XPPen Deco Professional: One-minute evaluation
Wacom as soon as held the drawing tablets market in a vice-like grip, however XPPen is now leveling out the taking part in subject with its extra budget-friendly high-spec drawing tablets. Producing a variety of merchandise, XPPen is filling a much-needed hole available in the market, making digital artwork that rather more accessible to the plenty and crafting a number of the greatest drawing tablets within the course of.
The XPPen Deco Professional is a pen pill, that means you utilize your monitor to see your paintings and the pill to attract it. It’s a steep studying curve in the event you’re not used to working with digital artwork software program or have traditionally used pen shows, however it’s nice if you need one thing slightly extra reasonably priced that doesn’t pressure your neck as a lot.
This explicit pen pill gives loads at its worth level, particularly for artists seeking to improve from older pen tablets just like the Wacom Bamboo, or for brand spanking new artists taking their first tentative step into the world of drawing tabs. With its award-winning design that includes eight shortcuts and an progressive dial with a touchpad, the Deco Professional is small, easy, and candy.
But alas, the XPPen Deco Professional suffers an identical destiny to XPPen’s Artist Professional line of pen shows – Professional is perhaps within the title, however it’s not within the sport. Whereas it would typically work simply tremendous for visible storytellers, a number of the largest failings of the Deco Professional are important for extra skilled artists. There are a couple of driver points, the shortcuts on each the stylus and the pill generally is a little fiddly, and a few prospects on Amazon have highlighted construct points with the drawing floor and controls that creep in over time.
If we have been to make a comparability, the most effective mannequin to have a look at can be the Wacom Intuos, which is the selection of {many professional} artists who use pen tablets. It’s an extremely low-cost possibility in contrast, however naturally, you make some concessions with the Deco Professional.
XPPen Deco Professional: Worth and availability
- Record worth: $99.99 / £99.99 / AU$139.99 (S) or $129.99 / £129.99 / AU$169.99 (M)
- Record worth for wi-fi: $129.99 / £129.99 / AU$169.99 (S) or $159.99 / £159.99 / AU$189.99 (M)
The XPPen Deco Professional is obtainable in small and medium sizes, retailing for $99.99 / £99.99 / AU$139.99 and $129.99 / £129.99 / AU$169.99 respectively. You may also improve to the wi-fi model for $129.99 / £129.99 / AU$169.99 (small) and $159.99 / £159.99 / AU$189.99 (medium). It is a fantastically low retail worth for such promising specs, making this pen pill among the finest value-for-money drawing tablets out there at this time.
For our evaluation, we examined the XPPen Deco Professional MW (medium measurement and wi-fi), which got here with a stylus and pen case, an artist’s glove, an adapter and wires.
One explicit side to contemplate in the event you’re fascinated by choosing up the XPPen Deco Professional is that it’s solely round $100 / £100 / AU$150 dearer to as an alternative go for the comparably sized XPPen Artist Professional 12 (2nd gen), which is a pen show and subsequently has a built-in show. General, and particularly in the event you’re not used to pen tablets, this gives higher efficiency and expertise – we just lately reviewed the first-gen XPPen Artist Professional 15.6 in the event you want convincing.
In the event you examine the XPPen Deco Professional MW in worth to its largest competitors, the Wacom Intuos Professional Medium, which sells for $379.99 / £329.99 / AU$599.01 and can be wi-fi, it turns into obviously apparent simply how budget-friendly the XPPen Deco Professional is – it’s almost half the worth.
XPPen Deco Professional: Design
- Eight shortcut buttons and a trackpad dial
- Textured black drawing floor with aluminum casing
- Light-weight and moveable
XPPEN DECO PRO: SPECS
Dimensions: 399.7 x 227 x 16.5mm (M) / 350.8 x 199.5 x 16.5mm (S)
Energetic drawing space: 279 x 152.4mm (M) / 228.6 x 127mm (S)
Thickness: 7mm (thinnest)
Weight: 808g (M) / 630g (S)
Connections: USB-C
Stress ranges: 8,192 strain ranges
Tilt: +/- 60 levels
Compatibility: Home windows 7 or later, Mac OS 10.10 or later, Android 6.0 or later
Left-handed mode: Sure
Charging time: 2 hours
Battery life: 11+ hours
Fashionable in aluminum silver and black, the Deco Professional is light-weight and understated in design, profitable XPPen two worldwide design awards – the 2019 Purple Dot Design award and 2018 Good Design award. At launch, lots of its design parts have been pretty revolutionary – specifically its trackpad dial – and whereas we’re now seeing a way more various, feature-first strategy from the broader drawing pill market, we now have to credit score XPPen for its forward-thinking design.
The pill itself is 399.7 x 227 x 16.5mm in medium measurement and 350.8 x 199.5 x 16.5mm in small, and each are 7mm at their slimmest, and 16.5mm at thickest. On its underside are two rubber grips to maintain it from sliding throughout the desk, however there’s no stand included for drawing at an angle.
The end feels neither premium nor overly cheesy and low-cost, however it undoubtedly leans in the direction of low-cost, particularly when in comparison with Wacom units. Nevertheless, it nonetheless feels sturdy sufficient to see you thru a great few years of service. Amazon patrons have famous points with its building, particularly with the energetic drawing space, however in our time utilizing the pill recurrently we couldn’t corroborate these complaints.
