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A Couple Hours with the Monoprice 19" Tablet Monitor
11 years ago
General
I saw the UPS truck come down the road and stop at another house in our development, drop off a package, then drive away. It took me 10 minutes to realize my package had been delivered to the wrong address (after checking my tracking number online, which had said "DELIVERED" with nothing on my doorstep), and fortunately I had the guts to go knock on the neighbor's door. They gave me an (opened, they must have been curious) box with my tablet inside- fortunately the tablet's packaging was undisturbed. I got lucky. I emailed UPS support to report their wrongdoings. An honest mistake.
Anyway, off to the tablet itself! Setting up was easy despite all the mixed reviews: I simply had to uninstall the Wacom drivers, download & install the Monoprice drivers, and then plug it in: in that order. It did not come with a DVI cable or DVI to mini display port adapter (for my iMac) so fortunately I already had those. Something to consider. Once plugged in and set up properly in the Displays control panel, it worked wonderfully. The pen feels a little stiff so I have to press hard to get full pressure, but that can be adjusted for and the pen just may need to be broken in (and believe me, it will be). In the time I used it I got a few "blips" (like full-pressure blobby things) in the pen pressure but nothing that would interrupt my workflow. A concern in the reviews was the bad viewing angles, and that is definitely present. When calibrating the monitor it is SUPER important that you're looking at the monitor the exact way you'll be when drawing with it. But I figure that can be compromised for by 1) using premade color pallets and 2) just dragging your working image to a correctly calibrated monitor (my iMac screen for instance) every once in a while. The last thing that really makes me scratch my head is a little speck of dirt between the glass and LCD panel, which was a complaint that I found often in the reviews. WHY and HOW does that get past quality control? Anyway, it's in the upper right area of the screen outside of my work area, so it isn't worth complaining about but it's good to know if you decide to purchase one. A couple reviewers complained about the distance between the pen tip and the cursor, but I didn't find that to be a problem probably because I've used normal non-screen tablets all my digital art life.
Summary:
Pros:
PRICE
Functional
Good size
Pen feels good, comes with 4 extra nibs
Pressure sensitive
Zippy compared to Wacom tablets
Can be used purely as a regular tablet if you disable the screen (screen uses VGA or DVI cable while tablet digitizer uses a separate USB)
Cons:
Dirt particle in screen
Color accuracy and bad viewing angles
No DVI cable or Mac adapters- must be bought separately
Pen's buttons can only be mapped to left, right, and middle click
No hotkey buttons (but you were going to use your keyboard for hotkeys anyway)
No eraser on pen (but you weren't going to use that anyway)
Not perfect, but considering you can get five of these puppies for the price of one equivalent Cintiq, it's a steal. Would recommend because of its 30 day return policy as I get the feeling quality control isn't the best. Worth a shot if you're in need of a tablet upgrade and on a budget. I'm completely happy with my purchase.
With Love,
Birdfox Bri
Anyway, off to the tablet itself! Setting up was easy despite all the mixed reviews: I simply had to uninstall the Wacom drivers, download & install the Monoprice drivers, and then plug it in: in that order. It did not come with a DVI cable or DVI to mini display port adapter (for my iMac) so fortunately I already had those. Something to consider. Once plugged in and set up properly in the Displays control panel, it worked wonderfully. The pen feels a little stiff so I have to press hard to get full pressure, but that can be adjusted for and the pen just may need to be broken in (and believe me, it will be). In the time I used it I got a few "blips" (like full-pressure blobby things) in the pen pressure but nothing that would interrupt my workflow. A concern in the reviews was the bad viewing angles, and that is definitely present. When calibrating the monitor it is SUPER important that you're looking at the monitor the exact way you'll be when drawing with it. But I figure that can be compromised for by 1) using premade color pallets and 2) just dragging your working image to a correctly calibrated monitor (my iMac screen for instance) every once in a while. The last thing that really makes me scratch my head is a little speck of dirt between the glass and LCD panel, which was a complaint that I found often in the reviews. WHY and HOW does that get past quality control? Anyway, it's in the upper right area of the screen outside of my work area, so it isn't worth complaining about but it's good to know if you decide to purchase one. A couple reviewers complained about the distance between the pen tip and the cursor, but I didn't find that to be a problem probably because I've used normal non-screen tablets all my digital art life.
Summary:
Pros:
PRICE
Functional
Good size
Pen feels good, comes with 4 extra nibs
Pressure sensitive
Zippy compared to Wacom tablets
Can be used purely as a regular tablet if you disable the screen (screen uses VGA or DVI cable while tablet digitizer uses a separate USB)
Cons:
Dirt particle in screen
Color accuracy and bad viewing angles
No DVI cable or Mac adapters- must be bought separately
Pen's buttons can only be mapped to left, right, and middle click
No hotkey buttons (but you were going to use your keyboard for hotkeys anyway)
No eraser on pen (but you weren't going to use that anyway)
Not perfect, but considering you can get five of these puppies for the price of one equivalent Cintiq, it's a steal. Would recommend because of its 30 day return policy as I get the feeling quality control isn't the best. Worth a shot if you're in need of a tablet upgrade and on a budget. I'm completely happy with my purchase.
With Love,
Birdfox Bri
isn't it always nice to get new art supplies, tho'? I remember cracking open my wacom intuos 3 like eight years ago. It's still going strong! Nowadays I'm buying a lot of traditional art supplies for the first time and getting all excited about those X3