howdy! i was wondering if someone can help me decide which screened tablet to purchase. recently i've been thinking about grabbing a screened tablet for myself. i currently am using... some kind of Huion, it was bought as a gift for me, and it doesn't have a screen. i'm not really a part of any big art communities so i thought i should ask here: what do you recommend? i know Cintiq can be pretty pricey but for good reason. Wacom is definitely the first brand that pops into my head when i think about high quality/well known products. however i hear that the Huion Kamvas Pro 24 and the XP-Pen Artist 15.6 are both very good as well. alas, i don't know much about them and would rather have first-hand recommendations than looking at one of those "best screened tablets for 2021" websites, idk why.

but if you have anything to say, any pros/cons or anything i'd love to hear them! thank you in advance ♥

What kind of budget are you going for?

i was thinking max of $1500, i'd prefer to stay under the 2k range if possible

Okay, a much higher budget than I'm used to! I'm broke so my tablet experience might not help that much (mine is about $300).

ohh which tablet do you use? i'm interested in hearing all options! i just mainly want to know what people recommend ^^ i'm willing to spend up to that much, hopefully less lol

I have a VEIKK VK1200. It comes with 2 pens and 20 nibs. I have a baggy full of nubs and that's after I stuffed them in the pen holder thing (it twists open). I'm drowning in nibs and it's fantastic. The screen has a little bit resistance to it which I actually like. It's my first screen tablet (so that's why I did not jump into an expensive tablet right away since I'm still not entirely sure what I'm doing) but I like it a lot so far.

I'm still trying to find the stability settings that work best for me, and currently my hotkeys aren't working properly (what my computer says they're doing is not what they're doing).

Also, the company is Chinese so English is not their primary language, but you can understand it. It's also fulfilled by Amazon, so you don't have to wait for it come from China.

the extra pen sounds like a lifesend!! i lose my pens allllll the time and it made me cry whenever i was using Wacom tablets because their pens are (or were, idk what they are now) $30 per.

hey that's fair! it sounds like it's working well for you. i am technologically incompetent so having difficult to install programs really stresses me out -- had an issue with my huion where it just wouldn't read my pen pressure when i connected it to my new pc... until one day it did. lol

there's a lot of pros here though, i'll consider it! thank you so much for telling me!

I've heard a lot of accounts of Huion's bricking themselves but I've never had one. I got an iPad with Procreate recently and I love it so far!

I personally use a Cintiq. They have cheaper ones now that would definitely fit your budget. When I got mine a few years ago for around $1500 they literally released the new ones a few months later. I was livid. Needless to say it was the best investment ever. I don't think I'd ever want to go back to a normal tablet.

As a note I do recommend getting an ergotron arm and mount it to your desk or surface you'll work on because it gives you far more motion for the tablet and lets you practically have it in your lap.

I have an XP-Pen screen tablet I bought last year, the Innovator 16. I'm happy with it so far and haven't had any problems. Before that I had a Wacom Bamboo Fun (no screen), and that's the only other tablet I've used so I don't know how it compares to other screen tablets like Cintiq. It seems pretty good for the price (380€ when I bought it discounted, a bit expensive but much lower than 1500$). The pen is comfortable to draw with and you get a lot of extra nibs.

The included stand is a bit flimsy and I think the angle is too low (you can only set it to the one angle). I'm probably going to buy a better stand I can angle higher, so that might be worth keeping in mind that you might need extra equipment than what is included. Not sure if this is the case for the other XP-Pen tablets.

While I like the tablet, if I had to choose again I might have gotten a regular tablet and drawing pen instead, so I can draw anywhere (this tablet is too big to bring places imo, and it needs to be connected to a PC and have its own power supply). But for something to keep at home I do recommend it.

xp-pen is affordable, but we are a little picky about resolution. everything else about it is perfect though, runs fine, good colour gamut and not any glitches so far knock on wood

I have a Huion Kamvas 13, and I have been in love with it since I got it. But I recently have been using a Samsung Galaxy S7+ tablet and that works great as well. I thought I'd use it for doodles, but I have been drawing full on digital artworks on it.

i have an ipad with procreate, i don't care for it very much and just use it for sketching. i'm glad you like it though!

oohh thank you so much for that tip. i think i remember seeing a small one for about $700

that seems to be around $600 so it is up there but if it's good then it's worth it to me! i'm a homebody so i mostly stay home anyways. i'll still probably keep my huion since it still works, and if i do happen to go anywhere the drivers are already on my laptop, so i think that's a nice middle ground even if the tablet itself is a bit sizeable.

what's with the resolution, is it just a bit weird? everything sounds really good though, you're selling me on it haha ♥

how was the driver installation for it? was it easy? i had a bit trouble with getting my non-screened one to work with new computers. unfortunately i think i'm just too much of a creature of habit to enjoy using new programs. suppose that's why i'm still using the original paint tool sai for everything, because it's simple to me and i already know it lol. i like playing around on my ipad in procreate but have trouble actually making pieces on it. ^^;

I didn't have any trouble with the drivers installing, but I did have trouble with iworking in Paint Tool Sai at first. There was a workaround that let me use the tablet in the program, but I had to do it every time e I would turn my laptop on. I eventually moved to Clip Studio Paint, where I had no issues.

I find it ever so slightly pixelly? but not like, so bad it's unusable, I just notice it because I'm extremely used to using crystal display lol, everything else about it is perfect, and mine is the 15 artist pro! It cost around 400 dollars, and usually reviewers on yt have discount codes you can use to buy the tablet

Yeah, I bought it on a sale though so much less than the full prize. They seem to have sales frequently, so it seems worth it to wait for a sale in any case. I also kept my bamboo, but uninstalled the driver. I've heard different drivers can cause conflicts, so you might have to wait and see if it will work having both installed at once.

I thought I'd come back and drop off a few links so you can get a better idea. With their newer line I heard very good things(wacom that is). All the other brands I get extremely nervous about because while they might work well for some most have rather low ratings(or medium at the most). If I had to spend $700 on a tablet I'd want it to be one I can trust(wacom being the leading brand). That isn't to say the other screens are bad at all but you get what you pay for ultimately. I have no experience with them personally since I was far too nervous when I bought the cintiq. I almost did get a Huion though. lol

Wacom One - $400 Cintiq 16 - $650 Cintiq 22 - $1.2k

Ergotron Arm - $150

If you have the budget and the space for it. Go with the Cintiq 22. I have the Cintiq 16 due to lack of desk space. Also with the stimulus check that's what I could reasonably afford. When I was looking into a screen tablet myself I was looking at the alternatives, but there were a few deal breakers with the alternatives for me. Even if they were cheaper, I don't think I could've put up with those little issues.