{"id":3346,"date":"2020-01-17T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T12:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eu.shop.wacom.eu\/us\/?p=3346"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:24:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T16:24:46","slug":"the-one-thing-you-need-in-a-tablet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/the-one-thing-you-need-in-a-tablet\/","title":{"rendered":"The One Thing You Need in a Tablet"},"content":{"rendered":"The <\/span>Wacom One,<\/span><\/a> released 2019, is our latest new line drawing monitors \u2014our lowest-priced yet, offering all Wacom\u2019s build quality for half the cost of a Cintiq.\u00a0\u00a0All the art for this article was done on it.<\/span><\/em>\n\n\"\"\n\nBear in mind that this is different from the <\/span>One By Wacom<\/span><\/a>, our entry-level but almost full-featured pen tablet.\u00a0 But they\u2019re similar in spirit: an affordable, entry-level option to their respective types of tablet.\u00a0 (And throughout this article, I\u2019ll be referring to them collectively as the Ones.)<\/span><\/em>\n\nThat said, this isn\u2019t an infomercial. I\u2019m not just going to try to sell you stuff. ...Well, I will at the end, but all of the considerations I\u2019ll mention are genuine advice that comes from my own experience as an artist.<\/span><\/em>\n

So...\u00a0 What's the thing?<\/span><\/h2>\nWhen you Google \u201cbest drawing tablets,\u201d it autocompletes to, among other things, \u201dBest drawing tablet for beginners,\u201d \u201cBest drawing tablet under 100,\u201d and \u201cBest drawing tablet 2021.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\n\nAll of these boil down to the same question I had when I got my first serious tablet, a <\/span>CTH-680<\/span><\/a>: \u201cWill I be able to make the kind of art I want to make with this?\u201d Like the Ones, it was an entry-level device.\u00a0 So what were the differences between it and the tablets that retailed for twice its price and up?\u00a0<\/span>\n\nBut the answer to those questions turned out to be another one: What is a tablet, really?\u00a0<\/span>\n\nA tablet is simply a way to generate signals, to track mouse position and input lines.\u00a0 If you\u2019re already somewhat experienced with digital art (I wasn\u2019t at the time) you\u2019ll know that things like hand steadiness and your knowledge of your art program are what allow you to draw the thing, not the statistics on the box.<\/span>\n\nSo, to get to the point, the one thing you need in a tablet is:<\/span>\n

Comfort.<\/span><\/h1>\nThat\u2019s it.<\/span>\n\nExpensive tablets don\u2019t have any magical properties that make you draw better. In fact, there\u2019s really no such thing as an inherently \u201camateur tablet\u201d or \u201cpro tablet:\u201d There\u2019s only the one you enjoy working with and the one you don\u2019t.<\/span>\n\nAnything with pressure sensitivity and tilt will give you the full range of capabilities you need to work with Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, GIMP, Medibang, Painter, Sketchbook, or Krita. So if you like your tool, you can make perfectly fine art on it. It\u2019s all about your own level of proficiency on it and how natural it feels to use it.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nUnfortunately, you\u2019ll never quite know how comfortable you\u2019ll find one until you try it. For example, I personally prefer ones with thinner and lighter pens, and it can be hard to judge from a picture.\u00a0 If you can, by finding us at a con, borrowing one from a friend, or finding one of the scattered Apple Stores that offer product demos,* definitely do that.<\/span>\n\n*Or, very specifically, if you happen to visit New York, <\/span>B&H Photo<\/span><\/a> has an Intuos Pro and two Cintiqs for demo.<\/span><\/sub>\n\nBut if you can\u2019t, there are several predictors for how well a tablet will suit your personal needs:<\/span>\n

Screen or Nah?<\/span><\/h2>\nThe Wacom One that came out last week is a drawing monitor.\u00a0<\/span>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Starting at $399.99<\/span><\/i><\/p>\nThe One by Wacom we\u2019ve had out for a few years is a pen tablet.<\/span>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Currently on sale for $$49.95 in the US<\/span><\/i><\/p>\nEither is a valid choice.<\/span>\n\nA screen won\u2019t instantly make your drawings better, but it can make them faster and more natural. Artists for whom this isn\u2019t their first digital rodeo, who\u2019ve already adjusted to the disconnect between their hands and their eyes, are already used to mentally mapping their computer\u2019s aspect ratio to a tablet\u2019s\u2014might find it just as convenient to keep working with a conventional one.<\/span>\n\nBut artists who learned the fundamentals on paper will adjust more naturally to the feel of a screen tablet.\u00a0 Some say there\u2019s barely any difference, others say it\u2019s night and day.<\/span>\n

Cost<\/span><\/h2>\nThey get up there in price, though, and you don\u2019t want your drawing experience to be hampered by the persistent thought of, \u201cThis $1k tablet is awesome, but I\u2019m definitely not getting $1k worth of use out of it.\u201d<\/span>\n\nWhen deciding what to drop on a tablet, always remember bigger and more expensive aren\u2019t always better. That\u2019s part of what we\u2019re going for with the One.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nTablets are to art what mice are to gaming. Some games, like turn-based strategies, you can play just fine with an office mouse. Others, like FPS\u2019es, are overall much easier and more fun with a solid $20-$50 one: nothing extravagant, just something with more weight, a few shortcut buttons, and an adjustable DPI. But that $130 one covered in disco lights might just be expensive overkill unless you\u2019re a tournament gamer. Most of us won\u2019t need its ultra-fine tuning, since we don\u2019t have that level of reaction time and aim precision in the first place.<\/span>\n\nSimilarly, how much you should drop into a tablet depends on your level of experience, and if you\u2019re trying to go pro with it. I don\u2019t say that as a gatekeeper: Most artists aren\u2019t, and that\u2019s fine. And you need to factor that into your budget before determining your ideal level of investment, or buyer\u2019s remorse can be real.<\/span>\n

