacom is to graphics tablets what Google is to search, and every expert we spoke to recommended Wacom tablets for their reliability.
Wacom is to graphics tablets (PDF) what Google is to search, and every expert we spoke to recommended Wacom tablets for their reliability. Testing the Intuos line was an obvious choice. We also decided to test models from up-and-comers such as Parblo, XP-Pen, and Huion based on positive reviews and their value: These tablets offer a larger active area, more shortcut keys, and in some cases built-in wireless connectivity for the same or lower price as their Wacom equivalents.
After speaking with our experts and researching more than 20 graphics tablets in 2017, we settled on nine to test: the Wacom Intuos Draw (small), Wacom Intuos Art (small), Wacom Intuos Pro (medium), Parblo Island A609 (medium), XP-Pen Star 05 (medium), XP-Pen Star 03 (large), XP-Pen Star 06 (large), Huion H610Pro (large), and Huion 1060Plus (large). In June 2018, we tested two new Wacom tablets—the Intuos S and Intuos S with Bluetooth—against our previous picks.
How we tested
We tested each drawing tablet on a Windows 10 computer and a macOS machine, using the latest driver from the tablet manufacturer’s website. (We uninstalled the drivers between each tablet, because multiple drivers can interfere with a tablet’s performance.)
With the help of four panelists, we spent a few weeks testing driver stability, program compatibility, and input lag. Your tablet could be as pressure sensitive as the best of them, but if it doesn’t work with your animation or drawing program, it’s basically useless.
We tested each tablet with a variety of the most popular painting, drawing, and photo-retouching programs in 2017: Photoshop (CS5), Corel Painter (Essentials 5), ArtRage 5, Krita, SketchBook, and Paint Tool Sai. Our panelists drew and painted basic shapes to test input lag as well as line weight and consistency. They also created nuanced shades of gray—from very faint to almost black—and drew strokes that tapered to a point by lifting the pen. And since people are familiar with their own signature, our panelists signed away to see how close the tablet pen matched handwriting on paper. We also looked for any glitches such as the cursor not appearing where it ought or moving as it should. And throughout our tests, we noted the tablets’ customizability and how the pen felt to hold and draw with.
In 2018, we tested two new Wacom tablets—the Intuos S and Intuos S with Bluetooth—against our previous picks on Windows 10 and macOS. We re-created our previous tests using Paint Tool Sai.
Our pick: Wacom Intuos SOur pickWacom Intuos S
The most compatible, customizable, and precise graphics tablet beginners can get for less than $100.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $78.
Designed for beginners, the Wacom Intuos S offered the most precision and customizability of the tablets we tested (aside from the pricier Wacom Intuos Pro). The accompanying pen is comfortable enough for long drawing sessions, too. The Intuos is the most affordable of Wacom’s tablets, and it offers the best value of the graphics tablets we tested. It comes with Corel Painter Essentials 6 for drawing and painting or Corel AfterShot for photo editing. None of the other tablets we considered offered as many software options.
The Intuos S with Bluetooth is nearly identical to the Intuos S, except it offers Bluetooth connectivity and costs around $20 more. We don’t recommend Bluetooth for most beginners, but it’s worth the price if you need wireless.
Compared with the non-Wacom tablets, the Intuos S offered more control, and we experienced no driver issues or input lag. On this tablet, we found it easier to create consistently faint, medium, or dark lines (and to go from one extreme to the other) by varying the pressure we put on the pen. Although some other tablets offered twice as much pressure sensitivity—8,192 levels versus 4,096 on the Intuos S—in practice we were better able to control line weights and thickness with the Wacom tablets.
The Intuos S is a small tablet, with a 6-by-3.7-inch active area that has a dot grid printed on the surface, unlike most tablets. This grid comes in handy when you’re creating artwork that requires precise scale, or it can provide a gentle guide for straight lines. The drawing surface is also a bit textured, so it feels natural, like using a pencil on paper.
The Intuos S pen is comfortable to hold for long drawing sessions, but it lacks the softer grip of the pen of the Intuos Pro or the Huion 1060Plus. This pen is about as thick as a typical ballpoint pen but closer in weight to a Sharpie. It feels substantial, and although it’s plastic it doesn’t feel cheap, unlike the pen for the XP-Pen Star 05, which we could feel the seams on. Because the Intuos S pen is battery-free, you never have to charge it. The pen has a storage compartment for spare nibs and a nib extractor inside, and it comes with three extra standard nibs. You can buy a pack of five standard nibs for around $5 as they wear out, or buy flex and felt nibs if you prefer. Wacom’s replacement nibs cost around the same as Huion’s, though how often you’ll need replacements depends on your drawing technique and frequency.
