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XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2: one-minute overview
The XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 is the second incarnation of this 19-inch, 4K drawing pill that provides 16K strain ranges, assignable shortcuts and 1.07 billion colours. Retailing for $899.99 / £899.99 / AU$1,499.99, it hardly occupies the price range finish of the market. However when you think about that this bundle consists of completely every thing you want, together with two styluses, a stylus case, all cabling, and a wi-fi shortcut distant, the value appears to be like like critically good worth.
The XPPen’s 19-inch 4K show is a stunner. Whereas its pixel density is a comparatively modest 239ppi, it’s able to a median brightness of 250 nits and 1.07 billion colours, because of its 99.8% sRGB, 96% AdobeRGB, 98% Show P3 shade gamut. One-inch bezels ship an honest quantity of area to relaxation your wrists, whereas its built-in toes maintain it up at a 19-degree angle, making it well-suited to engaged on a desk. Sadly, although, its bulk and cable setup imply you’re unlikely to wish to sketch away with it in your lap for lengthy durations.
Whether or not you’re sketching or retouching images, the Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 gives efficiency that may compete with a number of the best drawing tablets. As soon as it’s correctly calibrated, there’s no trace of parallax or jitter, and its customizable 16K strain curves make it simple to adapt strokes to your private desire. You too can customise the shortcuts out there on its styluses and wi-fi distant, though I did expertise a uncommon bug right here that prevented a few of these working and that took some time to resolve.
The styluses offered are nicely designed and cozy to make use of over lengthy drawing classes. Particularly, the X3 Professional Curler Stylus is fantastically balanced, with a middle of gravity that sits completely in the midst of your grip. It’s simple to by chance knock each styluses’ shortcut buttons every so often, however the X3 Professional Slim Stylus comes with a swappable faceplate, permitting you to take away the buttons in case you’d slightly go with out. My solely actual criticism of the styluses is that I want they’d eraser buttons on their ideas – I discover such a setup much more intuitive to make use of and it could unencumber one of many buttons for a special shortcut.
Every little thing thought-about, the XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 gives an ideal all-round bundle. The show doesn’t fairly have the pixel density of the 275ppi Xencelabs Pen Display 16, or the gargantuan 24-inch display screen of its sibling, the XPPen Artist Pro 24 Gen 2. Nonetheless, it gives beautiful shade copy, correct efficiency and, most significantly for some customers, vital worth in comparison with some rivals. In order for you an ideal stability between display screen measurement, efficiency and worth, the XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 is nicely value trying out.
XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 overview: worth & availability
- Launched August 27, 2024
- Retails for $899.99 / £899.99 / AU$1,499.99
Launched on August 27, 2024, the XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 has a listing worth of $899.99 / £899.99 / AU$1,499.99. Nevertheless, this doesn’t imply you’ll be able to’t choose it up for much less; on the time of writing, XPPen was providing a diminished worth of $719.99 / £854 / AU$1,199.99 in a short-term flash sale. It’s value conserving your eyes peeled in case you can also make a saving right here.
As costs go, even its MSRP is fairly cheap for what you’re getting. The closest Wacom product by measurement, the Wacom Cintiq Professional 17, goes for a whopping $2,499.95 / £2,349.98 / AU$3,999 – though it is stunningly vibrant and comes Pantone Validated. The smaller Xencelabs Pen Show 16 prices $999 / £969 (round AU$1597), but in addition comes with fewer equipment as customary, that means you’ll need to stretch to the $1,299 / £1,199 (round AU$2,080) bundle if you need its USB hub, extra cabling, and the customizable Fast Keys accent. Considered via that lens, the Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 is an efficient worth for an all-in-one bundle.
XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 overview: specs
|
Dimensions |
18.1 x 12.1 x 0.8 inches (460 x 306.6 x 21.5mm) |
|
Energetic drawing space |
16.1 x 9.1 inches (409 x 230mm) |
|
Weight |
4.91lbs (2.23kg) |
|
Show decision |
3840 x 2160 pixels |
|
Stress ranges |
16,384 |
|
Compatibility |
Home windows 7 or later; macOS 10.13 or later (newest replace); Android (USB3.1 DP1.2); Chrome OS 88 (or later); Linux |
XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 overview: design
- Vibrant but correct 18.4-inch show
- Nice vary of included equipment
- Not as moveable as some rivals
Regardless of its “19” moniker, the XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 truly measures solely 18.4 inches throughout; however that is nonetheless an enormous quantity of display screen property. Nevertheless, it is value noting that it gives the identical 3840 x 2160 space as any 4K 16:9 drawing pill, which suggests you’re getting a decrease pixel density than some smaller tablets. It gives a extra modest 239ppi in comparison with the 16-inch Xencelabs Pen Show 16’s near-print-quality 275ppi.
