Tablets for Osu!

This post was last updated: Feb. 20, 2018

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I’m no master of the game Osu! since I only sit at around rank 100 000, only between the 5 digit and 6 digit ranks. However, I do think that I understand what is most important when it comes to shopping for an Osu! tablet after having tried Osu! on a bunch of these tablets (which I originally bought for art reviews).

For context, I play Osu! with either mouse + keyboard or tablet + keyboard, depending on my mood. I map my active area to around 2.7×1.5 inches and use the hover “style” rather than dragging.
I tested all these tablets with and without the most current tablet drivers installed.

From what I’ve experienced, I feel that accuracy, cursor delay, active area configurability, and hover distance are the most important aspects of an Osu! tablet. Pen shape and pen type are somewhat important too, but those are just preferences and are basically worthless if the 4 main aspects are not good. (For the most part, hover distance is not a problem with recent tablets, but some do have better ranges than others.)

Unfortunately, these aspects are not something you can find out about from looking at tablet specifications, and many reviews don’t actually cover the topic of built-in cursor delay. That is why I am making this post to talk about the tablets I have tried, and my recommendations for anyone interested in playing Osu! with a tablet!

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Table of Contents

• My recommendations
• Explanation of Accuracy, Cursor Delay, Active Area Configurability, and Hover Distance
• Wacom
• Huion
• XP-Pen
• Other tablet mentions
• Final words

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My recommendations

If you don’t want to bother reading, then my recommendations are as follows:

-XP-Pen Star G430
For anyone who only wants the tablet solely for Osu! gameplay. Not recommended if you intend to draw with the tablet as well because it’s so small.

-XP-Pen Star G640
For anyone who wants a tablet which can be used for Osu! gameplay as well as art.

-Wacom Intuos CTL-480/CTH-480
For anyone who can find this discontinued tablet, it is an amazing tablet that is fantastic for Osu! and drawing alike. A bit pricy because it’s a Wacom, but you might be able to find a good deal on it used.

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Explanation of Accuracy, Cursor Delay, and Active Area Configurability

Here, I will explain the three main important aspects of Osu! tablets, and the “ideal” for each.

Accuracy

Accuracy is exactly as it sounds. It is how accurate the tablet is.
The “ideal” is that if you were to label a single point on the tablet, your cursor should end up in the exact same spot on your screen every time your pen goes to that point.

Of course, being off by a few pixels is completely normal and not impactful on Osu! gameplay, but if the cursor is wildly off every time you point at the same spot, it will completely ruin your ability to play the game consistently.

That being said, I have never seen a tablet with accuracy so bad that the cursor completely deviates from where you would expect it to be, so even though accuracy is an important feature for Osu! tablets, you most likely won’t have to worry about it at all.

Cursor Delay

Cursor Delay is how much time it takes for the tablet to react to your motions and move the cursor.
The “ideal” is that the cursor will move right when you move your pen.

It may sound like a really simple ideal, but it is important to realize that these so called Osu! tablets are actually made by art companies. This means that the tablet drivers are optimized for drawing, not Osu! gameplay.
Due to this fact, many tablet drivers have built-in cursor delay to aid with drawing smoother lines, but that slight cursor delay is very detrimental for Osu! gameplay because every millisecond matters when hitting those long jumps in a fast song.

Of course, if the tablet works without the drivers, then there will be no cursor delay at all, but if you don’t install the tablet drivers, you can’t change the active area size, so you will be stuck playing with the full tablet area.
If that’s the size you prefer to play at, then that’s completely fine, but I believe most people will want to at least have the ability to adjust the active area to fit them better.

Unfortunately, none of the tablet drivers I know of allow you to turn off the built-in cursor delay if they have it, so I suggest just going straight for the tablet that doesn’t have any built-in delay. This will save you the hassle of trying to find a method to turn off the built-in delay through regedit and other confusing computer tricks.
(Note: I did not try the Fix My Pen! tool as I am mainly keeping my tablets for art reviews, therefore I do not want to mess with any of their settings so I can review them how they are intended to be.)

There is a user on reddit who has tested and compared the cursor delay on many tablets here: https://www.reddit.com/r/osugame/comments/80pft7/measuring_tablet_performance_by_using_a_3d_printer/. This user does a machine test for comparing the actual performances of the tablets.
The results are pretty much the same as what I have found just through using the tablets, with the Wacom CTL-490 being bad while hovering but good while dragging, the XP-Pen being good in general, and the Huions being bad because of cursor delay.

It is important to note here that you will most likely not notice cursor delay with your first tablet because, simply put, you’ve never experienced anything to compare it to. Tablets with cursor delay are certainly useable, but tablets without cursor delay are easier to play with the further you get into the game.

Active Area Configurability

Active Area Configurability is the extent of the configuration for the drawing area.
The “ideal” is that you can easily re-adjust the active area to be as comfortable for you as possible.
Keep in mind that if you don’t install the tablet drivers, you can’t edit the active area size.

All the tablets I’m about to talk about allow you to change the active area size by clicking and dragging a rectangle area in the tablet drivers, so the issue isn’t really in whether you can do it or not, but rather how to do it.

With every tablet, make sure you use the “screen ratio” option so that you can see the X and Y coordinate numbers at the same ratio as your screen, then start reducing the X or Y coordinate until you can reach the edges of the monitor with your pen without moving your hand too much. Then using cross multiplication with the original X and Y values (I assume you can do it) and adjust the other coordinate to match.

Of course, with that being said, that is just my way of doing it, and there is no “official” method of how to set up your tablet for Osu! gameplay. Experiment and practice until you find the best active area for you.

Hover Distance

Hover distance is the distance above the tablet that the pen will still be sensed from. My measurements are done from the tip of the pen nib to the tablet surface.
The “ideal” is that the pen is sensed from more than 15mm above the tablet surface, but around 13-15mm is a more realistic expectation.

Hover distance is a specification that’s listed in the spec sheets of a tablet, but those list rough estimates of the hover distance and can be different from the actual measured hover distance.
A good example of this is the Wacom Intuos CTL-480 which has a hover distance of ~14-17mm, but the advertised hover distance is 7mm.

I list my hover distances with a range because the tablet finds the pen at the lowest number, then loses track of the pen a bit further away.
For example, the Intuos CTL-480 senses the pen at around 14mm, then keeps detecting the pen until around 17mm where it loses the pen, making the hover distance ~14-17mm.

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Wacom

Wacom Intuos (CTL-480/CTH-480 series)

Accuracy: Really good. It’s Wacom, what else is there to say?
Pen Type: Thin rubber grip pen. Battery-free pen (no-battery/no-recharge).
Hover Distance: ~14-17mm

Without tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Could not test. Cursor did not react to pen without drivers.
Active Area Configurability: Unavailable without drivers.

With tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Good. No delay.
Active Area Configurability: Available in drivers.

This Intuos CTL-480 series is the most trusted and loved so far when it comes to Osu! gameplay. It has a comfortable (and durable) rubber grip pen and a really good hover distance. The accuracy is fantastic, and the pen is passive, and there is no cursor delay present.
If you can find it and you’re willing to pay the premium Wacom price for it, then it’s probably the best choice.

However, because it is discontinued, it is often quite hard to find it at a reasonable price anymore. Sold new, the retail price was 80 USD for the CTL-480, and 100-120 USD for the CTH-480. If you can find one with all the components for less than that, it’s probably worth considering.

Wacom Intuos Draw (CTL-490/CTH-490 series)

Accuracy: Really good. It’s Wacom, what else is there to say?
Pen Type: Plastic stick pen. Battery-free pen (no-battery/no-recharge).
Hover Distance: ~10-11mm

Without tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Could not test. Cursor did not react to pen without drivers.
Active Area Configurability: Unavailable without drivers.

With tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Bad while hovering, good while dragging.
Active Area Configurability: Available in drivers.

I have heard that a lot of Osu! players use a Wacom Intuos Draw tablet, however, I completely suggest against it. The cursor delay cannot be turned off with any simple on/off button and it completely ruins gameplay at higher levels. The hover distance is also rather small.
I could not get the pen input to work without the tablet drivers installed to test it without tablet drivers unfortunately.

Apparently the cursor delay only occurs while hovering, and disappears if you play by dragging. However, some people also say it doesn’t lag for them even when hovering. Honestly, it’s just a lottery whether yours will lag or not while hovering so I would not recommend it.

 

Wacom Intuos 2018 (CTL4100 series)

Accuracy: Really good.
Pen Type: Thin rubber grip pen. Battery-free pen (no-battery/no-recharge).
Hover Distance: ~13-14mm

Without tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Could not test. Cursor did not react to pen without drivers.
Active Area Configurability: Unavailable without drivers.

With tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Good. No delay I can notice.
Active Area Configurability: Available in drivers.

Surprisingly, this one actually doesn’t have the cursor delay problems of the previous CTL-490 so it works really well for Osu! gameplay. The pen also has a hard rubber grip and isn’t just plastic so it’s somewhat easier to keep your grip on it. It only loses out to the CTL-480 in terms of hover distance, but it’s still pretty decent either way.

However, the surface is way rougher than any other tablet I have ever drawn on, so this may not be a good tablet for people who drag rather than hover. I have already made my pen nib flat on one side just from one day of drawing, so I imagine draggers will also burn through their nibs.

Aside from the rough surface, it’s actually really good and I can recommend it if you’re fine paying the high price of a Wacom tablet just for Osu! gaming (it could be worth it if you’re also buying it for art).

 

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Huion

Huion Inspiroy H430P

Accuracy: Really good.
Pen Type: Plastic stick pen. Battery-free pen (no-battery/no-recharge).
Hover Distance: ~9-12mm

Without tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Good. No delay.
Active Area Configurability: Unavailable without drivers.

With tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Bad. A lot of built-in cursor delay.
Active Area Configurability: Available in drivers.

This is pretty new and it’s advertised to be an Osu! tablet, but the built-in cursor delay of the tablet drivers (because they’re using art drivers) cannot be turned off. The hover distance is also rather small and might not work well for you.
You can play Osu! without the drivers, but then you can’t adjust the play area size.

Huion Inspiroy H640P

Accuracy: Really good.
Pen Type: Rubber grip pen. Battery-free pen (no-battery/no-recharge).
Hover Distance: ~17-24mm

Without tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Good. No delay.
Active Area Configurability: Unavailable without drivers.

With tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Bad. A lot of built-in cursor delay.
Active Area Configurability: Available in drivers.

The best part about this one is that the pen is rubber grip, however, the cursor delay cannot be turned off when the driver is installed so it is not very suitable for Osu! gameplay. However, it is an alright tablet for art. The hover distance is also surprisingly high, as well as the extra range before the tablet finally loses track of the pen.

You can play Osu! without the drivers, but then you can’t adjust the play area size. It will also lack pen pressure for art if you don’t install the drivers.

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XP-Pen

XP-Pen Star G640

Accuracy: Really good.
Pen Type: Plastic stick pen. Battery-free pen (no-battery/no-recharge).
Hover Distance: ~10-11mm

Without tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Good. No delay.
Active Area Configurability: Unavailable without drivers.

With tablet drivers installed
Cursor Delay: Good. No noticeable cursor delay.
Active Area Configurability: Available in drivers.

So far, this is the only Osu! tablet that I’ve run into which doesn’t have noticeable built-in cursor delay in the drivers. This is my recommendation for anyone who wants to get an Osu! tablet which they can draw on as well. It’s the exact same size as the Wacom Intuos Draw, except it’s good for both drawing and Osu! gameplay because it doesn’t have any noticeable built-in cursor delay whether you install the drivers or not.

The biggest con is the relatively small hover distance, so it might not be the best choice for you if you tend to hover too high a lot. I had no problems with the hover distance though, but that’s just me.

The reason why I recommend the XP-Pen Star G430 at the top of this post is because it uses the exact same drivers as the G640, therefore there should be no noticeable built-in cursor delay on the G430 either. However, the G430 is only recommended if you just intend to play Osu! on it because it’s slightly too small for comfortable drawing.

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Other tablet mentions

I believe another notable Osu! tablet is the GAOMON S56K. Unfortunately, I have no idea about how much pen delay it has, however, I believe the XP-Pen tablets are better simply because they use battery-free pens which require no batteries or recharging.
*According to other Osu! tablet talks, the GAOMON S56K has basically no delay, so it may be worth considering if you prefer the heavier weight of a battery-powered pen.

Another fairly common Osu! tablet recommendation is the Huion 420 and H420. I do not recommend these because they use battery powered pens, and I have also heard that the pens are not very durable at all.
I see absolutely no reason to choose the Huion 420 and H420 when the XP-Pen G430 offers what they do, except with a battery-free pen instead of a battery powered pen.
However, if you do choose them, apparently there is no cursor delay if you use the old Huion drivers for them which you can get from Toy’s Osu! profile. I have not confirmed this though because I do not own the 420 and H420.

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Final words

Honestly, I do feel like I am getting a little ahead of myself talking about the “best” Osu! tablets when I am only at around 100k rank in Osu! myself.

