Great article! I don't have tumblr (anymore) so I'll comment here :)

At first I owned small Genius tablet and it was good for a start, when I started to draw more I bought Wacom Bamboo Pen&Touch. Used it for ~3-4 years. It was a good tablet, but when I developed my skills I felt disappointed with pen pressure. I felt like the tablet isn't following my strokes how I would like it to do. Also I hated the touch thing - it only frustrated me. I always had it turned off, well, at least I tried to. Sometimes I turned it on by accident by hitting the express key button with my left arm. Touch was giving misleading informtion to computer when I drew - it didn't work well and detcted my palm.

After Bamboo I invested in Wacom Intuos Pro M and oh boy, what an upgrade it was! It had 2 times bigger pen pressure and I really felt the difference. (1024 vs 2048). I liked it, I used it for 3 years. It filled all my needs except one - I'm a traditional-based artist and I just couldn't get used to looking away from my hand. My effectiveness was very low, and drawing lineart was just awful. It also had this pen&touch, but finally the palm detection was improved. I kept touch shutted down anyway as I never found it useful. Also the express keyes were never useful for me. I use a lot of shortcuts in PS and I use them on my keyboard. The buttons were pissing me off on Intuos, as they were touch-detected and if I putted my arm on them accidentally I'd trigger them.

Another problem I had with Intuos was chronic palm pain. When i drew on tablet laying plainly on desk my hand would hurt after a 1-2 hours of work and it made me crazy, I tried to lift it by putting books under it, but it always slipped off.

In the end I decided to invest in a screen tablet as soon as possible. I couldn't afford Wacom as it's screen tablets are super overpriced. My friend stumbled upon Tojo The Thief's review of XP-Pen Artist 16 by accident and I decided to give it a try.

the tablet: http://www.xp-pen.com/goods/show/id/187.html

I'm using it for a few months now and I'm very happy with it! It has very nice quality, drivers never break (on Wacoms it was a great nuisance)

PROS
- the price! 500 euro, in which you get ALL the gadgets and cables. The glove, cables of all sorts, protector screen, TWO styluses (!) and two screen cleaning clothes (for Wacom you need to buy everything separately and the tablet alone costs 1600$)
- the resolution is 1080p, screen has 15,6'', just like my laptops screen so it's very comfy for me, also my graphic card would choke on 4k resolution (which seems pointless to me)
- very solid stand, which you can adjust in many angles.
- great and responsive support, which respond very fast and was very helpful to me
- express buttons, which I finally don't click by an accident
- great screen quality
- no lags, good callibration
- pen nibs don't wear out as fast as the Wacom ones
- 2048 pen sensitivity just like on Intuos

CONS
- stylus pens are chargable and don't have eraser, but it isn't really a con for me as I never used eraser and the batter lasts for a very very long time. (my first pen charging happened after 2 months of everyday use)
- no scrollable ring button. the only "express key" I used on my Intuos was this ring thing and I really miss it, theres a remote controller tho that you can buy separately - http://www.xp-pen.com/goods/show/id/171.html . I own it and it's very good, can't rotate the canvas with it tho
- protector screen gives this rainbowing effect on the screen and it made me crazy, so I peeled the protector off. Screen has a very good glass tho and support said the protector isn't needed as screen is made to withstand drawing on it (no scratches yet after a few months of drawing everyday)
- CABLES. I hate cables and this on has three of them (power supply, hdmi and usb). Unfortunately even on Intuos and bamboo cables made me go crazy, so this con applies to all of them. Only solution to get rid of them for me would be to buy a standalone tablet :c

In summary, buying this tablet was a leap of faith for me and I regret nothing. Wacom isn't the tablet god anymore. I made a big research with my friend later and there are many good screen tablet with reasonable prices (like Huion, Yiyinova or Ugee). When I get the money I plan to buy a bigger (22'') tablet and it be definietly not Wacom. It's great not to have to reinstall drivers all the time XD

Oh, interesting review. I recently often heard about Huion tablet, as a concurrent for Wacom and I discovered about XP tablets as well and learnt that 2 artists I was following use that (though, even if I know Tojo-The-Thief by name and by her creations, I didn't know she was using a XP monitor tablet).

Well, first of all, I'd like to say that the fact that you had to change the nib of the stylus often is not due to wacom, but to the fact that you're using a classic tablet instead of a monitor tablet. On monitor tablet, the screen is really soft (because of the glass material) and you can slide your hand and your nib easily, so the nib can stay for a long long time (remember my article: I was using Wacom Cintiq 12wx from December 2010 until April 2017 and NEVER had to change the nib) while my bamboo pen & touch... I just used it at school, for textures and speed painting, and in 3 months, the nib ended sharp and used. And for my actual Cintiq, it still seems to be the same case. ^^

Personally, the fact that I stay on Wacom is mostly because of the Linux compatibility. Wacom tablets are the only ones that works natively on almost every Linux distributions now and... even if I've switched on Windows 8.1, I still want to be able to switch back to Linux and continue my drawings with Wacom tablets and the Open-Source software Krita.

