Huion H610 Professional ~$50

I would always suggest Wacom, but they charge more than the other brands and have horrendous quality-control. Ports always breaking etc.. I hear it so often...

I never had any issues with Wacom - actually, it is the only brand ever I was able to use without issues. My first Wacom I have is from 1990's, and it's still 100% functioning. (It has an A7 surface so I can't use it anymore, but works.)
Wacom is not perfect, but overall it is still lightyears better than any other brand out there.

The tablet I'm using now is a 50$ "wacom alternative" model too, and it's not good at all. I only go for Wacom at this point.

Most brands promising the same quality as their big and expensive competitor for the fraction of the originial price always proven to me that in the end "you get what you pay for". Nothing less, nothing more. (Unless it's Apple....)

On note of Huion: it is far more infamous for bad ports. It has awful drivers, short lifespan, no wireless option (important for me), feels cheap for it's lower quality plastic coating, and it has to be pressed much harder than Wacom to draw (still has 2048 pressure sensitivity, but on a harder range. that is a huuuuge nope for me, as my wrist is easily strained), and it has crude, wide nibs like Genius, which makes it harder to draw accurately.
the cheap plastic nibs get dulled very quick (weeks?! ). + that rubbery coating on the stylus is super uncomfortable, sticks to your hand, the pen doesn't have eraser.... etc etc...
That is really $50's worth after all.


Thank you for the suggestion! Please don't take my arguments the wrong way, I'm grateful you tried to help, but wanted to share my honest opinion.

Oh no I am no artist! Thank you for your insight! I hadn't tried the Huion products myself.

I just try to avoid monopoly, and have heard a lot of bad about wacom. My friend's port breaking, an artist I commissioned having their port breaking, an artist disappointed in the low quality of their expensive Cintiq's screen etc.

About that tablet that still works now, they probably "don't make 'em like they used to".

A strong competitor would be nice. It is not expensive to add strong unbreakable ports and higher quality parts.. (am engineer).

Wacom is actually high quality. tried several models myself. It's made from relatively strong parts.
Ports break because of silly design choice; it keeps getting stuck, as it sticks out on the side of the tablet to the left, usually pulled back to the right. Though if you are careful, it won't break. +there is wireless option.

CintiQ monitors never promised to have high quality display until Companion came out. they had to lower the standard simply because the technology wasn't there. they were still at the level of a decent TFT monitor though, but many people expected a magical IPS panel where it simply couldn't be at the time. not by Wacom until 2 years ago, not by anything else up to this point.

The worthy opponents for Wacom would be Yiynova and Lenovo thinkpad X series. I could go on for weeks about why either of them can't really beat Wacom, but I will spare you from that. :P

Wacom doesn't have a monopoly. If they had one, there wouldn't BE any alternatives like Huion or Monoprice. The only thing Wacom could be said to have a "monopoly" over is their battery-less pens, and that's because they have them patented.

Wacom also has EXCELLENT customer service, while other brands either don't have any at all or terrible drivers. I sent my last Intuos Pro in to be repaired when it was under warranty (I dropped it and it landed on the port and damaged it) and they sent me a brand new tablet in exchange.

Wacom's driver support for OSX leaves a lot to be desired. -_-

Well to be fair, a lot of things have trouble running on OSX, art programs, games, etc.

No problem with the Adobe suite, it's what they were made for. And they're not for games, I don't do games anyway. Just the Wacom driver support has...issues that they never fix quickly enough, that cause the tablet to stop responding. -_-

I just know that it's not compatible with a LOT of things, so it's not entirely really Wacom's fault that they aren't entirely able to make things work 100%.

Funny thing, Wacom tablets work 100% on Linux, out of box, no need to even install any drivers at all. There is also a Linux version of their settings GUI that lets you easily customize every single property of it.

(they HAD excellent customer service, it got a lot worse in the last 2 years :/ )

This wasn't even a year ago that I had to have it replaced. I've really not had any problems with them. ;m;

Edit: It's been four or five months?