If you are more well versed about playing Osu! with tablets and know I am saying something completely wrong here, please do not hesitate to point it out and help make this post more helpful for future Osu! players!

Thanks for reading!

XP-Pen Star G640 Review

XP-Pen Star G640

The XP-Pen Star G640 Sketch is XP-Pen’s newest screen-less tablet made to compete directly with Wacom’s low-end Intuos series tablets (aka Intuos Draw/Art/Photo/Comic). It is extremely minimalistic and makes you feel certain that you are not paying for anything aside from the features you asked for.

The XP-Pen G640 caught my eye because it offers basically the exact same capabilities as a Wacom Intuos for only 40 USD. (It’s 30 USD on Amazon.com, but I bought it for 40 USD off the XP-Pen Store.)
What this means is that if it’s as good as its specifications show, it will be the lowest priced tablet with a battery-free pen and an acceptable drawing area size. It will be the perfect “go-to” tablet for any beginner who just wants to give digital art a test run but doesn’t want to pay Wacom’s 80 USD entry price, or even experienced users who want to replace their Wacom Intuos!

I will also be giving a quick overview of the XP-Pen Store and my thoughts on it at the end of the review.

Anyways, onto the review!

Please note!
-I am not a Mac or Linux user!! I only tested this tablet on Windows 8 and Windows 10.
-Prices may have changed since I wrote this review.
-Check when a review was written. Some aspects may improve or change over time, so it is in your best interest to concentrate on reviews which are less than 1 year old.

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Table of Contents

• How good is this tablet?
• Important specifications
• What’s in the box?
• Tablet drivers
• The drawing experience!
• Conclusion
• Ordering from the XP-Pen Store
• Places to buy the tablet

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How good is this tablet?

Design and build quality: Pretty good.
Tablet drivers: Quite good!
Drawing experience: Quite satisfactory!

Overall: A really good buy for 40 USD!

My verdict:
-If you are considering this as your first tablet, I can certainly recommend it to you over a beginner Wacom Intuos.  The XP-Pen G640 is an extremely solid buy which offers a drawing experience almost on par with the Wacom Intuos.
However! If you can spare a bit more money for your first tablet, then I would still recommend going with a tablet that has a larger drawing area. My opinion is that this tablet is best considered when you aren’t sure whether you will continue digital art or not, and you don’t want to make a bigger investment when it may end up going to waste.
-If you are experienced with tablets, you probably only want to buy the XP-Pen G640 if it is the size you are used to.

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Important specifications

Price: 29.99 USD (when this review was written) Amazon.com (40 USD on XP-Pen Store)
Active Area: 6 x 4 inches
Pen Type: Battery-free
Pen Buttons: 2 side buttons, no eraser
Pen Pressure: 8192
Pen Tilt Sensitivity: None
Expresskeys: None
Multi-touch: None

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What’s in the box?

The box has a picture of the tablet and a nice drawing on it.

The things that come in the box:

• Tablet
• Pen
• Tablet cable (USB type-A to Micro-USB)
• Pen nib replacements x20
• User manual
• “Thank you” card

The tablet is literally just a drawing surface with nothing else to it. The top section of the tablet is thicker than the drawing area, but I assume this is necessary to fit the electronics inside.

The surface of the tablet has a fairly rough texture which grip your pen nib a fair bit. Because it’s very rough, your pen nib can wear quite quickly if you leave the pen pressure at the default setting. If you change the pen pressure settings, then the nib wear will decrease drastically. I will cover that in the Tablet Drivers section.

Although the surface of the tablet is quite rough, it is made of a very tough plastic so it does not scratch easily at all. There are no worn out areas even after spending two whole days drawing on it, and I was even being quite heavy-handed with my pen pressure.

The texture of the surface is quite close to the paper-like feeling of the Wacom Intuos, but it is not quite the same as it has a slightly more plastic-y feel to it. However, it does not feel bad to draw on at all.

The back of the tablet has four rubber feet and the usual information sticker. The rubber feet do a good enough job of holding the tablet in place.

The edges aren’t rounded like other tablets, but the tablet is so flat with its advertised 2mm thickness that you can actually use it comfortably even with your hand half off of the tablet!

The edges don’t look like the cleanest edges you can find, but they don’t affect your drawing experience at all.

When you hear about the 2mm thickness of the tablet, you’ll most likely wonder “won’t it break easily if it’s that thin?”
But not to worry! The tablet is actually extremely sturdy, and when doing a twist test (where you hold both sides and twist), it actually feels even tougher and more solid than the Wacom Intuos Draw, which is quite a big surprise considering how much thicker the Wacom is in comparison.

This tablet is extremely minimalistic and does not have any shortcut buttons. This is a good sign because it means you’re not paying extra for some shortcut buttons you’re most likely not going to use.

The cable port is at the top right of the tablet. There is no special groove around the cable port unlike with the Wacom Intuos, so you can use any Micro-USB cable you have if you lose the included one, but I suggest at least using a good one if you’re going to do that.

One thing I noticed is that the port itself can wiggle a bit. If you treat the tablet badly, it’s quite possible that the port will break before the cable itself.

The pen is called the XP-Pen PN01 and is made of a simple matte plastic with a bulge near the end to catch your fingers. It is a fairly light battery-free pen but it feels quite durable and dependable.

Holding the pen is very comfortable despite the pen being made of all plastic, and it does not feel imbalanced in any way. The buttons protrude from the surface of the pen making it easy to identify and use them without having to glance at your hand.

The top of the pen has nothing.

Many people have this misconception that all of Wacom’s tablets have a high quality pen like the Wacom Intuos Pro or Cintiq, so I would like to point out here that the Wacom Intuos (CTL-490) pen is just a plastic stick, just like the pen that comes with the XP-Pen G640.

I mentioned before that the nib does wear quite a bit, but that shouldn’t be much of a worry at all because this tablet comes with TWENTY replacement nibs. Yes, you heard me right. Twenty.

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Tablet drivers

The XP-Pen G640 uses the newest XP-Pen tablet drivers and they are extremely easy to install! You don’t even need to have your tablet plugged in to install them! 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, it should create a desktop shortcut for you to easily access the tablet settings. When your tablet is plugged in, the XP-Pen icon driver icon should appear in the system tray in the bottom right. You can also access the tablet settings by clicking on that.
Correction: The desktop icon only starts the XP-Pen driver software (if it doesn’t run automatically on startup) and clicking it doesn’t actually open the settings screen. To open the settings screen, you will need to click the XP-Pen icon in the system tray (the bottom right portion of your screen). 
If you don’t see the XP-Pen icon in the system tray, it could be automatically hidden by Windows. If so, click on the small white arrow to show all the system tray icons.