Also, I really REALLY love this PRO you noted: "very solid stand, which you can adjust in many angles". DAMN! This is one of the things Wacom NEEDS to work on. Because, I'm really satisfied of my Cintiq Pro 16, but... when I intensively draw with it, DAMN! My neck! ><

I keep an eye on Internet markets to see if they finally sell a correct and professional stand to buy, to add on my Cintiq, but... Nothing I found for now... =/
Should I buy an easel and make it work for my Cintiq? Seriously, I'd find it absurd. I'd really like a correct stand instead.

For me, definitely, the great PROS that made me regret nothing are the improvement about the parallax. No need to calibrate on the Cintiq Pro 16. Plus, 15,6" is the ideal format for me.
But as I said on my review, in my point of view, Wacom definitely made 2 mistakes with this new tablet (in addition of the absence of a correct stand), even if I'm not concerned about their "biggest" mistake (compatibility) as I have a recent computer.

But I admit that... especially because of the stand but also of course because of your comment, I'd gladly try a monitor XP tablet once... or a Huion if I find the same good points on a Huion, as well.

Thank's for your review. It is definitely an interesting one indeed. ^^
Don't forget to share it with David Revoy as well, in comments below, if you wish as the idea of sharing experiences with tablets comes from him initially: http://www.davidrevoy.com/article33.....et-history-log ;)

You are right! I didn't notice this screen thing, gotta delete this con then ^^

YES. As I mentioned I had those wrist pains so the stable solid stand was a priority for me. When I saw the stand for Cintiq 16'' I was really confused why did they make it like that??

As for easel thing - I bought it for Intuos and it improved my problems a bit (no screen was the issue, as easel made it hard to see my monitor behind it), so maybe it's worth a try? :o

I'll share it, sure ^^

(btw the hidden comment is the reply I posted in the wrong place XD)

He! He! ^^

Well, I dunno about the stand. Wacom seems to think intelligently about it only for tablets larger than 20" and more expensive than 2'000 $ it looks like... Though, after we talked about it, I decided to make some more motivated searches and... in fact, I noticed something really silly I didn't think about, which is that I got far better results by searching "Laptop stand" instead of "Tablet stand". And then, I finally found and aforded this: https://www.amazon.fr/Lavolta-LS-T0.....HPHAJ7X2VPGD5T .

This is the best I found for a Wacom Cintiq pro 16 and... I don't know if that'll really help me to work as expected, but it is worth trying. After all, if that doesn't work, I could still send the stand back.

And... WOW! Indeed, I don't wonder why it was hard to work with an Intuos on an easel. A monitor tablet on an easel can be a good idea, but a classic one... XD

Well, if ever you're interested and / or maybe still use your Intuos sometimes, I could tell you once received if the stand I bought for my Cintiq was worth it for me. It could always be better than an easel if you can't use your XP tablet. ^^

Honestly after drawing on screen tablet I just can't go back to classic one, the eye-hand difference makes me crazy XD This stand look very nice tho, and you can lift it quite high, so if your back is in pain you could draw while standing

I use this easel to hold drawing books now haha

Yeah, same for me. XD
However, I managed to draw some speed paintings and textures at my school with the bamboo pen & touch while being used to the Cintiq 12wx already... but it was really weird... and hard. ^^'

Indeed, I agree that this stand looks great, but I'm afraid about 2 points:
- In the comments, some people rated the product badly because it is hard to adjust correctly the 2 feet of the stand (which can be wrong, because not everyone met this problem, but... who knows? Maybe they're right).
- The stand, as it is, could slide on the surface of my desk while drawing. But maybe I could fix that problem with some paste, I suppose.

Also... nice use of the easel indeed. XD

I think you just need to check yourself ^^

Obviously. ^^

Oh, and also, I think I should forget about using a XP tablet in the future. Apparently, it's not compatible with the programm I'm using: Krita.

Source: https://docs.krita.org/List_of_Tablets_Supported

The 16" XP monitor is not listed, but the 22"E is written as "unsupported", so, I don't have a lot of hope. =/

If ever you have time, I'd be curious to know, if you try it, if you manage to work on Krita with your XP tablet anyway (Krita is an open-source (free) software). But don't force yourself to try if you don't want though. After all, I'm satisfied with my Cintiq. I ask this mostly out of curiosity. ^^

Oh, Krita was a first program I opened on my freshly received XP tablet and it worked great!

Oh? Really?

Maybe the problem of compatibility is only for the 10" monitor XP tablet and the 22" then... or maybe Krita fixed these incompabilities and their tests are quite old?
Mmmh, I guess I'll ask them eventually.

