XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro Graphic Display Tablet Review 1

I’m a artist who is getting into digital art because I really liked drawing , but wanted something better, both with hardware as well as software. I considered the iPad Pro but feared the price and that iOS would ultimately frustrate and limit me. The Wacom Cintiq 16 is also more expensive. Ultimately I decided on the 15.6 Pro.

XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro Drawing Tablet Monitor is the newer model of the Artist 15.6 , but with pen tilt Support , The tilt function ensures that the accuracy of the pen remains the same when tilted, offering a real and natural drawing experience.

Artist 15.6 Pro has been used 120% sRGB ( 85% adobe rgb color accuracy) in the device to give you more vivid, clear and sharp color quality that also enhances the accuracy of any image.

It has greatly improved on parallax, New optical bonding process that greatly reduces parallax , becuse of new Technology their has No Air Gap.

Compared to the Artist 15.6,the Artist 15.6 Pro features 8 fully customizable shortcut keys and 1 Red Roller Wheel which puts more customization options at your fingertips to suit you preferred work style, allowing you to capture and express your ideas easier and faster for optimized workflow.

Specifications:

• Display Size: 15.6″
• Aspect Ratio: 16:9
• Shortcut Keys: 8
• Roller Wheel: 1
• Pen: P05R Battery-free Pen
• Pen Pressure: 8192 levels
• Tilt: 60 degrees
• Report Rate: ≧200 RPS
• Display Resolution:1920 (H)*1080(V) pixels
• Display Color Gamut:88%NTSC, 120%sRGB
• Resolution:5080 LPI
• Visual Angle:178°
• Input Device:USB
• Reading Height:10mm
• Response Rate: 25ms

More details: https://www.xp-pen.com/product/65.html

Package Contents:

• XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro tablet
• XP-Pen P06 battery-free pen
• Pen case
• Combined cable
• USB type-A extension cable (for power)
• USB power adapter
• Outlet adapters for international power outlets
• HDMI to Mini-DisplayPort adapter
• Pen nib replacements x8
• Anti-fouling glove
• Screen cleaning cloth
• User manual
• Warranty policy and warranty card

Design

XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro has 3 buttons along the side which are for power, brightness up, and brightness down. The tablet comes with a pre-applied screen protector which has a very minimal amount of texture.

The boxing and packaging is very nice and rather professional looking. There is just one cable for multiple ports(splits from one to three with the one cable as seen in the picture).

The power button will glow with a dark blue light to indicate that the tablet is powered on.

It’s very nice that tablet comes with a stand but it’s not adjustable.

The IPS Screen

The tablet has a 15.6-inch IPS display with full HD resolution (1,920 x 1,080) . It has pairs a superb color accuracy of 120% sRGB 16.7 million colorswith 178 degrees of visual angle.

The screen is awesome, clarity and colors look nice. Using the default plastic nib works great on this new surface, and feels more like a traditional pencil on paper to me.

The screen has a textured matte film over it this is to give your pen more grip and improve control when drawing.

Artist15.6 Pro adopting full-laminated technology, seamlessly combines the glass and the screen, to create a distraction-free working environment that’s also easy on the eyes.

If you push hard on the screen it makes some waves, not very noticeable.

The Stylus（Pen）

With the pressure of 8192 levels, 5080 LPI and 10mm sensing height- the pen is very sleek and makes your drawing natural on the screen as it intensely senses and analyzes every movement.

Stylus (P05R) supports 60 degrees of tilt function, allowing it to easily and quickly sense the gesture movement of the stylus to ensure accurate imitation of a real tilting brush effect.it’s a battery-free device, even with large complex Photoshop brushes or sculpting with high res stamps in 3D, is minimal to the point of non-existence.

The Roller wheel and 8 express buttons

There are 8 programmable buttons and a Roller wheel. the innovative Red Dial interface breaks through the traditional pen display design for optimal efficiency.These can be used at the fingertips, can be scrolled, zoomed in, etc.

The buttons are amazing, the round ring in the middle, The scroll wheel can be programmed to control three different parameters (such as zoom, brush size, etc). And the customize-able physical buttons have nice tactile feel.

The buttons are completely customize-able to whatever hot key you want, and with the conjunction with custom on screen buttons, you’ll be able to work comfortably without a keyboard….. at least with programs that are designed to be simple for tablets, like Sketchbook or Painter. Even with these keys, I don’t think you can get away using Photoshop, or zbrush etc. I think some programs are just too frustrating without a keyboard.

I wish the middle of the wheel was a button but serves no purpose.

The drivers

The driver download is done through their site online.

The XP-Pen tablet drivers are extremely easy to install. Just go download the latest version directly from XP-Pen’s site and remove all other tablet drivers you have on your computer before installing it.

Once you’ve installed the driver and plugged in your tablet, the XP-Pen driver icon should appear in the system tray in the bottom right. You can access the tablet settings by clicking on that.

The XP-Pen driver is a simple one page driver with all the important settings in just one window. Here you can set the pen buttons and pen pressure, and choose which monitor the tablet maps to.

I did not need to change any of the default settings as the tablet worked very well with the defaults. I also did not need to calibrate the pen because the cursor properly appeared directly under the pen by default (which surprisingly isn’t the case for some tablets).

To date, the drivers have worked fine with the programs I use most: Adobe Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint.

Drawing Experience

Artist 15.6 Pro was fantastic. It was also very portable so I could bring it with me to libraries and give demonstrations.

On Photoshop , the program recognizes stylus tilt. This allowing you to vary opacity with pressure, but line thickness with pressure tilt. It took me a good hour to get used to using it, it’s a bit different than using a real pencil, but I now love it. The line weights, and the look of the pencil lines, makes it feel more like traditional pencil and paper.

Conclusion

XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro is an ideal choice among professional artists who love drawing and painting. This device is the best way to step into the digital canvas world. Now you don’t have to worry about colors, brushes, sheets, and pencil anymore, just pick this piece, keep it in your bag and move ahead to the world of art.

They have designed a protector that seems to fit into the premium product space in terms of functionality while keeping the cost to a minimum for beginning artists.

Although this is a bargain of $400, but I am very satisfied with its performance.Overall, I’m very satisfied with my purchase, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a mid-range pen display tablet.

In case you don’t want Pen tilt function, or want to save few bucks and get the Screen drawing tablet for cheaper, it may worth it to check out the previous Artist 15.6 model. Which have similar features, like the 8192 level of pressure sensitivity, the HD screen. And the pro pen with 8 replacement nibs.

If you want to buy the Artist 15.6 Pro, check out the link below: https://www.storexppen.com/buy/artist-15_6pro.html