Xencelabs Graphic Tablet Size S

After using the market leading brand for the past 20 years I grew increasingly frustrated with their product offerings. I believe each new model had become less functional with needless bells and whistles. That coupled with the worst customer support had sent me on a quest to replace the product. I tried a much less expensive alternative but was not happy with it and returned.Enter this product from Xencelabs which has been wonderful. Works as one would expect without any issues at all. Can run wireless as well as wired and has a very simple setting app. Nibs dont ware out as quick as the Wacom pens do. Sensitivity is flawless and price point is much better. Drawing area is fractional larger than comparable Wacom and I did not even need to remove the old drivers (at least on Mac). Only knock is USB connection is top center where as having the ability to connect right or left side would have been preferable.

Before I give my sincere review I must give the reason why I purchased this tablet. I'm not new to drawing tablets, I've had several. My first one was a 4"x6" Wacom many years ago. Since then I've had 3 Huion tablets, the last of which was an Inspiroy 2. Then I obtained a Huion Kamvas 12 which I thought would be what I really needed. First off, there were a few problems that I encountered. One was the wires. The 3 in 1 cable required 2 USB ports and an HDMI connection.My laptop doesn't have an HDMI port so I had to purchase a hub. Then I bought a 27" monitor which also required an HDMI port.and The other issue was having to use it flipped. My biggest quirk was looking down at the screen which gave me a lot of neck and shoulder pain. Having to use the pen display in tablet mode defeated the purpose of using the screen.Now, in comes the Xence labs tablet. First of all, the packaging was superb. A lot of thought went into making a great presentation. Unboxing, everything was of superb quality. It came with a very nice carrying case that can hold the tablet, the USB cable and the pen case without being bulky. The pens themselves are a bit weighty but they feel great in my hand. The pen case, the pens and the tablet are of excellent build quality, top notch! The Huion pen display had more lag than I needed but this Xencelab tablet had no lag whatsoever. The buttons on the pens are raised just enough so that I don't accidentally hit the buttons while using the pens. I use the 3 button pen more often and I replaced the tip of the slim pen with a felt tip for when I'm doing more detailed work. The tablet itself is solid and has more of a feel of pencil on paper. Downloading the software was fairly simple and quite easy to use, very straightforward. You can customize the tablet up with whatever apps you have in your system, making it extremely versatile.Paired with the Quick Keys these make an awesome combination, and greatly improves my workflow. I use GIMP and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and I must say that this tablet is very accurate. Value wise, this was a great investment that will serve my needs for years to come!

I replaced a Wacom medium tablet for this one. The Xencelabs tablet is pure premium. Beautiful packaging, every component is quality made, and most importantly it worked right out of the box unlike the Wacom that has issues on Macs. It is a few dollars more, but the small Xencelabs is almost the same size as the Medium Wacom, and the Xencelabs gives you two pens, two types of nibs, and a solid, heavy case to hold it all in. Add the sleeve to carry it all and this is a fantastic tablet.

I tried out wacom intuos pro and this one. I ended up returning the wacom one because I kept getting little ghost strokes when I wrote notes with it in oneNote/Nebo. I also tried it with clip studio and would get random ghost lines spikes when I drew certain shapes in clip studio too. Yes, I tried updating the drivers. I tried older versions of drivers. I tried on friend's laptop/desktop and would have the same result. I also toggled windows ink. I also got a replacement because I thought it was just my device. Maybe if I got used to the random spikes, it wouldn't have super bothered me, but it was driving me up a wall trying to fix it for something that is expensive with so much less.So I tried Xencelab and just freaking love everything from the design to the feel. Plus you get the silm and thick pen.( I like using the silm for writing notes and the thick one for drawing). The soft case is also nice because it protects from scratches during travel and the front pocket fits the pen case and remote. BTW I am using windows so idk how it is with mac or linux.The only thing I noticed is that the refresh rate of the pen struggled very slightly with drawing the lowercase letter i super fast over and over again. It is not an issue though since I won't have to draw "i" over and over again super fast like that. Also like no one draws like that really. I just did the test because that is what first made me notice the wacom ghost spike was writing i / p's / just an = sign. Shapes drawn similar to that also caused the same ghost spike issue(the issue here is referring to wacom btw). I did not have this problem with xencelab. If you do notice a slight difference in refresh rate I guess just pick what you would rather deal with, random ghost spikes/issues with new driver updates(wacom) or "possibly" maybe slight noticeable slow refresh if drawing i type shapes super fast. ( I didn't notice this issue when cross hashing fast so idk what causes it exactly). I hate the ghost spikes messing up my flow so it was an easy choice for me.I also ended up getting the shortcut keys remote thingy later(WHICH is great btw) You can always get this later if you cant afford it now. I use the pen tablet for notes and drawing in clip studio paint. Just make sure to start xence lab app everytime you use shortkeys remote as that is how it knows your settings for the remote.ALSO I recommend to get the larger xencelab tablet size for drawing if you can afford it(It's perfect for digital art. I feel like any bigger and i'd have to do bigger arm movements which is not ideal in the long run. More and more pros are down sizing anyway because it's better for your joint health). The best setup is where you can look straight ahead at the monitor and draw on the pen tablet at the same arm bend level as what health experts recommend to have your keyboard. (just look up proper elbow/neck angles for desk ergonomics on youtube). I use a keyboard tray so I can lower my chair and keep my feet on the ground while having the tablet at a proper elbow level.NOTE: The smaller size is most likely good for if you are using it for photoshop to edit photos and such.