Due to its 1.07 billion colours and the 99.8% sRGB, 96% AdobeRGB, 98% Show P3 protection of its shade gamut, any paintings I opened on-screen seemed lush and vibrant with out showing unrealistic – it’s positively superior to the poorly calibrated display screen of my 2017 MacBook Professional. Brightness averages out at 250cd/㎡, which may be very first rate, though that’s nonetheless slightly duller than the 300cd/㎡ the bigger XPPen Artist Professional 24 Gen 2 can hit.
Nevertheless, imaginative and prescient isn’t the one sense that issues in relation to a drawing pill’s display screen: the way it feels in use is sort of as vital. The Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 fares fairly nicely on this entrance. It doesn’t have the super-realistic texture of an e-paper show, for instance, even when utilizing one of many felt nibs for its pens. Nonetheless, this implies your stylus is unlikely to catch on the display screen whilst you sketch and doesn’t slip both, so there’s nonetheless stability right here.
In use, the design of XPPen’s drawing pill is ergonomic – up to some extent. Its one-inch bezels are concerning the good measurement to offer you someplace to relaxation your arms, whereas the built-in wrist-rest helps stop ache build up throughout lengthy drawing classes. The inclusion of an built-in stand is a pleasant contact, though it gives solely a single angle, 19 levels, which felt slightly steep for me. At 2.23kg, the entire system is fairly unwieldy – I’m unsure you’ll be utilizing it in your lap all that usually.
One more reason you are doubtless higher off utilizing it on a desk is cabling. Don’t get me unsuitable: the Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 doesn’t include the 15-wire freeway intersection that some tablets do. Nevertheless it additionally has a considerable energy draw – whereas I might run it instantly from my MacBook Professional, this solely labored whereas my laptop computer had an honest quantity of cost left; in any other case, it could disable USB-C energy output. Realistically, then, for more often than not you’ll be utilizing not less than two cables – one USB-C information cable and one mains energy – which makes it slightly messier to make use of whereas kicking again in an armchair.
XPPen has been fairly beneficiant with equipment right here. Along with the aforementioned stand, this bundle features a wi-fi shortcut distant and a stylus case – which incorporates the X3 Professional Curler Stylus, the X3 Professional Slim Stylus, eight nibs, a USB dongle for the shortcut distant, a nib-changing instrument, and a button cap for the slim stylus. It additionally supplies full cabling, together with two USB-C to USB-C cables, a USB-C to USB-A cable, a 3-in-1 USB and HDMI cable, and an influence cable. On the draw back, there’s neither a carry case for the pill nor any tablet-mounted rests for the styluses, each of which might have been welcome additions.
XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 overview: efficiency
- No parallax or jitter
- Simply customizable utilizing drivers
- Skilled some points getting shortcuts to work
To check the XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2’s mettle, I carried out a spread of line assessments in addition to engaged on a few of my very own sketches. Usually talking, it’s impressively correct. Whereas there was a little bit of parallax throwing issues off at first, as soon as I’d calibrated it, this completely vanished. There’s additionally no noticeable jitter, though there’s slightly lag once you’re shifting quick – this wasn’t enough to trigger any inaccuracies, nonetheless.
Subjectively talking, once I was initially sketching on the XPPen it didn’t really feel fairly as expressive and responsive as a drawing pill such because the Xencelabs Pen Show 16 – the barbs of the magpie feather I used to be drawing felt ever so barely much less nuanced and refined. Nevertheless, as soon as I dug round in XPPen’s driver settings, it was simple to tailor issues to my liking; you’ll be able to both choose one in every of seven pressure-curve presets or form your individual, and as soon as I’d carried out this, strokes felt rather more life like and pencil-like.
The motive force app lets you customise excess of this, although. You may adapt the system’s working space to particular screens, all your screens or a subsection of one in every of them, and you can too assign shortcuts to the buttons on its styluses and wi-fi shortcut distant. Buttons are assignable to any keyboard shortcut, mouse shortcut, or a spread of different capabilities similar to opening apps, switching to the driving force software program, or shifting monitor focus. Alternatively, the curler on the distant or the X3 Professional Curler Stylus may be assigned to Zoom, Scroll, Brush measurement or any perform that may be elevated or decreased by two keys.
Whereas this must be very useful, in apply I did run into some issues. Whereas each the distant and stylus responded to my programmed keyboard shortcuts – for instance, flashing up the label “CMD + Z” once I hit the undo button – this didn’t activate the related menu shortcut. After various backwards and forwards with XPPen’s assist group, I did handle to resolve the difficulty: evidently having a wired keyboard plugged into my USB dock similtaneously the wi-fi shortcut distant’s dongle prevented it from accessing the menus. It’s unlikely you’ll encounter comparable issues; It is an odd quirk, one which I have never skilled with different drawing tablets.
XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 overview: stylus
- Enticing ergonomic form and stability
- Responsive strain curves
- No eraser ideas
On the entire, XPPen’s styluses are glorious. Naturally, the slighter X3 Professional Slim Stylus is the best choice for nimble scribbling. However even the chunkier X3 Professional Curler Stylus felt snug for lengthy scribbling classes – regardless of spending hours drawing a magpie feather, there was by no means any trace of aching or pressure from the sustained grip. The Curler stylus is properly weighted, too, with its middle of mass sitting proper on the fulcrum of your fingers, making it simple to spin and pivot as you sketch.