The 279 x 152.4mm (M) / 228.6 x 127mm (S) drawing floor is frivolously textured and black with white L-piece markers which illuminate to spotlight the place the energetic drawing space begins. At first, we have been fairly stunned – and slightly delay – by the big non-active border across the drawing house; nonetheless, after spending a while with the Deco Professional, it’s evident this was a calculated transfer to make the gadget extra comfy, granting house for wrist and hand help.
The feel of the energetic drawing space is barely grainy with a good paper really feel, making for a pleasing sufficient drawing expertise. There’s little or no resistance from the floor, so if you need one thing true-to-life, this received’t be the pen pill for you.
The eight tactile shortcut buttons and trackpad dial are black, nested in an aluminum panel to the aspect of the drawing floor. Across the dial is a skinny indicator gentle that signifies when the gadget is charging or the battery is low. This rubbery dial is the standout design characteristic of the Deco Professional, and has an enormous vary of movement to be loved – it may be rotated as a dial, used as a trackpad and pressed with a click on. Subsequent to the trackpad on the aspect of the gadget is the USB-C enter.
The stylus and pen holder are visually related in design – black with silver accents – and the pen holder additionally homes a compartment by which you will discover eight alternative nibs and the wi-fi USB adapter.
XPPen Deco Professional: Efficiency
- Plug-and-play setup
- Customization choices pace up workflows
- Drivers have improved, however nonetheless want work
Organising the XPPen Deco Professional is good and straightforward – merely plug it in, ensure you’ve downloaded the proper driver from the XPPen web site (and uninstalled any drivers for different drawing tablets) and also you’re all set!
We examined the XPPen Deco Professional on PC and Mac to match and located it labored rather well on Home windows proper off the bat. Annoyingly, in the event you’re utilizing a MacBook, the XPPen Deco Professional will override your trackpad with its personal vastly inferior one, so in the event you’re used to simply navigating between home windows, this may trigger some issues.
General, the drivers appear tremendous, however you’ll must restart them a couple of occasions at first. This software program may be very restricted, and whereas it’s been considerably improved upon for the reason that gadget launched in 2018, it could’t compete with what extra premium producers like Wacom supply. This could intervene with the efficiency and drawing expertise considerably, and that is the place professionals might battle with this budget-friendly pill – any friction to time-sensitive workflows could be majorly offputting.
By way of the drawing expertise, the XPPen Deco Professional is fairly intuitive, and customarily makes gentle work of complicated workflows because of its shortcut keys and trackpad dial – nonetheless, the dial is kind of straightforward to nudge, and the buttons are slightly stiff. Nonetheless, there’s loads of house for personalisation, and assured pen pill customers will discover it intuitive to make use of.
Its textured floor gives a fairly nice drawing expertise, and when it comes to technical specs, the Deco Professional gives a lot of what most artists anticipate for its worth vary. In its wi-fi mode, we didn’t discover any extra latency.
So far as battery life goes, the pill gives a powerful 11+ hours of juice earlier than it wants recharging, which is greater than sufficient to cowl a day’s work on the transfer. It took about two hours to recharge.
XPPen Deco Professional: Stylus
- 8,192 strain sensitivity ranges
- Comes with pen holder and spare nibs
- Typically wants extra drive
The XPPen Deco Professional stylus is battery-free with 8,192 strain sensitivity ranges and tilt sensitivity of +/- 60 levels, making it among the many most technically succesful available in the market – an actual boon that helps to raise this cheaper pill to new heights.
Ergonomically and stylishly designed, the stylus is black with silver accents, with a great grip to it. It’s light-weight, and whereas the nib can really feel slightly scratchy at occasions, by and enormous, the development is strong and well-balanced.
As with different XPPen fashions, we have been slightly aggravated by the 2 shortcut buttons positioned on the aspect of the pen. They’re very straightforward to unintentionally nudge whereas in use – particularly annoying when one in all these buttons is key-bound because the eraser. It will be nice to see future XPPen stylus transfer to the top-mounted eraser we’ve seen from different producers.
As talked about earlier, the stylus comes with a pen case, which homes a compartment for eight spare nibs and its USB adapter. The pen lid can be utilized as a stand, too.
We did discover throughout our testing that whereas the strain sensitivity is okay general, the extra drive than you’d anticipate is perhaps required on the higher and decrease ends of the spectrum. For very comfortable strokes, that is comprehensible – there’s solely a lot the pill can choose up at this worth level; however you actually need to push down with the stylus to register the upper ranges of strain, which is a bit nerve-wracking when the stylus is so scratchy.
We didn’t discover any vital lag or jitter, even with the pill in wi-fi mode, and the accuracy felt nice.
Ought to I purchase the XPPen Deco Professional?
Purchase it if…
Do not buy it if…
XPPen Deco Professional: Report card
| Worth | The Deco Professional is a price range mannequin, however it nonetheless brings loads to the desk with its progressive design options and efficiency, making it among the finest drawing tablets for worth. | 5 / 5 |
| Design | Successful awards for its progressive design, the Deco Professional takes the essential idea of a pen show and makes it trendy, slick and light-weight – however when it comes to supplies, it does really feel slightly low-cost. | 4.5 / 5 |
| Efficiency | There’s loads to like about drawing on the Deco Professional, together with its wi-fi mode and customizable shortcuts. Nevertheless, the drivers do let it down barely. | 4 / 5 |
| Stylus | The stylus for the Deco Professional actually carries the brunt of its constructive qualities, bringing nice strain and tilt sensitivity and loads of backup nibs to tide you over. Nevertheless, it wants a good bit of drive to activate increased strain ranges, and the nibs really feel too scratchy to likelihood with. | 4 / 5 |
- First reviewed December 2022
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