Thank's for this precision. ^u^

Ok so I installed Krita again to check and everything works fine expect the weird parallax, Krita keeps saying that because of drivers the screen height doesn't match or something like this. It could be my graphic card problem too tho, as I had this error message too that I have an intel card and Krita doesn't like it XD

AH!
Well, maybe not. I think that this "weird" parallax is why the tablet is considered unsupported. It can be due to the graphic tablet driver. It also happened sometimes on Wacom tablets as well and it's sometimes easy to solve, sometimes not...

It may be the graphic card driver instead, as you said, indeed. But if most of the XP tablets are written as unsupported, I guess that would be more probable that it comes from the graphic tablet driver.

(Though, I really wonder why it happens sometimes. I know Krita is originally made for Linux users and is open-source, but it's the same case with Gimp and I never read about parallax problems with this one. It really happens only on Krita. O.O )

Also, thank's to having checked again the software with your tablet. That was nice of you! =)

Yeah I have no idea why it works or don't, the graphic card issue is probably the thing. I swear it worked normally earlier tho! I checked Krita as first software, because at first I had issues with Photoshop (apperently it's a normal issue for screen tablets and XP support linked me a Cintiq solution on youtube and it worked perfectly xD)

No prob ^^

btw here's one of Tojo's tweets that made me acknowledge the existence of XP-Pen https://twitter.com/TojoTheThief/st.....72838409572353 x3

Ok. Well, maybe I'll ask more precisions to Krita developpers / users near to the development. I'm really curious to understand why this parallax problem can appear sometimes and why some tablets can be unsupported. ^^'

And... as for the tweet from Tojo, I'm a bit sceptical. Her tablet looks like a Cintiq 13 hd and... even the pen & touch, I don't think it was sold 1600 $... unless she bought the Cintiq 13hd which was not just a tablet, but a whole computer, but then, I don't think you can really compare a computer-tablet with a classic monitor graphic tablet.
(Plus, 13hd is now an old Cintiq (2011). My Cintiq pro 16 really have a perfect screen, without these weird strips of white light. ^^)
Though, I OF COURSE agree that Cintiq tablets are really REALLY expensive. ^^'

Whatever, this is not important. Thank's for the link. But you know you already convinced me. If I feel the need, if I have the money and if I learn this can be compatible with Krita at least (and on Linux as well), I'm sure I'll give it a try. =D

Ahh yeah she probably has this older one CIntiq, but I have no idea! There are somewhere tweets too how she unpacks the one I have (XP-Pen Artist 16) and she said that she seeked alternative because her Cintiqs always broke and she had to deal with their support twice and have them sent to repair/exchange. She grew this hate to Wacom and gave a try to XP-Pen and was very happy. (at least that's how I remember the tweets, have no idea how to find them as Tojo posts so much XD )

Well if you have the money you can buy whichever you want! I just wanted to say that there's an alternative too ^^

Well, I understand why she was disappointed if she got a Cintiq 13hd. I was disappointed as well (2 times) and simply asked for a repayment. However, the artist who usually had the idea to make a review of his tablets (David Revoy) told me that, because of several problems met with these models, Wacom decides to make several different models of Cintiq 13hd (and you can't notice the difference unless you take a look to the reference): DTK-1300, DTK-1301, etc... David bought his 13hd on Darty fr website (and got a DTK-1301), and me, on amazon fr (DTK-1300-2). David was satisfied with his 2 13hd, I had to send back my 2 13hd. So... maybe Tojo didn't get the good model of 13hd as well. =/

I can understand her hate to wacom due to a bad experience with them, though. I have had the same kind of experience with AMD hardwares. XD

Of course, I can buy whichever I want if I have the money, but I well precised "if I feel the need to". So, don't worry, I won't throw my money away just because you convinced me XP tablets are really great. ^^
Also, I received the stand for my Cintiq. For the moment, I didn't try it yet (I'm pretty sure I'd have to find some paste to avoid the stand to slide when I draw), but I have the feeling it can do the trick.

So this is where all those issues with Cintiqs come from :o

Ohhh let me know how you like the stand when you test it!

Mainly, probably, but maybe not totally. Maybe other issues with other Cintiq exists. I didn't try all of the models neither know everything about all of the models. XP

About the stand, I now tryed it with a 30° angle, and... 3 points about it:
- It is quite bulky (The book holder was better to use the Cintiq as a second screen, but the stand works quite well anyway).
- A good point: it doesn't slide on the desk.
- And as a bad point: it doesn't slide because there are screws behind it, and when I move the stand, I noticed I make some scratches on my desk surface. ><

Happily, I noticed about this bad point fast, but I'm a bit frustrated by this discover. I think I will put some paste on the screws to fix this issue.

So, globally... It works to have a good angle for my Cintiq, but it's not perfect.

Oh my, the screws are a no-no D: How could they overlook something like that

I dunno. They probably could have done it in another way.
But whatever, I just got one tiny scratch on my desk and with some paste on the screws, the stand is great to draw on my tablet, so that's great. ^^

Good then ^^