If the installer doesn’t prompt you to restart your computer after it finishes, I wholeheartedly suggesting restarting your computer anyways to allow Windows to properly update the files necessary for the driver to run smoothly.

The new XP-Pen driver is a simple one page driver with all the important settings on just the one window. Here you can set the pen buttons and pen pressure, and choose which monitor the tablet maps to.

You may need to check the Windows Ink checkbox at the bottom left for certain programs such as Photoshop, but most programs will work better with Windows Ink turned off. If you are having problems with a program, try toggling the Windows Ink option.

One thing to note is that there is no built-in cursor delay like what you would have with the similar sized Wacom Intuos or Huion H640P. This means that the cursor will move with your pen with no delay. This is a good thing, however, you will need to use the stabilization tools in your art program or third-party stabilizers like Lazy Nezumi if you do not have a steady hand or draw with quicker motions.

Another thing to note is that you can connect multiple XP-Pen tablets to the same computer and they will work! You will notice that at the top of the drivers, it has a drop-down menu that says “Star G640”. If you connect other XP-Pen tablets that use the same drivers, they will all be modifiable and useable through that drop-down menu. I can connect my XP-Pen Star 05 and XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote at the same time as the XP-Pen G640 and they all work and are completely programmable.
Of course, the only catch here is that only the XP-Pen devices which use the new drivers can do this. I believe the current compatible products are the Star 05, Star 06, Star G430, Star G430S, Star G540, Star G640, Deco 01, Artist13.3, Artist15.6, Artist16 Pro, and AC 19 Shortcut Remote.

Starting from the top left, the Barrel Button Settings section controls the functions set to the pen buttons.

You can set basically all keyboard or mouse shortcuts that you can think of using the function key option, but you cannot combine mouse clicks with keyboard keys in the same function.

The Click Sensitivity section controls the pen pressure curve of the pen directly. This is the most important section in the tablet settings as you will need to adjust this to reduce how hard you have to press for higher pen pressures to reduce pen nib wear.

The default setting of the graph is a straight diagonal line, but to get a lighter pen pressure setting which is more common, you should move the top dot to around the middle, and move the middle dot somewhere near the top middle as I show in the above pictures. This will give you the feel closest to what you get from most other tablets, and it will also help to drastically reduce pen nib wear, but you should play around with it yourself to find out what suits you best.

One concern I have regarding the default pen pressure is the fact that beginners will not know to adjust the graph if they haven’t seen or read a review like mine which talks about it. If they could implement the more common “Light to Heavy” control bar alongside the graph, it could be easier on new users who may not understand how to make use of a pen pressure graph.

One cool thing to note is that the only other tablet drivers with this custom pen pressure graph is Wacom’s Intuos Pro and Cintiq drivers. Wacom’s low-end Intuos tablets do not offer you the pen pressure graph, and none of the other Wacom alternatives offer it either!

The Current Screen section controls which monitor your tablet is mapped to, and what area of your tablet is used. For the best results, pick the monitor you are going to draw on using the drop-down menu at the top, then click the Display Ratio button to match the drawing area of your tablet with the aspect ratio of your monitor.

Left-handed people do not need to click the Left Hand Mode option as the XP-Pen G640 is already useable for both left and right-handed people in Right Hand Mode.

If you noticed earlier, there was a function called Switch Monitor among the functions you could assign to your pen buttons. That function cycles through all the available monitors in the drop-down list at the top of the Current Screen section when used.

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The drawing experience!

This tablet gave me a really good experience for a 40 USD tablet. The surface of the tablet is fairly rough and you will have to change the pen pressure settings so your pen nib doesn’t wear out too fast, but the pen pressure is really smooth and accurate. I can happily recommend the XP-Pen G640 as a half-price alternative to the Wacom Intuos.

XP-Pen Star G640

I only truly test my tablets on Clip Studio Paint because that’s all I use. You should contact XP-Pen support directly if you want to know if the tablet is compatible with the drawing program you use, but most major drawing programs should be compatible. Their customer support is also very kind so there’s no need to be afraid of contacting them directly.

At first, I was a bit taken aback by how hard I had to press the pen to get darker lines, but once I adjusted the pen pressure curve, the stroke control felt extremely good. When doing gradual increases and decreases in pressure, the lines come out completely as expected and there are no skips or jumps in the pressure at all.

The slow diagonal lines I did with a ruler have some small blips which I assume happens between the rows of sensors, but they don’t appear at all if you use stabilizers and/or quicker strokes. I never ran into them while I was drawing, but you may be different if you do not use stabilizers and/or quicker strokes to draw.

The roughness of the tablet was worrying at first, but the fact that they give you 20 replacement nibs really puts your mind at ease when drawing.

Like I mentioned before, because the tablet itself is so thin, you can still draw comfortably even if your hand moves off the tablet, so there should be no problem with the size of the tablet even for people with larger hands.

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Conclusion

I can really recommend this tablet for any beginners who want to try out digital art with a really low starting price, or just don’t have the budget to afford anything bigger. However, if you can spare more money for your tablet, I would suggest that you try to get something with a bigger 8×5 to 10×6 inch drawing area like the XP-Pen Deco 01 for the slightly more comfortable and controlled experience of a larger tablet.

Personally, I believe that the 6×4 inch drawing area of the XP-Pen G640 is the bare minimum size that anyone should get, so if you can get the bigger size, I would suggest you do so.

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Ordering from the XP-Pen Store

The XP-Pen Store is XP-Pen’s official online store. So far, I have ordered two products using it; the XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote and the XP-Pen Star G640.

The good part about the XP-Pen Store is that they have free shipping to basically all regions worldwide, so you won’t have to deal with some ridiculous 20 USD shipping fee on your 40 USD tablet.
However, the bad thing about the XP-Pen Store is that the prices for every product listed on it is higher than what is listed on their Amazon store. They are most likely giving “free” shipping by having you pay extra for the product to cover for the shipping in the first place. So as a result, you’re actually just paying for shipping, you just don’t realize it!

Another bad thing about the XP-Pen Store is that their shipping is slow and unreliable, at least, that’s how it has been for both of my orders.

For my XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote, they shipped it out on December 26, 2017 and it arrived on January 15, 2018. So that took around 20 days.

I could somewhat accept the slow shipping speed because it was around New Years and I was certain that would slow economy shipping. However, I had ordered the Huion H430P from huiontablet.com after New Years and it shipped out on January 4, 2018 using the same China EMS -> Canada Post route as XP-Pen, and guess what? It arrived in just 4 days on January 8, 2018. It arrived a whole week before the XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote which had already been shipped out a week prior!

