The best drawing tablets: fully tested for all kinds of artists and budgets

The best drawing tablets are essential tools for digital art and illustration. They allow artists and other creatives to replicate the feel of using a pencil on paper to interact with a screen to create all kinds of art in different software programs. Today, there are more options than ever, but there are big differences. We’ve tested and reviewed dozens of drawing tablets of different types and compared them to pick the best option for different needs.

There are three types of drawing tablet. A pen tablet or graphics tablet is a flat, slim slate-like device with high levels of accuracy that you need to use with an external screen in order to see what you’re doing. Pen displays work in a similar way but use a display instead of a tracking pad so you can see what you’re doing directly on the device itself. Finally, there are pen computers. These are general tablets like iPads that allow you to draw directly onto a screen with a stylus and also to run art apps (and other apps) natively.

To help you choose the best option for you, we’ve extensively tested a wide range of drawing tablets and curated views from our reviewers, assessing their design, performance, software and price to find the best option for different uses. If money is tight, you’re a student of beginner, try the best budget drawing tablets for when money is tight or the best tablet with a stylus for the complete package.

Best pen tablet

1. Xencelabs Pen Tablet Medium

Large pen tablet

2. Wacom Intuos Pro Large

Best value

Best pen display

4. Xencelabs Pen Display 16

Pro pen display

Budget pen display

6. XPPen Artist Pro 16 (Gen 2)

Best pen computer

For desktop apps

Budget pen computer

9. XPPen Magic Drawing Pad

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The best drawing tablets for animation; a photo of the Xencelabs Pen Tablet Medium — (Image credit: Future)

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Attributes	Notes	Rating
Design	Solid, comfy and a lovely ‘tooth’ feel.	★★★★★
Performance	Delivers an accurate and precise experience.	★★★★★
Features	Quick Key remote, two stylus and case.	★★★★★
Price	An excellent package at a good price.	★★★★★

Design: One of the most important aspects of a drawing tablet is the texture of its drawing surface, and the Xencelabs Pen Tablet Medium gets it bang on the money. As our reviewer noted in their five-star review of the tablet, the level of ‘bite’ against the stylus feels exactly right, and it makes the tablet immensely satisfying to draw on. Having used the Xencelabs Pen Tablet Medium myself I agree with our reviewer, this one just feels good to use.

Stylus pen pressure is 8,192, which is now standard and a solid performance, though the XPPEN tablets on my list blow this away with 16K levels of pressure, which is fast becoming a new standard. The Quick Key remote features eight programmable buttons and an OLED display for ease of use. The calibration and setup interface of the Xencelabs’ app is my favourite outside of Wacom, and this tablet works with all the leading digital art and design software, including Photoshop, ZBrush and Corel Painter.

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Attributes	Notes	Rating
Design	Built to last, comfy and large.	★★★★
Performance	Accurate and compatible with all software.	★★★★★
Features	8 Quick Keys, an excellent stylus and software.	★★★★★
Price	Not the cheapest, but Wacom will last a long time.	★★★★

Need to know: Wacom is a legacy brand for drawing tablets, and as such is compatible with every app you can think of and these tablets are very reliable. For creating artwork on a drawing tablet you ideally need lots of room to work with as well as a pen that feels just like the ones you’d use on paper. In which case you should opt for the Wacom Intuos Pro Large, which delivers pretty much the most natural drawing experience you can get digitally. In our review we found the Wacom Intuos Pro to be responsive and worked well with all leading digital art apps.

Features: The Wacom stylus remains one of the best around, and with 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity gets you as close as you can get to using an actual pen. All this is supported by Wacom’s broad ecosystem of alternative pens and Texture Sheets to give your drawing surface a distinctive feel. This drawing tablet is also multitouch for using gesture controls and stylus together – cheaper drawing tablets often lack this.

The Quick Keys are fully customisable, as is the stylus. This is also Bluetooth enabled (the cheaper Wacom Intuos range isn’t) and comes with everything you need in the box. It’s worth noting that unlike the Xencelabs this only comes with one stylus, Wacom’s traditional ‘fat’ design. If you prefer the slimmer Apple Pencil style of pen, then you can by one separately. It’s also worth noting Wacom is one of the best supported brands for alternative stylus.