The Intuos S, like all Wacom tablets, lets you customize the pen and tablet to a much greater extent than the other tablet brands we tested. In addition to giving you access to support and driver updates, Wacom’s Desktop Center software allows you to customize, back up, and restore tablet and pen functions. In the pen settings, for example, you can set the tip feel or pressure sensitivity. This is like choosing between a soft 2B pencil, which leaves a lot of graphite on the page, and a harder 2H pencil, which leaves lighter, cleaner lines and requires more force to make a mark. You can also adjust the pen’s double-click distance or how far away the pen can be before it registers with the tablet.
You can also map the pen’s buttons and the tablet’s keys to zoom in, right-click, erase, or switch applications. And you can even customize those options by individual program—an option not available on any of the other tablets we looked at. So the top left key on the tablet, for instance, could start the “Save for web” action in Photoshop (to replace the awkward Command+Alt+Shift+S keyboard shortcut) or map to cycle through brush attributes when you’re working in Corel Painter.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
The Intuos S has four tablet keys, fewer than other tablets in this price range, which can have up to 12. The keys sit along the top of the tablet rather than to the side—where they are on most other tablets—so they’re a little harder to reach while you’re drawing. If you rely on such buttons frequently for keyboard shortcuts, this positioning might be an issue, but we think most beginners will use the pen more than the tablet keys. The pen’s customizable buttons and the tablet’s four keys should be enough to cover the most-used shortcuts or workflows for beginners.
Multitouch is missing from the Intuos S, but we think that’s an unnecessary feature unless you plan to use the tablet as a trackpad. If you want multitouch or tilt recognition—another feature we don’t think is crucial for beginners—you’ll have to spend a lot more for our upgrade pick, the Intuos Pro.
The Intuos S cannot connect wirelessly. If you need that and don’t mind paying around $20 more, we recommend the Intuos S with Bluetooth, which is identical to our pick but can also connect via Bluetooth.
A larger tablet for beginners: Huion 1060PlusAlso greatHuion 1060Plus
The larger Huion 1060Plus gives you more room to work but is not as customizable or precise as our top pick.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $83.
If you want more space to draw or paint on, get the larger Huion 1060Plus. The 1060Plus features a large, 10-by-6.25-inch active area (compared with the 6-by-3.7-inch active area of the Intuos S), 12 customizable keys (versus four on the Intuos S), and 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity (while the Intuos S has 4,096 levels). More pressure sensitivity theoretically makes it easier to draw varied strokes and to control line opacity, but as we discovered in testing, most people wouldn’t notice the difference beyond 2,048 levels—what’s more important is whether the tablet’s pressure sensitivity actually works, and the 1060Plus’s does. The Huion 1060Plus isn’t nearly as customizable as the Intuos, and it doesn’t come with any art software, but it does offer a larger active area, more keys, and a great pen for about the same price as our top pick—larger Wacom tablets cost two and a half to four times as much.
The 1060Plus performed well in our tests, with no lag and only one glitch: The pressure sensitivity stopped working in Photoshop, but reinstalling the driver fixed it. Drawing on this tablet felt natural, and we could smoothly vary our line weight and opacity in all of the art programs we tested. The Wacom tablets had better pressure sensitivity and control in our tests, allowing us to draw the exact same line consistently and to gradually taper lines in Photoshop. But the 1060Plus was a close second and should work for most beginners’ needs.
The Huion model has a much smoother tablet surface than the Intuos; the pen glides in a way that feels more like drawing on a glossy iPad screen than on paper. Since there’s less friction, you shouldn’t need to replace the nibs as often. But if you prefer a traditional pencil-on-paper feeling rather than a slick drawing-on-a-screen feeling, this is something you’ll need to get used to.
The 1060Plus’s pen is the second-nicest we tested, right behind the Wacom Intuos Pro’s. It’s about the size of a Sharpie marker, with a smooth barrel at the top and a rubber grip at the bottom. This rechargeable pen is heavier than those that don’t require batteries, weighing a bit less than a AAA battery. It’s not uncomfortably heavy, though, and some people might even prefer the heft. Huion rates the pen’s battery life at 800 hours of continuous use after one hour of charging. We were unable to test this claim, but charging the pen with the included USB cable should be only an occasional inconvenience. Huion includes a pen cap and a stand that houses four nib replacements.
No company so far has matched Wacom in support and customizability; with the 1060Plus, however, Huion offers the best customization of the Wacom alternatives. Using Huion’s software, you can assign functions to the two pen buttons, adjust the tablet sensitivity, assign keyboard shortcuts for the 12 hard keys, map the tablet to a specific area of the screen, and assign shortcuts for the 16 soft keys that run across the top of the tablet. The included carrying case, drawing glove (to reduce friction between your hand and the tablet), and 8 GB SD card (for storing images directly to the tablet) are nice bonuses, too.
An upgrade for experienced artists: Wacom Intuos ProUpgrade pickWacom Intuos Pro
The Intuos Pro is the gold standard of graphics tablets. It’s larger and more accurate than our beginner picks but much more expensive.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $300.