Of course, I could have said that was just bad luck with shipping, at least, until they shipped my XP-Pen Star G640 on January 19, 2018 and it arrived on February 8, 2018. That’s 20 days again!

So basically, unless you’ve really got no other option, I completely suggest against buying from the XP-Pen Store. Stick to Amazon when you can and you’ll pay less for your tablet and also get your tablet much quicker than if you were to buy it from the XP-Pen Store.

Anyways, that’s all I had to say about the XP-Pen Store.

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Places to buy the tablet

XP-Pen Store | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | AliExpress
People living in other regions should check their regions Amazon or see if the XP-Pen Store ships to them.

If you have any questions about the tablet, feel free to ask me!

XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote Review

The XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote is currently the only alternative for the Wacom Expresskey Remote. It doesn’t offer quite as many buttons as the Wacom Expresskey Remote, but with a price of 36 USD which is less than half the 100 USD price of the Wacom remote, it’s a tempting offer for anyone who wants a shortcut remote, but thinks the Wacom remote is too pricey for what it does.

In my review, I hope to make it clear to you whether the XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote is a worthwhile low price alternative to the Wacom Expresskey Remote, or if its quality is reflective of its lower price.

I bought the XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote to use on the XP-Pen Artist 22HD because the tablet was simply too big and I could not comfortably use a normal sized keyboard alongside it.

On another note, Wacom devices come with a built-in Radial Menu software, whereas the XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote does not. To remedy this, I made use of a free program called RadialMenu (http://radialmenu.weebly.com/) which was created to give non-Wacom users access to radial menu and on-screen toolbar functions as well.
I will review the free RadialMenu software at a later time, but as far as I have seen, it perfectly replicates the abilities of Wacom’s Radial Menu software and I highly recommend you take a look into it if you want on-screen functions.

Anyways, onto the review!

Please note!
-I am not a Mac or Linux user!! I only tested this device on Windows 8 and Windows 10.
-Prices may have changed since I wrote this review.
-Check when a review was written. Some aspects may improve or change over time, so it is in your best interest to concentrate on reviews which are less than 1 year old.

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Table of Contents

• How good is this device?
• Important specifications
• What’s in the box?
• Drivers/Software
• The user experience!
• Conclusion
• Places to buy

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How good is this device?

Design and build quality: Decent.
Drivers/Software: Quite good!
Actual usage: Fair.

Overall: Completely use-able, but many design aspects reflect the lower price.

My verdict:
-Overall, this device is completely use-able and it will get the job done quite well.

All my complaints are somewhat idealistic and you could argue that the XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote is actually fairly high quality for its low price, so I will have to leave it to you to decide for yourself whether you want the budget XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote, or the Wacom Expresskey Remote.

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Important specifications

Price: 35.99 USD (when this review was written) Amazon.com
Buttons: 10 programmable buttons, 1 rotating wheel
Battery: 1x AAA alkaline battery (not included)
Wireless: 2.4 GHz

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What’s in the box?

The remote comes in a simple small box with a picture of the remote on it. There’s really nothing special to say about it.

The things that come in the box:

• XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote
• Wireless USB dongle
• Driver installation CD
• User manual
• “Thank you” card

Please download the shortcut remote drivers from XP-Pen’s site instead of using the outdated drivers on the CD. I installed and tested the drivers on the CD and they are limited compared to the new drivers available on XP-Pen’s site.

The remote has a similar design to the Wacom remote with buttons on the bottom, and a circular button on the top. The wheel area actually takes up quite a bit of space, and I can’t help but wonder if they could have fit a few more buttons on there by moving the wheel over to the side a bit.

The buttons are simple plastic buttons. The only physical indicator of which button your finger is on is the raised line on the middle key, similar to how a 10-key numpad has a raised line on the 5 key.
I had no problems navigating the keypad without any physical indicator bumps because I keep my fingers on the same edge keys all the time, but that depends on how you use your device I suppose.

The buttons themselves feel… subpar, at most. They are somewhat squishy to use and I much prefer the snappier feeling of the keys on my 15 USD Logitech keyboard, but I guess this is pretty par for the course for its low price. The buttons are completely use-able and don’t actually get in the way of drawing, they just don’t feel amazing.

The wheel is made of silver plastic which is actually quite slippery. The bumps on the plastic are there to help you grip the wheel, but they’re somewhat too small to help when your finger is dry or slippery.

So basically, it’s not perfect, but it’s completely workable. Once I adopted a method where I use both my index and middle finger to spin the wheel, the slipperiness of the plastic was no longer an issue.

The wireless symbol above the rotating wheel lights up briefly when the remote is turned on and when you click the buttons or spin the wheel.

The light is not so bright that it distracts you from your drawing.

As you can see, the black plastic around the wheel is a fingerprint magnet. I was never one who minded these kinds of fingerprint magnets as long as the device works, but if it bothers you this is probably not the device for you.

The remote is fairly slim with a thickness slightly more than a modern smartphone.

The back of the remote has two rubber feet which are meant to allow the device to stick to your screen. It sticks onto a clean screen for angles of around 0 to 60 degrees. Any steeper than that and the rubber feet cannot hold the remote in place.
Note: I have noticed that the rubber feet do not stick if they have even a slight amount of dust on them, so try cleaning the rubber feet and tablet screen if you find that it is not gripping the monitor.

The on/off switch is on the back. Off is towards the middle, and On is towards the outside. Well, if you can’t remember which is which, just toggle it to see if the light on the front flashes on.

One thing to note is that this remote seems to be made to only use power when a button is pressed, so even if you leave it on, it shouldn’t deplete battery as long as none of the buttons are being pressed.
Of course, I am not 100% sure about this, so it is safest to turn it off whenever you are not using it.

This shortcut remote requires one AAA battery to power it. It certainly would have been nice if it had a built-in rechargeable battery, but using one AAA battery isn’t much of a hassle in the first place.
Unfortunately, I have no idea how long one battery will last for, but I think it should last for more than a year (referencing the fact that Surface Pro pens last for around a year when used frequently, and they use a smaller AAAA battery).

On the back is a slot for the USB dongle. The USB dongle fits snugly in that slot and will not fall out no matter how hard you shake the remote.

That sounds good at first, but in reality, this means that it’s simply impossible to pull the dongle out with your finger. You’re certainly not going to lose the dongle, but you also aren’t going to be able to get it out without a wedge. It’s a good idea to be able to store the USB dongle on the remote, but it was poorly executed in this case.

Overall, there’s really nothing completely deal-breaking with the build quality of the XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote, especially when you take into consideration the price.

