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Dec 2017

Every single time I want to search up new models of drawing tablets. On the first page It would show me a list of wacom tablets. Beside being known for industry work. It's kinda sad that in a way looks like Wacom is a Monopoly company.
What do you all think of wacom? -pros/cons
What about the other brands too? Like Huion or Ugee? -pros/cons

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    Dec '17
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    Nov '19
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I've only ever owned one Wacom, but speaking personally, I think their quality is top notch. My Intuos 3 is almost 10 years old and still works like new.

Mind you I never draw anywhere besides a flat surface. I know some people like drawing with a tablet on their laps and over the years the cable connection wears and it becomes finicky.

But as far as I know, Wacom has the best driver support. Like they regularly update their tablet drivers a couple times a year or more.

Huion is a good entry-level tablet if not for the price alone. I'm not sure how long they last though.

While I agree that Wacom costs way too much. I've been extremely happy with both my Wacom Bamboo and Wacom Cintiq HD 13. I almost bought a 22 inch Huion, but lots of people who are into line art gave it horrible reviews. Jonathan Rector (Jesop King) went into great detail on his youtube channel. The screen / pen just isn't accurate enough for good line art.

The Bamboo is entry level, cheap, and worked fine. I prefer my cintiq obviously, but there was never anything wrong with my bamboo. It tracked perfectly. It did not hold me back in any way.

i personally had an awful experience with huion. i had an old bamboo fun tablet, and decided to save up for a display tablet. i was originally going for the cintiq 13hd, but bought the huion gt 220 instead.

the tablet worked great the first day, aside from having to go out and buy an hdmi adapter there were no issues. immediately the next day the thing started making loud popping and crackling noises while heating up and for 2 hours after shutting off. every day after, it never stopped. after about 4 nights of having to move it to a different room while i slept because the noise would keep me up at night, i tried for a replacement. oops! since you bought it through amazon we wont send you a replacement and neither will they (even though it had a replacement policy set?). they expected me to return and rebuy it, with about $20-30 sucked out of the refund money. like money i earned through commissions. right after i got the refund i just dished it out for the cintiq 22hd and havent had a single problem since.

luckily i'd also had about $1k in allowance money saved up over like 7 years? my parents never actually gave me the money they just kept piling it up in a bank account so i was able to use that for the cintiq in addition to what i'd saved on my own.

edit: i did forget to mention that it was really badly packaged. they put it in a box way bigger than it with no padding so the defects might've been from it being tossed around in the box? thats what i thought caused most of the issues (though i've heard other stories of huion products being poorly made/breaking easier)

I'm not really a fan of Wacom. Bamboo (hope I spelled that correctly) and Hunion tablets are the way to go imo.

My first tablet was a 40$ Genius G-Pen, it was okay, lasted for about 2 years, then I bought a 100$ bamboo, and using a intous 4 at work, performance alone, I can not really tell if there's any diffrent between the 3 of them, at least at my level of art I guess, so if you are just starting out and can not afford a wacom, go for the cheaper brand, but if you dont have a litmit budget, I think it's better to buy a wacom for it's stable reputation.

Now I start doing comic, I'm thinking of getting a cintiq 13HD, but not sure if it can make me draw any faster and worth the money, can any cintiq user here give me some review ?

With Wacom/bamboo those tablet themselfs never lasted long with me. Then again I was still in my beginning art stages/a teenage and using only wacom's. The 3 tablets ever own was Bamboo Fun, Wacom Bamboo Capture Pen and Touch Tablet (CTH470) and Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch Small Tablet (Old Version). By that point after owning those three,l the pen pressure never work after a year is past even though I would update driver. By that point I was just recommend to buy another drawing tablet for 100$.
Best Tablet I had and lasted a good while is Huion h610 pro and Huion Q11k.
Maybe in future I'll go back to wacom that is if price wasn't so expensive

I have the 13hd and can’t really say that it makes you draw faster... but I still recommend it regardless as it’s easy to get used to! Definitely worth the every penny!

Also I agree what everyone is saying here plus Wacom just provides the most updates. I’ve had at least 5 updates these pass 3 months alone which is pretty often!

@Chronitis Bamboo is a Wacom brand.

@Light per the pen pressure, I know sometimes there are conflicts between tablet, program, and OS, and one has to find plug-ins to work around them. I'm not upgrading to the newest Mac OS because of this (I tried and the pen recognition was waaay off so I restored my mac to an old save state, lol), I don't have the time to dig for solutions. Could it also have been the pen itself that was failing?