Each styluses reply fairly fluidly to strain as nicely. On paper, the 16K strain ranges sound superb; in apply, although, you’re unlikely to note a lot distinction from an 8K system. Definitely, I couldn’t actually inform the distinction when it comes to the smoothness of the strain gradients of the traces I used to be drawing. In reality, when utilizing the XPPen driver’s strain gauge, I discovered it just about unattainable to scale back the strain to under 2,000 and to maintain the stylus nib persistently on the display screen. As such, I’d say the sensitivity right here is much larger than you’re ever realistically going to make use of.
As with styluses from different manufacturers, I did discover I’d sometimes knock the shortcut keys by chance. I’m unsure you’ll be able to maintain this towards XPPen, although: a part of the value of getting handy shortcuts proper the place your fingers can discover them is that generally your fingers do discover them. And on the Slim stylus, it’s potential to hot-swap out the shortcut buttons for a plastic cap, that means you’ll be able to simply keep away from this if you end up nudging them too typically.
My solely actual criticism of the styluses is the dearth of erasers on their far ends. I get that some folks would most likely slightly swap instruments to the eraser with a shortcut, to save lots of eradicating the nib from the display screen. However I make errors on a regular basis and I discover it psychologically a lot simpler to fall again on the muscle reminiscence of the analog pencil eraser than I do shifting between shortcuts. You may discover this bothers you much less, however I do want XPPen’s styluses gave me that choice.
Must you purchase the XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2?
|
Attributes |
Notes |
Ranking |
|---|---|---|
|
Design |
Shiny, vibrant show and an honest array of equipment; nevertheless it’s chunky sufficient that you will most likely solely wish to use it at a desk. |
4 / 5 |
|
Efficiency |
There’s zero parallax or jitter, and it gives an ideal vary of customizable shortcuts – even when I had some difficulties getting them to work. |
4 / 5 |
|
Stylus |
Glorious strain sensitivity, good customizability, nice ergonomic stability; however eraser ideas would have been a pleasant choice. |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Worth |
With its vibrant show, responsive efficiency, 16K strain ranges and complete equipment, you get so much for the value. |
4.5 / 5 |
Purchase it if…
Don’t purchase it if…
XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 overview: additionally take into account
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 |
Xencelabs Pen Show 16 |
Xencelabs Pen Show 24 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Dimensions |
18.1 x 12.1 x 0.8 inches (460 x 306.6 x 21.5mm) |
16.1 x 10.2 x 0.47 inches (410 x 259.4 x 12mm) |
24.4 x 15.3 x 1.4 inches (619.8 x 388.6 x 35.6mm) |
|
Energetic drawing space |
16.1 x 9.1 inches (409 x 230mm) |
13.55 x 7.6 inches (344.2 x 193.6mm) |
20.75 x 11.7 inches (52.71 x 29.72cm) |
|
Weight |
4.91 lbs (2.23kg) |
2.67 lbs (1.21kg) |
13.3 lbs (6kg) |
|
Show decision |
3840 x 2160 pixels |
3840 x 2160 pixels |
3840 x 2160 pixels |
|
Stress ranges |
16,384 |
8,192 |
8,192 |
|
Compatibility |
Home windows 7 or later; macOS 10.13 or later (newest replace); Android (USB3.1 DP1.2); Chrome OS 88 (or later); Linux |
PC: Home windows 7 or later (newest service pack/construct); macOS 10.13 or later (newest replace); Linux – Ubuntu 14.04 or above, Debian 9.5, CentOS 7.0 or above, RedHat 7.0 or above |
PC: Home windows 7 or later (newest service pack/construct); Mac OS X 10.13 or later (newest replace); Linux – Ubuntu 14.04 or above, Debian 9.5, CentOS 7.0 or above, RedHat 7.0 or above |
How I examined the XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2
- Examined the drawing pill over three weeks
- Carried out a number of line assessments
- Labored on varied sketches and retouched some images
I examined the XPPen Artist Professional 19 Gen 2 over a interval of a number of weeks. First, I carried out a spread of line assessments to check its accuracy when it got here to parallax and jitter, in addition to evaluating its responsiveness to strain. I additionally performed round with its driver settings, tweaking its properties to see the way it affected the drawing expertise, and experimented with the assorted shortcuts you’ll be able to assign to its distant.
I then labored on a spread of artworks in each Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to get a way of how the drawing pill carried out in use. In addition to making a line drawing of a magpie feather and including watercolor hues as an overlay, I retouched a number of pictures to see how nicely it might deal with airbrushing work.
Having spent almost 20 years creating digital paintings, I’ve quite a lot of expertise in working with digital sketching and photograph retouching instruments. As well as, via my time working in print publishing, I’ve spent a few years assessing proofs for shade accuracy and element, and so have a eager eye for a way paintings ought to have a look at its finest.
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