If you’re ready to upgrade from your first drawing tablet or you’re a professional who uses a graphics tablet every day, get the Wacom Intuos Pro. Typically around $350 for the medium size (which has an 8.7-by-5.8-inch active area), the Intuos Pro represents a significant leap in price but also a significant leap in functionality and build quality. The Intuos Pro is the tablet we’d get if we wanted to invest in a tablet for our career. But if you’re just starting out or sticking to a budget, get our top pick and work your way up to this model.
We were initially skeptical of the difference between the Intuos Pro and the entry-level Intuos tablet since they use similar hardware—though the Pro has 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity, built-in Bluetooth, and multitouch. But we found the Intuos Pro to be the most precise and accurate of the graphics tablets we tested. We were able to create much more nuanced drawings with the Pro, and although the Intuos S recorded a very close approximation of our handwriting, the Pro reproduced exactly what we’d expect from pencil and paper. Before testing, we told the panelists that one tablet cost more than $300 while the others all cost less than $100. After using all the tablets, every panelist identified the Intuos Pro as the higher-priced tablet—it felt that much better.
The medium version has an 8.7-by-5.8-inch active drawing area, a slightly larger space than on most other medium graphics tablets, including the medium wireless version of our pick, the Intuos M with Bluetooth. The Intuos Pro also comes in a large version with a 12.1-by-8.4-inch active area. And the Intuos Pro’s build quality is much more refined than that of any of the other tablets we looked at. It’s less than half an inch thick and made of anodized aluminum and glass fiber composite resin.
The battery-free pen was the most comfortable one we tested, and its rubber coating at the bottom provided great grip. You can even turn the pen to use the end as an eraser—an unexpected feature our testers loved. The default surface texture feels as if you’re using a pen on paper, but Wacom also sells texture sheets if you prefer a smoother or rougher surface.
In addition to eight customizable keys, the Intuos Pro has a radial menu (called the Touch Ring) that you can use to scroll, rotate a canvas, zoom in or out, change brush size, or change layers. It’s intuitive to use, and you can customize everything with Wacom’s desktop software. In our tests the Pro’s Bluetooth connection worked flawlessly and didn’t introduce any input lag. Multitouch and the pen’s tilt recognition also worked as expected. If you’re used to varying your strokes by angling your pencil or brush, you’ll appreciate how natural this feels.
The competition
The Wacom Intuos Draw and Wacom Intuos Art were our previous picks for beginners, but they’ve been discontinued and replaced by the Intuos S and Intuos S with Bluetooth. They’re just as precise and easy to control as the Intuos S, and they come with excellent software, so they’re worth considering if you can find them for less than our current picks.
The Wacom Intuos S with Bluetooth is identical to the Intuos S but costs around $20 more and offers Bluetooth connectivity (plus an extra button, for pairing), which we don’t think is important in a beginner’s drawing tablet. With 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity, it was as easy to use as the non-Bluetooth model when we tested it wirelessly on Windows and Mac. It has a wired USB connection, too.
The Huion H610Pro is a popular large tablet with more than 1,400 reviews on Amazon and an overall rating of four out of five stars at this writing. But it has fewer keys than the Huion 1060Plus and a more outdated design.
Another large tablet, the XP-Pen Star 06 offers built-in wireless connectivity via a USB dongle, but we were unable to get the wireless to work on Mac or Windows, and support was unable to help. Otherwise, the Star 06 has a style and feel similar to that of the Wacom Intuos Pro (it even has a scroll wheel), but we found double-clicking with the pen on Mac and making faint lines in Photoshop difficult.
The medium-size XP-Pen Star 05 was the only tablet we tested that ate up CPU and memory on Windows. The stylus also felt cheap—we could feel the seams on the pen—and we experienced glitches with the tablet mapping to only part of the screen in wireless mode.
The large XP-Pen Star 03 gave us trouble with controlling the pressure sensitivity—we could create very faint or very dark lines, but not gradients in between. We tried reinstalling the driver to fix the issue but ran into multiple installation errors.
The Parblo Island A609 was the only drawing tablet we found under $100 with tilt recognition; this medium-size tablet also has four keys, a battery-free pen, and wireless connectivity. But unlike the other tablets, the A609 had a surface that easily scratched under a fingernail. We’re also concerned about the durability of the permanently attached USB cord, and we had a hard time controlling the pressure sensitivity to make light lines.
We also looked at several other graphics tablets, including the Monoprice 10-by-6.25-inch graphic drawing tablet, the Ugee M708, and the Huion DWH69, but we dismissed them due to poor reviews, worse features, or limitations such as requiring an AAA battery for the pen.
FootnotesDrawing For Mac Free
SourcesBest Hardware For Drawing
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