I have a 22hd and just getting rid of the disconnect alone does wonders. i think it was worth saving up for. i dont know if it made me draw faster, but my lines have gotten more confident and clean since i started using it.

I had no idea what was wrong with it. It been a few years ago since I last touch a wacom. It could have been wire. Could have been drawing tablet itself. I check everything that was tech support even calling Wacom. Which the experience wise from them was terrible every time. Assuming since I had a kid voice (high pitch voice due to puberty) the tech support didn't take me seriously. The whole experience with tech support every time with them just sucked. I'm sure tech support had change but I'm not exactly egar to try even if I had another wacom tablet.

If I stay focused on just drawing and am having a good day, I feel like having a cintiq has definitely sped up my process a lot more. I think it's mainly because you can see where your hand is going so you don't have to hit ctrl-z as many times to get the lines juuust right. I normally only finished like 1 full-color thing in the past and it took me about an hour to do just a sketch of two characters with my intuos pro but with the cintiq I can hammer out a sketch in 20 minutes or less.

Only problem with the 13hd is that it's cable is extremely finicky. If you don't plan on moving it too much then that shouldn't be a problem, but replacement cables are hell to come by since they're practically sold out everywhere except for One Site (that isn't even wacom's). The stand is also pretty poor at doing its job so you'd have to buy a replacement to keep it up.

Wacom is just a very trusty brand for tablet in general. I used to have a $80 Wacom bamboo fun tablet and used it for a good 5-6 years before I decided to ditch out my saving money to a Cintiq 13HD. The bamboo is still useable, no issue at all beside some surface scratch, and my Cintiq 13HD has been worth every penny. It solves my dual screen problem and I feel like my lines have become sharper and smoother ever since I started using it.

I use A Wacom at work and that's where I was first introduced to it. It was love at first touch!! A Wacom Tablet with Clip Studio Paint Pro... do I need to say more? It simulates pencil, ink, paint, etc. on paper seamlessly! However, I still draw traditionally with red chalk on brown paper for my "FreeHand Fridays" series.

Wacom is pretty durable. I was given my tablet back in 2009 and I still use it today.

i have to admit, i still use my first ever drawing tablet (Wacom Intuos Manga... something) and it still works like brand new. tbh i much prefer just looking at Wacom tablets over others, because alot of others have an overwhelming amount of buttons while most wacom tablets if not all only have 4 buttons so it looks less intimidating to new artists. not to mention most artists seem to stay loyal to their tablet brand. my friends who use huion only use huion and me and others who use wacom only use wacom. i believe thats all it is, Wacom looks less intimidating and complicated (not to mention theyre always the first brand you see when you search quality tablets like you said) and then they stay loyal to Wacom because they rather stick to something theyre used to.

As far as Wacom's regular type tablets- I own 2. The 1st one I bought long ago(Graphire 3, 2004) & it still works; the 2nd one I bought about 3 yrs ago.

I stuck with Wacom(pen & touch CTH 680- right before they switched the design) on the 2nd go coz I didnt trust going with any other tablets. I'm planning on getting a screened tablet, and that is where I will experiment with something else(most likely, Huion GT 190)- I dont have $1000 or more to throw at a Wacom Cintiq(right now).

My very first tablet was a Trust tablet with an attached pen.

It was plain awful, it stopped working, the pressure sensitivity was absolute SHITE and omg, I was so mad at it.
I had it for a year before I got so mad that I threw it against a wall and jumped on it...
So I told my parents it broke because it was a terrible quality 8D

I was recommended a Bamboo Fun (a friend had one and I got to try it out and HOLY WOW it was the smoothest one i've ever had!).

Or at least compared to the old one.
So I got myself a Bamboo fun. I accidentally dropped a glass of water on it 8 years later and it stopped working. If I hadn't done that, it'd probably still be functional.

After that, I got myself and Intous pro M (intous 5) and it was seriously a good one, tho I missed the old Bamboo with the buttons on the top instead of having them to the side.

(I sold it later to a friend, and bought myself a Cintiq<3)

The reason for why everyone has been recommending the Wacom is because it's one of the leaders on the market with it's durable tablets and replaceable pens.
(LIKE SERIOUSLY, YOU CAN STILL GET YOURSELF A BAMBOO PEN IF YOU NEED ONE)

Huion seems to be sneaking up on Wacom, tho I've never tried it but I've heard some pretty good reviews about it.

But yeah: Quality that lasts, drivers that still updates even after 10+years and replaceable components.