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A photo of the blue XP-Pen Deco MW tablet on a white desk being used with the pen — (Image credit: Future)

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Attributes	Notes	Rating
Design	A little ‘plasticy’, compact and lightweight.	★★★
Performance	Solid but pros will need more features.	★★★★
Features	8 Quick Keys, a great stylus, and Bluetooth.	★★★★★
Price	Affordable and great value.	★★★★★

Features: Despite the budget price this XPPen tablet uses the brand’s excellent X3 chip-powered stylus that has 8,192 levels of pressure stylus, with 60-degree tilt; for this price, it’s surprisingly excellent. The XPPen Deco MW can connect to your main device via USB or Bluetooth too, so you don’t need to worry about wires (and boasts over 10 hours of wireless use). It can also be connected via USB and an adapter is included for USB-C connection.

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Xencelabs Pen Display 16 review; a pen display on a wooden desk — (Image credit: Future / Xencelabs)

04. Xencelabs Pen Display 16

The best pen display for a balance of specs and price

Specifications

Active drawing area: 13.5 x 7.75-inches

Resolution: 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Pen pressure sensitivity: 8192 levels of pen pressure

Connections: 1 x USB C. Supports HDMI and DisplayPort using Hub

OS: Windows, Mac OS, Linux

Reasons to buy

Beautiful display

Excellent stylus

Good design choices

Reasons to avoid

–

Lacks touch controls so Quick Keys Remote is required

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Attributes	Notes	Rating
Design	Well-designed, although no touch controls.	★★★★
Performance	Excellent stylus performance	★★★★
Features	Gorgeous OLED display with good colour coverage.	★★★★
Price	Good value for the specs.	★★★★

Need to know: The Pen Display 16 consolidates Xencelabs’ growing reputation for producing high-quality drawing tablets at very competitive prices. It’s well build and packs in features like an OLED display and good colour coverage at a reasonable price for a pen display of this size. Just note that the Quick Keys Remote, which is sold as part of a bundle, is really an essential to get the most from the device.

Design: We have been impressed with the build quality of Xencelabs’ pen tablets, and its foray into pen displays has keeps that up. We found this to be very light for a 16-inch Pen Display, but it felt reassuringly solid and durable, and it remained cool in use. The fat bezel around the edge of the screen is a good design decision since it means you can rest your wrists and prevents the stylus from falling off the tablet when selecting from menus in the top left or right corners of an app’s menu. It’s also nice that the bundle includes a case and a stand, which aren’t always included by other brands.

Features: The 4K OLED screen really shines, and it covers up to 98% of Adobe RGB,
98% P3-DCS and 99% sRGB. We found that the anti-glare coating worked with direct light overhead. It isn’t a touchscreen, though, so doesn’t support gesture controls. This means that the Quick Keys Remote included is a pretty essential add-on (it’s included in the bundle package but not in the Essentials package). The Remote can be connected via cable or wirelessly via a Bluetooth dongle, and it has its own OLED display to show key functions. Both the keys and the labelling are cutomisable, and we found them to be convenient and easy to use.

The two styluses included are the same ones that come with Xencelab’s other drawing tablets, so we’ve tested them a lot by know and we’ve found them to be consistently accurate. Each can be customised and set up for specific software or jobs, and there’s a case for them included.

In both cases, the tablet sits comfortably between Wacom’s Cintiq Pro 16 ($1,599 / £1399.99) and the budget XPPen Artist Pro 16 (Gen 2) ($599.99 / £529.99). Considering that the latter isn’t OLED and lacks true 4K resolution, Xencelabs offering gets our vote as the best value Pen Display overall. The new Wacom Movink 13 is a little cheaper at $749.95 / £729.98, and it has a touchscreen, but it’s smaller and has inferior colour coverage.

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Best drawing tablets; a tablet and stand — (Image credit: Future / Wacom)