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Drivers/Software

The drivers for the XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote are easy to install. Make sure you download the latest drivers from XP-Pen’s site instead of using the driver installation CD because the newest ones have greater customization options.

When you install the drivers, they will automatically create a desktop shortcut for you to easily find and open the settings.
Correction: The desktop icon only starts the XP-Pen driver software (if it doesn’t run automatically on startup) and clicking it doesn’t actually open the settings screen. To open the settings screen, you will need to click the XP-Pen icon in the system tray (the bottom right portion of your screen). 
If you don’t see the XP-Pen icon in the system tray, it could be automatically hidden by Windows. If so, click on the small white arrow to show all the system tray icons.

When your device is plugged in, there will be an XP-Pen icon in the system tray. You can click that to open the device settings as well.

The settings of the shortcut remote are simple enough. Each button has its corresponding drop-down menu where you can choose to assign the default function, run a program, or assign a function key.
Note: A lot of Amazon reviews say some buttons are not programmable, but those reviews are wrong or outdated. All the buttons are programmable with the current XP-Pen drivers.

The hide hints checkbox controls whether the “hints” show up on screen. Hints are words that show up near the bottom of your main monitor to tell you which function button you just pressed and used.
The biggest problem with the hints is that they will only show up on your main monitor, so if your tablet is set as the second non-main monitor, the hints will not show up there. They are also fairly useless compared to Wacom’s Expressview because these hints only show up after you press the button, and not before.

Using the function key option, you can assign mouse clicks, keyboard shortcuts, or one of the four extra functions built into the driver. I believe the Switch Monitor function does not work for non-XP-Pen tablets.

One thing to note is that you cannot combine any of the 3 types of functions together. For example, you cannot assign right click and alt in the same function key. However, you can assign right click to a pen button and alt to a function key and use them in combination that way, so not being able to assign them together is not a problem at all.

To be very honest, I don’t even know of any shortcuts which use a combination of right or middle mouse click and a keyboard key, so I really doubt that not being able to combine them can be counted as a con, but I thought I’d mention it because I saw a review on Youtube pointing that out about the new XP-Pen drivers.

In the Dial tab, you can assign scroll, set up your own keyboard shortcuts, or assign no action.

There are no pre-built functions aside from scroll and no action, so you will have to match the zoom/rotate/brush size keyboard shortcuts of your program with the keyboard keys assigned to the dial.
I much prefer this customization approach over the drivers which only allow you to choose among pre-built functions as those often do not work in many programs, leaving the rotating wheel unuseable due to the fact that you cannot customize it and use it in your program.

One thing I have noticed about the wheel settings is that on computer start-up, the settings will automatically start at the third shortcut, even if the third shortcut is set to “no action”. If you do not assign a KL/KR Switch function to any button, make sure the function you want assigned to the wheel is on the third function, otherwise your wheel may do a whole bunch of nothing.

Along the top of the drivers, you will notice a plus and minus button. Those add or remove profiles which are assigned to specific programs. This makes it so that you can make custom profiles which will switch specifically when the assigned program is currently being used.
The “Other” profile is the default profile which will be used when no programs you have assigned profiles to are being used.

It’s great that they implemented the ability to automatically switch profiles based on the current program, but personally, I would very much appreciate it if there was a method to import and export profiles. That way, I wouldn’t have to manually set all my shortcuts again after reinstalling the drivers.
Is it a problem that you can’t import and export profiles? Not particularly, but it’s still something that I would like implemented.

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The user experience!

The XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote didn’t really hinder me in any way while I was drawing with it. The buttons are slightly mushy, but they press properly and activate all the functions that they’re supposed to, and I didn’t encounter any freezes with the drivers. I was able to use the XP-Pen remote with both my Ugee HK1560 and XP-Pen Artist 22HD with no problems.
I can quite honestly say that I wouldn’t mind using the shortcut remote as a replacement on big tablets like the XP-Pen Artist 22HD where using my keyboard comfortably isn’t viable, but I personally still prefer keyboards when I can use them.

The biggest “problem” that I ran into while using the XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote is that there is no way to identify which function the rotating wheel is currently on. For instance, if you have zoom, rotate, and brush size assigned to the rotating wheel, if you forget which function you were last on, you have to take the extra step of spinning the wheel just to figure out which function you’re currently on.
I addressed this problem by assigning Ctrl+Space (zoom modifier in Clip Studio Paint) to the button in the middle of the rotating wheel, and assigning rotate to the wheel itself. This way, the rotating wheel is solely for rotate, and the button in the middle is zoom, and I waste no time changing functions when zooming and rotating.
I assigned Ctrl+Alt (brush size modifier in Clip Studio Paint) to a different function key as I dislike using the rotating wheel for brush size in the first place.

Another problem is that the bezel on both my tablets is smaller than the shortcut remote, so the shortcut remote intrudes onto the screen a bit. It’s a slight problem that it blocks the File and Edit buttons, but even Wacom’s expresskey remote does that on the Cintiq Pro 13 and 16. You just have to lift the remote to access that section of the screen, or set custom functions on RadialMenu to allow you to use those File/Edit functions without clicking in that area of the screen.

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Conclusion

I think the capabilities of the XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote are really solid for the price it’s sold at. If you’re fine with a slightly lower quality shortcut remote, you can most certainly settle with the XP-Pen AC19 Shortcut Remote + free RadialMenu (http://radialmenu.weebly.com/) software to get functionality almost completely on par with what you would get from the Wacom Expresskey Remote.

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Places to buy

XP-Pen Store | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | AliExpress
People living in other regions should check their regions Amazon or see if the XP-Pen Store ships to them.

If you have any questions about the tablet, feel free to ask me!

XP-Pen Artist 22HD Review

XP-Pen AC 19 Shortcut Remote sold separately.

The XP-Pen Artist 22HD is a tablet which has been out for a fairly long time. I’m sure there are already quite a few reviews on it, but since I got my hands on one as well, I decided to do a review on it too.

This will be my first properly thought out review of a drawing monitor (as I’ve only been reviewing screen-less tablets up to this point) and I will try my best to cover all the important aspects of the XP-Pen Artist 22HD as a tablet, and as a monitor.

I apologize in advance for the long review, but I believe reviews should cover all the aspects of the product to give the most information possible to any potential buyers, so I do not intend to leave out anything just to make the review shorter.
If you notice that I have missed an important aspect of a drawing monitor, please feel free to remind me in the comment section.

As a side note, I was able to get my hands on my XP-Pen Artist 22HD through XP-Pen’s Facebook creativity challenge here: https://www.facebook.com/xppen/photos/a.869716696438984.1073741830.838115022932485/1306636806080302/?type=3&theater
If you have the time and live in one of the qualifying regions, I suggest you give it a try since you really can get a free XP-Pen Artist 22HD out of it if your entry impresses XP-Pen.

