28 Aug Choosing the best Drawing Tablets in 2024

You love drawing characters and decided to become a freelance artist. Once day you see a time-lapsed video of those fancy drawing tablets but you are like a lost ball in the high weeds…

Should you buy an Ipad or Wacom Cintiq?
As a stand alone station or as a peripheral device?
Wacom or affordable Huion tablets?
Big or small drawing area?
With or without screen?
…

We won’t bore you with technical jargon, we will bore you with our very personal opinion instead 🙂

1.- What is a drawing tablet?

Have you ever trying drawing with a mouse? It is hard… but imagine that your mouse is like a pencil that perceives acceleration, angle inclination and most important… pressure!! More you push, thicker is your path.

There is marvellous software like Procreate, Painter or Photoshop that mimic any traditional medium, so it is actually like drawing on paper or painting on a canvas. It can increase your learning curve dramatically since you have all advantages of a digital environment.

There are mainly 3 options: drawing pads also named pen tablets, drawing screen peripherals and stand alone stations. They have different features and prices that we are going to review.

We intentionally take out sketching on paper smartpads like Bamboo Folio, as El Profesor doesn’t consider it optimal for artwork production.

2.- Which are the drawing devices available?

Depending on the features we have drawing devices cheap as chips, or expensive like popcorn at the movies.

So which drawing tablet is the best?

It really depends on your budget, the art you want to create and how you want to use it.

3.- What is the best drawing tablet for beginners?

Our recommendation for beginners is starting off with a drawing pad or drawing tablet. If you really have a future tied to graphic design or illustration, it will be more than enough to start off.

If not we can guess your nephew’s Xmas gift… check!

Any low range device from any top brand (i.e. Bamboo, One by Wacom, Inspiroy Huion) is a good choice for beginner artists. Keep in mind those pen tablets doesn’t include screen, so very precise tasks like freehand drawing could be tricky.

Which pen tablet brand should beginners buy?

At this level our suggestion is that you base your choice depending on your budget… easy as 1 2 3. Wacom is the industry standard for years so more expensive. Huion has great reviews on Amazon and are more affordable.

Which tablet size and model should I buy?

For drawing pads I would say the smaller the better so you can use it together with keyboard for shortcuts. If you have a reasonable budget, better an upper range (i.e. Intuos over One) than a bigger size (the smallest A6 is perfect).

Does every professional artist have a drawing pad?

Not really, drawing pads are not really ideal for freehand drawing or for vectors. They work beautifully for photo editing or digital painting.

Which software is better for pen tablets?

You can use it with any professional software for graphic editing, my preferred is Photoshop. You can also use it under Illustrator but it is not so smooth. For vector illustrations I rather prefer creating artwork in Photoshop and then vectorise with Vector Magic.

4.- What is the best drawing screen for pro artists?

Our recommendation for advanced or professional artists are screen tablets. They have middle range price but you can eventually create any kind of artwork. They have the best value for the money.

Any middle budget device from any top brand (i.e. Wacom Cintiq or Kamvas Huion) is a good choice for advanced or even professional artists. In this case size matters, our recommendation is any tablet between 16 and 21 inches. 

Which drawing screen brand should advanced artists purchase?

El Profesor has been a Wacom user for more than 15 years. Believe it or not, any of the 5 Wacom devices he owned (Intuos 2 A6, Intuos 3 A6, Cintiq 20″, Cintiq 13″ and my current Cintiq 21″ HD) never had a single fault. As we said, it is the industry standard so it is more expensive. Huion and XP Pen has great reviews on Amazon and are more affordable but El Profesor never tried them.

Which screen size should I purchase?

For screen tablets any size around 20″ is perfect. Space matter for him since he still uses a keyboard instead of tablet built-in express keys. Those bulky 27″ screens are just too big. So we rather prefer a handy device that can be moved and rotated than a giant and fixed one.

Which range should I purchase?

Again, it is better having a higher range than a bigger screen. El Profesor loves his Wacom Cintiq 22″ HD, it is just perfect.

Does all professional artist have a screen tablet?

It is a must specially if you are serious about freehand drawing or appreciate the extra space of a nice secondary monitor.

Which software is better for screen tablets?

Same as for pen tablets, you can use it with any professional software for graphic editing. Photoshop is the cornerstone of any professional illustrator or graphic designer while Illustrator is key for vector design.

5.- What is the best drawing workstation?

Those expensive work stations are also named Pen Computers. This kind of device has its own operative system so they are fully portable just like a Windows tablet. Which is the best -and only- selling point in our opinion. The biggest downside is the price and the lack of power as primary work station.

Wacom Mobile Studio with top specs (which can’t be compared to a top range laptop) are expensive as hell. And reviews are not great reviews quite good in 2024 for a device that cost +3,000US$ that now cost around 2,500US$. The lower end of the range is more affordable but it has not power enough to run heavy stuff. So it is more a secondary station than an all-terrain primary station.

At any case, for 3000US$ you can get a top refurbished Macbook Pro, a lovely refurbished Wacom Cintiq 22″ and probably a few bucks left in your pocket for a good dinner. Lots of power, lots of space, lots of options… and a full belly!

Which drawing pen computer should rockstart artists buy?

In our opinion, pen computers are a no go for now. Hopefully in the near future manufacturers will increase power and software developers will provide not so limited products so they can be used as primary work stations.

Do all professional artists have a Pen Computers?

Big NO. You don’t need such a expensive tool to be a pro. Buy it only if you already have a good primary station, need portability and money is not an issue.

What about Ipad Pro and Surface tablets?

Microsoft Surface tablets suffers similar limitations, expensive and not power enough to be considered as a good primary station. Perfect if you can afford an expensive secondary portable device.

Technically speaking we wouldn’t consider Ipad Pro as a work station because of the limited operative system (so limited software), but it is fully portable. Together with Apple Pencil and Procreate you can create nice artwork but you need lots of RAM to handle a decent amount layers at high resolution, which means $$$$. Again, it is not an ideal primary station… it is more a very specific tool for painting or sketching on the go.

6.- What is my recommended setup for pro artists?

So… what is the best value for the money? Should I buy an Ipad or a Wacom for drawing? In my opinion, the best primary setup possible for professional artists would be a reasonably powerful laptop and a  Wacom Cintiq, Huion Kamvas or XP Pen of around 20″, an Ipad Pro is a nice to have device but expensive and limited, I would buy it only as a secondary device if my budget is high enough.

Play the video to watch Photoshop + Wacom Cintiq at work:

As a secondary device, if you can afford it, an Ipad Pro + Apple Pencil + Procreate would be a good option to draw on the go. Feel free to play the video to see them at work.