However, where tablets do have screens we noted their quality. Great digital art has been made on tablets without screens for years. These drawing tablets without screens are still worth considering for those who are looking for a more budget-minded option. Traditionally many drawing tablets present a blank face, reminiscent of a pen-controlled touchpad that plugs into your laptop. Screen quality is another important feature in tablets that have them. Alternatively, programmable buttons on the side or rear can add a lot. I like a tablet that tracks your touch controls without accidental, jarring touch commands firing off as you go. Other great pen features are programmable buttons on the pen, a flip-around rear eraser, and magnetic response that passes electricity through the screen so that you don’t have to separately charge it.īalanced touch response is big.

When I scrub with the pen, shading like you would with the side of a graphite pencil, I like to see the mark following my pen, rather than slowly loading behind me as my hand passes. I like a tablet that tracks my pen with barely any latency when I draw. Great pen response is the first thing I notice in a drawing tablet. Here are the criteria I used to picks the best drawing tablets: To frame my picks for this article, I used my years of experience with digital art, my experience as a tech and hobby reviewer, and I rounded out my personal preferences with a hefty dose of research into some of the alternative tablets out there. These tablets can be used with lots of different digital art software, from raster graphics editors like Adobe Photoshop, to vector editors like Affinity Designer, or even 3D sculpting tools like Zbrush. Best Overall: iPad Pro - Best Budget: HUION H610 Pro - Best For Professionals: Wacom Cintiq Pro 16 - Best Standalone: Microsoft Surface Pro 8 - Best For Kids: GAOMON S630 How We Picked the Best Drawing TabletsĪs a digital artist, I own and use three different types of drawing tablets for graphic design, illustration, photo editing, and more. Read on for a walkthrough on the best drawing tablets for your needs. Some tablet platforms are better suited for some needs than others, however. Whether these tablets are standalone devices that pair with a digital pen or drawing tablets that plug into your computer and work as a more precise trackpad that’s primed for use with a stylus, drawing tablets offer astonishing control. Today the best drawing tablets make it possible to draw and paint digitally with a level of control that has (debatably) surpassed traditional media, with AI-assisted filters, 4K screens, and photorealist retouching brushes, the simulacra are now, and the digital art tool chest gives you greater technical control of your creations than oil paint or marble. Learning computers as a child in the mid-'90s, the digital art tools that were commonly available were Microsoft Paint and a mouse - sure, some folks had fancy Macintosh computers and Wacom tablets, but for most of us, all that was achievable was the most rudimentary MS Paint pixel art. The best drawing tablets give you a level of control over your digital art that is stunning.

Pad for drawing on pc