[Gimp-user] Drawing Monitor XP-Pen Artist 13.3 VS Wacom Cintiq Pro 13 Review

[shengfan <forums gimpusers com>]

I didn't see a thread about this two items , and it seemed like no one has given
their impressions on this device so I wanted to put together something quick to
kickstart a discussion or something.

I was able to get my hands on this two so I did a review. If you have any
questions about it just let me know and I'll do my best to respond. Love to hear
from other people who also own the device.

The difference in mainly in the pen tilt/rotation, pen pressure, screen
parallax, expresskeys, multi-touch, and tablet stand. Perhaps the screen colours
are slightly better on the new Cintiq Pro 13.

Pen - The pen for the Artist 13.3 has no pen tilt sensitivity, whereas the pen
for the Cintiq Pro 13 has pen tilt AND rotation sensitivity. Pen tilt is a
fairly useless gimmick feature unless it's paired with rotation, and even then
those two features are still pretty gimmicky unless you have a method to make
use of them in mind. You also have to take into consideration whether your
drawing program even supports those features or not as well. If you don't intend
to use pen tilt/rotation, then this probably shouldn't affect your decision.

Pen pressure - The pen pressure doesn't matter because most people can't feel
any difference between 2048 and 8192. People can already draw fantastically with
1024 and higher pen pressure isn't going to suddenly make everything look better
or anything like that. Pen pressure shouldn't affect your decision.

About the pen nibs, the reason you hear that pen nibs wear out faster on the
newer Cintiq Pro 13 is because the nibs are physically thinner. However, the
screen on a Cintiq Pro 13 is just etched glass and not a full blown texture like
the Artist 13.3. So in other words:
-Artist 13.3 = slightly thicker pen nibs + very textured screen. 
-Cintiq Pro 13 = thinner pen nibs + only slightly textured screen. 
Both should have around the same speed of pen nib wear because of that.
Note that pen nib wear speed is different for everyone. Everyone uses a
different amount of pressure when drawing, so as long as you draw lightly and
change the pen pressure settings so you don't have to press as hard, it
shouldn't wear out ridiculously fast with either tablet.

Screen parallax - Parallax is the thickness of the glass between the screen and
the pen. The Artist 13.3 has a decent amount of parallax, whereas the Cintiq Pro
13 is advertised to have basically no parallax. In other words, the cursor will
come out basically exactly where you put the pen on the newer Cintiq Pro 13. On
the older Artist 13.3, the cursor will have a slight disconnect from where you
place the pen due to the thicker glass. You can get used to parallax, but it
probably feels more natural to not have any parallax. (I personally prefer
having parallax from my experience with a XP-Pen Artist 15.6 (has parallax) and
Microsoft Surface Pro 3 (has no parallax) because I couldn't see the cursor
under the pen when I was using really small cursor sizes, but that's just me).

Expresskeys - The Artist 13.3 has those buttons on the side for shortcuts,
whereas with the Cintiq Pro 13 you'll need to buy a separate (100 USD)
expresskeys remote if you want to do all your drawing on the tablet without
touching a keyboard.

Multi-touch - Multi-touch is the finger touch feature where you can
pan/zoom/rotate/etc with finger touches. The newer Cintiq Pro 13 has multi-touch
for sure, but the XP-Pen Artist 13.3 without this funtion ; Honestly, it's a
cool idea to be able to pan/zoom/rotate/etc using your fingers, but that's not
really necessary if you have access to a keyboard or shortcut remote. You can
decide whether that's important or not yourself.

Tablet stand - The Artist 13.3 drawing tablet has no stand . The Cintiq Pro 13
is just propped up by 2 foldable legs which you can't adjust the height for, so
it's either that low angle, flat on the table, or buying a tablet stand from
somewhere else. Well, the Cintiq Pro 13 angle shouldn't be too bad for your back
and neck, so I doubt it's really a big enough thing to turn anyone away.

Well those are the differences based on what I've read about them.
Unfortunately, I'm not giving you a side-by-side comparison from my own
experience, but I doubt there's really any big difference that you can't see
from just looking at the spec sheet.

Hopefully what I said above helps you decide which is the better device for you.
I can't find webpage about Cintiq Pro 13 on their official website . for more
information about Artist 13.3 you can visit
https://www.xp-pen.com/goods/show/id/202.html .

-- 
shengfan (via www.gimpusers.com/forums)