They didn't answer me, or my friend at all; when they answer they are cool; but more and more often they just don't :|

I would try again, it's possible the message got lost in a slew of other things? Big companies can run that risk at times. ;m;

yea, we gave up after the 5th or 6th message too ^^" Not saying it's a bad company, or I don't get why would they have trouble, but I wouldn't say their customer service is their best feature.

That sucks. D: I'm sorry to hear you had problems!

I'd agree there. I know two other people who have had issues with customer service as well.

Funnily, when I complained on twitter about the cord on my Intuos Pen&Touch being so short, and tagged @wacomeurope, they replied the same day, apologizing and promising to forward my complaint to their tech team. This was in August.

Hope you can get the Pro
so we can have bro's tablets x3

I use Pro, Pro has more levels of sensitivity than the regular Intuos Pen & Touch. It also comes with a wireless kit, which is pretty convenient!

yes, but it's also very expensive. I will have to generate that money from 0 up in a few days so it might not be my final choice ^^"

I use a small, and it's $200. Which, compared to other brands is more expensive, but it's one of those "worth every penny" things.

I know, I love Wacom and I know it's worth it - I'm just simply not in a position where I can afford it yet :/

The difference between 1024 levels and 2024 is really not that much in practice - general quality of input is way more important. The reason I would buy a Pro is the tilt and rotation sensors and some other extra features. But Small, uh... Anything smaller than Medium is practically useless for me. So I got the P&T Medium.

I've used 1024 and the 2000 and I prefer the higher levels. There's a noticeable difference in how hard you have to press down, and you can do much smaller strokes without having to constantly adjust the brush size.

Oh I'm sure there IS a difference, I just wanted to say that 1024 is already pretty darn good (if it's a Wacom*) and that IMO the features like tilt and rotation sensors in the Pro worth more than the extra sensitivity. If you have something that's already pretty decent, upgrading to a better one has a diminishing return, while getting new features you didn't have before is making much more of a difference.

* Akitary's ancient Thinkpad convertible with 512 levels has a much smoother pressure than the Genius with 2048 levels that I used until I got my P&T. XD

Oh I see! Yeah, the Pro has quite a bit of improvements overall. ;w; Not surprising, as their regular Intuos is just a rebranded Bamboo now.

I just wish they didn't have a fixation for changing things all the time... the P&T I have is still relatively recent and it's already out of production in favor a new one that IMO looks horrible. :D

I don't get why they have to trash perfectly well designed and well working models only for the sole sake of making a new one... :/

Depending on where you live, you can find used tablets, even Cintiqs cheap if a dotcom or agency has a bankruptcy auction. Check the local listings on newspaper sites and also on Dovebid. On that, you can bid on local-pickup-only items a la eBay, and go pick them up if you win. Great way to get creative gear cheap.

(They're all over the world, in some countries more than others!)

not here :|

There are no such agencies that could go bankrupt, and there is no presence of Dovebid at all.
I check Vatera listings which is our local "ebay", and there was not a single Wacom being sold in the last year that wasn't a 10 year old model or had it's pen missing.
Ebay is not really available here either; we can order some items from abroad, but only a few items actually ship here.

I have super limited options; I'm searching for one like this because I couldn't find one the normal way for many many months now.
But I suspect I will have to order a brand new one, at least that one will work for sure.

Ugh. Sorry about that, I was hoping there was something similar. Liquidations tend to have still-good stuff just stopped in the middle of use, whereas deliberate sale when someone's getting rid of one, it's more likely to be missing stuff or is just worn out, the sensitivity's shot, it was left in a hot car, whatever. (And they won't tell you that!)

Good luck finding one, though, your art is amazing, you deserve the best gear for working on it!

Also, keep an eye on http://eu.shop.wacom.eu/products/ot...../used-products , though I'm sure you have! Their stuff is certified, so. See what appears every now and then.

I do keep an eye out there! ^^ I'd be very glad if I could buy it directly from Wacom.
Thank you!