Anyways, onto the review!

Please note!
-I am not a Mac or Linux user!! I only tested this tablet on Windows 8 and Windows 10.
-Prices may have changed since I wrote this review.
-Check when a review was written. Some aspects may improve or change over time, so it is in your best interest to concentrate on reviews which are less than 1 year old.

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Table of Contents

• How good is this tablet?
• Important specifications
• What’s in the box?
• Design and build quality
• Screen quality
• Tablet drivers
• The drawing experience!
• Conclusion
• Places to buy the tablet

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How good is this tablet?

Design: Decent.
Build quality: Good!
Screen quality: Not fantastic, but satisfactory.
Tablet drivers: Basic, but satisfactory.
Drawing experience: Very good!

Overall: Worthwhile, but clearly an older tablet.

My verdict:
-If you are considering this tablet, it is a completely worthwhile option, however, the quality of the IPS screen is not amazing using current standards (more about that in the screen quality section). You should also take into consideration the amount of desk space that a 22-inch monitor will take up before deciding on it.

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Important specifications

Price: 479.99 USD (when this review was written) Amazon.com
Active Area: 18.7 x 10.5 inches, 21.5 inch diagonal
Resolution: FHD 1920 x 1080 (16:9 ratio)
Display Type: IPS
Pen Type: Recharging
Pen Buttons: 2 side buttons, no eraser
Pen Pressure: 2048
Pen Tilt Sensitivity: None
Expresskeys: None
Multi-touch: No

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What’s in the box?

The XP-Pen Artist 22 comes in a simple brown box. It was shipped in another close fitting brown shipping box.

The things that come in the box:

• Tablet
• Pen x2
• Pen stand
• USB type-A to USB type-B cable
• HDMI to HDMI cable
• VGA to VGA cable
• Power cable
• HDMI to Mini Displayport adapter
• Pen charging cable x2
• Pen nib replacements x8
• Screen protector (useless)
• Screen cleaning cloth
• Anti-fouling glove
• Driver installation CD
• User manual
• Warranty card
• “Thank you” card

In the box comes… the tablet! What a surprise!

Jokes aside, the tablet is fairly heavy so be careful not to drop it while trying to pull it out of the box.
And as you can see from the photo, the smooth glass screen is extremely reflective. I had no problems with the reflective glass because I draw in a dark room with minimal lighting, but you should make sure to check your own room for bright lights if you are considering this tablet, or take into consideration buying an anti-glare screen protector.

The XP-Pen Artist 22HD needs a USB cable for pen input, a video cable such as HDMI, VGA, or DVI to display the screen (or an adapter if your computer has a different port from those three), and a power cable to power the display.
My power cable is the US plug type, but the power cable should be different according to your region.

Three cables is the standard for a 22-inch display as it is still impossible to power a 22-inch display from just USB supplied power. Some tablets may combine the USB and video cables together, but the power cable is still a necessity for 22-inch devices.

The XP-Pen Artist 22HD comes with a free HDMI to Mini Displayport adapter if your computer uses that video output.

 

 

This tablet comes with two recharging pens which is very convenient for people who forget to charge their pens every now and then. Basically, even if one pen runs out of power while drawing, you can simply pick up the other one and draw while charging the first.

The pen is fairly comfortable with a bulge near the end to catch your fingers, although the rubber grip should be enough to give you a proper grip.

There are also two charging cables in case you lose or break one. The charging hole is at the top of the pen.

The tablet does come with a screen protector, but it is literally just a sheet of plastic you lay on top of the screen. One edge of the screen protector has adhesive to hold it in place, but the rest doesn’t actually stick on.
The biggest problem about this type of screen protector is that it makes big “oily” looking patches which you can get rid of for around 5 minutes by lifting the screen protector off the screen before it starts appearing again. It is way better to use the tablet without the included screen protector because of this.

I apologize, but the moment I realized it was this shoddy screen protector, I got angry at it and threw it out, so I actually don’t have any pictures I can show you of it aside from the package it came in… Just assume that you either have to use the tablet without a screen protector, or you have to order a separate one.
I used the tablet without a screen protector and there are no scratches at all, so there are no problems using it without a screen protector anyways.

The XP-Pen Artist 22HD comes with a cleaning cloth and anti-fouling glove included. The anti-fouling glove is especially helpful in letting your hands glide smoothly across the glass screen, and the cleaning cloth is a nice bonus.

The driver installation CD should not be used because the drivers on it are outdated. You should be getting the up-to-date tablet drivers directly from XP-Pen’s site instead.

You can get an extra month of warranty for the tablet if you like their Facebook, Youtube, and VK. (I’m not sure on the details so you should ask them directly if you’re interested.)

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Design and build quality

 

 

The screen is made of an anti-scratch glass which seems to live up to its name as I see no scratches whatsoever from the few days I spend drawing on it.

Thankfully the buttons are not placed on the front of the monitor, and are instead on the bottom edge. This means that they do not get in the way when drawing.

The tablet stand which comes with this tablet is very sturdy. The tablet moves when you press hard on the outer edges of the tablet, but those are places where you won’t ever be drawing on. The tablet does not move at all when drawing in the center area where your canvas should be on the screen.
The rubber feet on the tablet stand are incredibly good at keeping the tablet from sliding.

The biggest concern about the build quality of this tablet is in the direction of the cable ports which are facing downwards. This means that the cables will get in the way when you try to use the tablet in its lowest angle. If you readjust the angle of the tablet a lot, then the cables may eventually break, however, I doubt the cables will break readily if you do not move the tablet often.

I had no problems with the placement of the ports on the bottom of the tablet simply because I use the tablet at a ~40 degree angle, but it would certainly be preferable if the cables came out from the side or top to make them easier to manage.

Overall, the build quality of this tablet is nothing to scoff at.

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Screen quality

The screen colours on this tablet do not come calibrated, so I suggest that you run Windows Colour Calibration a few times to manually calibrate it, or use a colorimeter. I used a ColorMunki Display with DisplayCal to calibrate mine.

 

 

To change the monitor colours through the monitor settings, you have to go to the Color tab in the monitor settings, click Color Temperature, and scroll down to User and select that. Otherwise, the individual RGB adjustment sliders are greyed out and not adjustable. You could probably just use the sRGB mode in the monitor settings if you can’t be bothered to try calibrating it.

Turning on Gamma in the monitor settings also helps to improve the colours on screen. Gamma was turned off by default when I received it.

I mentioned this in the “How good is this tablet?” section before, but the IPS screen is not as good as it could be on the XP-Pen Artist 22HD.

The selling point of an IPS screen is that you can view the exact same colours from all viewing angles. The colours on screen should look the same whether you look at the screen from directly in front or from the side.
However, the XP-Pen Artist 22HD screen colours look washed out when you move your head to view the screen from fairly shallow angles despite being an IPS screen. You can see the colours getting washed out in the photo above.

I can certainly understand why it’s not perfect considering it was released around 2+ years ago, but for artists I would suggest a proper all-angle IPS screen for accurate colour reproduction, so this tablet somewhat fails in that regard.

Disregarding the somewhat aged viewing angles, this tablet has a decent colour gamut of around 92% sRGB and 70% Adobe RGB using DisplayCal and a ColorMunki colorimeter. Nothing particularly special, but certainly nothing to scoff at either.

Overall, the screen quality is not bad, but it feels like the age of this tablet is starting to show with the subpar viewing angles. Certainly use-able, but not ideal.

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Tablet drivers

The tablet drivers are pretty easy to install. Just go download the latest version from xp-pen.com and remove all other tablet drivers you have on your computer before installing it.

Once you install the drivers, an icon should automatically appear in your System Tray which looks like the above. You can access the tablet settings by clicking on that. (The System Tray is the area on the taskbar by the clock.)

If the installer doesn’t automatically prompt you to restart your computer after the drivers are installed, I recommend that you do anyways to allow the Windows files to properly integrate into your system.

In the Info tab, you have the option to hide the icon in the system tray and turn on/off Digital Ink (also known as Windows Ink).

If you accidentally hide the icon, you can find the tablet settings by searching for tablet settings, or looking for the tablet settings in the Control Panel.

The Digital Ink option is usually best left off, but certain programs such as Photoshop need it turned on for pen pressure to work. If your pen pressure isn’t working in a program, the first thing to try is turning on/off the Digital Ink option.

In the Monitor Setting tab, you choose which monitor your tablet is mapped to. That’s all.

In the Button tab, you can choose which functions your pen buttons are mapped to and the speed of double clicks.

Unfortunately, the buttons cannot be mapped to anything aside from right, left, middle mouse click, and the pen/eraser toggle.

In the Pressure tab, you can change the lightness or hardness of the pen pressure and test it.

The pen pressure starts at the lightest it can be though, so you can only increase the pen pressure to require heavier presses. I had no problems with the default light setting.

In the Calibration tab, you can calibrate the cursor using 4-point or 9-point calibration.

I personally do not see the point of calibrating the cursor on a drawing monitor as I find it is simplest to understand where the cursor will be by keeping the default machine calibration, in other words, cursor 90 degrees directly under the pen.

When you calibrate the cursor, you are basically forcing yourself to only be able to work with your head in a single spot so that the cursor appears directly under the pen from that angle. If you move your head even a little bit and look from a different angle, the cursor will no longer be where you expect it to be.
On the other hand, if you get used to the default machine calibration, you can draw the same no matter where your head is in front of the screen because the location of the cursor is constant in relation to the pen.

Overall, the drivers for the XP-Pen Artist 22HD are quite basic, but they have everything you would need for drawing on the tablet.

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The drawing experience!

The drawing experience on this tablet was quite good for a tablet that was released 2+ years ago. Drawing on a smooth glass screen was not a bad experience at all, and the pen input as well as the pen pressure were smooth and predictable.

 

 

XP-Pen Artist 22HD

I only truly test my tablets on Clip Studio Paint because that’s all I use. You should contact XP-Pen support directly if you want to know if the tablet is compatible with the drawing program you use, but most major drawing programs should be compatible. Their customer support is also very kind so there’s no need to be afraid of contacting them directly.

You can see an extremely slight wobble in the lines I drew with a ruler on the testing page. The wobble is extremely minimal so it shouldn’t have an effect on your drawing. The pen pressure is extremely smooth as well.
There were no problems regarding the tablets performance at all.

Regarding the temperature of the tablet, no parts of the screen become even close to unbearably warm. The bottom middle area becomes slightly warm compared to the rest of the screen, but that is all.
There were no problems regarding extended use of the tablet.

The only problem I had regarding the tablet was figuring out a way to use it with a keyboard. On my 15.6-inch Ugee HK1560, I could easily reach my keyboard behind the tablet, but with the 22-inch XP-Pen Artist 22HD, it was impossible to reach over it to type on a keyboard behind it. Placing the keyboard to the side caused me to have to reach too far to the side with my left arm while drawing, and placing the keyboard in front of the tablet is impossible for me as I place my tablet right on the edge of the table.
To address my issue, I ordered an XP-Pen AC 19 Shortcute Remote and used it alongside a free program called RadialMenu (here: http://radialmenu.weebly.com/), and that was able to do the job of replacing my keyboard for drawing functions.

Once I had the keyboard issue figured out, I had a fairly smooth experience drawing on the tablet.

Another issue I had with the tablet was that FHD resolution of 1920x1080p actually looks kind of pixelated on a 22-inch monitor. FHD resolution is fine on a normal 22-inch monitor because your face is actually quite far from the screen while typing/working/gaming. However, on a drawing monitor, your face gets really close to the screen so the pixels become quite apparent, especially on a super clear glass screen with no texture like on the XP-Pen Artist 22HD.
The reason that this was never a problem with the Wacom Cintiq 22HD (which also has FHD resolution on a 22-inch screen) is because of the texture and how it blurs the actual screen below it. Because of the blur, no one sees the pixelation in the first place so no one complains about FHD resolution being too low for the Cintiq 22HDs 22-inch screen!

Overall, I couldn’t actually find an issue about the drawing during my drawing.

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Conclusion

I can recommend this tablet to anyone interested in it. The IPS screen not displaying colours perfectly the same when viewed from different angles is certainly a con for an art tablet, and the fact that the cables come out from the bottom is a bit of a nuisance, however, all the other aspects of it are great. Anyone who is really intent on getting a 22-inch drawing monitor can certainly consider the XP-Pen Artist 22HD, especially for its low price in comparison to the other very similar 22-inch drawing monitors offered by the other Wacom alternatives.

I personally would suggest that you stick to more recent 15.6-inch drawing monitors as they have better colour reproduction, take up less desk space, and are more than big enough to work on. However, if you really want to have a 22-inch drawing monitor in your room no matter what, the XP-Pen Artist 22HD could be the one.

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Places to buy the tablet

XP-Pen Store | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | AliExpress
People living in other regions should check their regions Amazon or see if the XP-Pen Store ships to them.

If you have any questions about the tablet, feel free to ask me!