Size<\/span><\/h2>\n\"\"\n\nThis is something it\u2019s easy to fret over about when buying a tablet, but it\u2019s not actually as serious as you think. Generally, artists whose work skews simpler might find it more comfortable to work on a smaller surface; some even find it more convenient to have a tablet that lets them navigate more screen space with less movement. Artists who are particular about detail, however, might find it better to work on a larger surface.<\/span>\n\nI main with a <\/span>Wacom Cintiq 16 HD<\/span>. It\u2019s just the right balance of cost vs. size. I work large.\u00a0 As a traditional artist, I drew major illustrations on 11 x 17\u201d up to 18 x 24,\u201d and my digital work is all at least 3,000 px in one dimension or the other. However, being still at the intermediate level, a 22 or 24-inch drawing monitor would creep into overkill territory for my own needs.<\/span>\n\nHowever, the CTH-680 was a 2015 medium, which had a smaller active area than the mediums now, and I found it perfectly comfortable to work on for four years. Avoid the trap of thinking it\u2019s impossible to achieve the precision you want without a large. You can always just\u2026 zoom in.<\/span>\n\nAnd if you like to make big, broad strokes and you\u2019re worried about your hand falling off the tablet, that can be helped by\u2026 zooming out.<\/span>\n

Portability<\/span><\/h2>\nThis, actually, is something I didn\u2019t consider on my first buy. In hindsight, though, I\u2019m glad the CTH-680 was just the right size to slip into a backpack and work out of the house with: Being stuck behind the same desk every day, next to the same pile of clothes on the floor, eating the same leftovers out of your fridge, gets tired. I like occasional changes of space when I work, myself, especially when I need to force myself away from Team Fortress 2 and focus on getting a project done. And then there\u2019s trips out of town where you\u2019d otherwise face the prospect of going a week without a tablet. In short, sometimes you want, or need, to work outside the house.<\/span>\n\n \n\nBoth types of One are better for travel than many other tablets or drawing monitors.\u00a0 They\u2019re both, also, small enough to put inside a backpack; both are quick to pack and unpack; and both of them can be run off a laptop\u2019s power, although the screen version needs two USB ports.<\/span>\n\n(Not to mention that the former is so affordable that you can plausibly have both.)<\/span>\n

Features<\/span><\/h1>\n\"\"\n\nSome of the other most common deciding factors in tablet choices include:<\/span>\n\nPressure Levels:\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>Most current-gen tablets come with 4096 or 8192, which is more than enough. (I was fine with the CTH\u2019s 1024.) What matters is the individual feel of each tablet, and most notably, the starting pressure. More on that later.<\/span>\n\nShortcut Buttons:<\/b> Some tablets (by us or not) have them, others don\u2019t. The One doesn\u2019t. It saves space. This will be a sticking point for some people, but although this is highly subjective, they\u2019re not as much of a game-changer as you might think. I used to obsess over what shortcuts to map to which buttons, only to realize that whether I had four or eight, they still weren\u2019t enough for all the Clip Studio Paint features I regularly use, and found myself reaching for the keyboard by instinct.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nIf you\u2019ve been using your drawing program for a while, you could well be familiar with the keyboard shortcuts by muscle memory to where they\u2019re more comfortable and intuitive than trying to remember which of the identical unlabeled buttons you programmed to what. And the One still has the radial menu.<\/span>\n\nLamination: <\/b>An issue unique to drawing monitors, <\/span>parallax <\/span><\/i>is the distance between the top transparent surface that registers your pen and the one under it that\u2019s the actual display. Early drawing monitors had loads of it, but it\u2019s dropped almost to zero with the invention of the laminated surface, a technology that puts them in direct contact with each other. It\u2019s been Wacom\u2019s signature feature for a while now.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nArtists who are more proficient with sketching on paper than direct to digital might never used to screens with noticeable parallax. That disconnect from where your pen is on the outer surface and where it is on the inner surface can be enough to throw you off.<\/span>\n\nEraser\/No Eraser: <\/b>Many of our lines, such as the Intuos Pro and Cintiq have them; the Ones do not. But hear me out for a minute.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nI\u2019ve found erasers to be useful on conventional tablets, but using them on screen tablets to be unnecessary. It\u2019s less precise than the pen side and flipping it every time gets annoying anyway, so I find myself just using the E key.<\/span>\n\nTouch: <\/b>Some of our tablets, like the Wacom Intuos Pro and the Wacom Mobile Studio, have it. Most Cintiqs and The One do not. However, with screen tablets, touch is less necessary. When I was drawing on the Pen & Touch, I only needed it for screen rotation, which you need to do way less frequently on a drawing monitor. And when I do need it, I\u2019ve found it simple enough just to tap the onscreen buttons in Clip Studio. And as on any other device, it\u2019s preferable not to have fingerprints and oils building up on the screen.<\/span>\n\nSoftware: <\/b>Drivers have long been a big point of contention among tablet brands. Wacom\u2019s track flawlessly, where another brand I\u2019ve worked with (more on that later) needed to be recalibrated every day, or else the cursor would drift away from the pen\u2019s position. And it wouldn\u2019t keep up with the pen when you get near the edges of the monitor.<\/span>\n\nNot to mention ours comes with a three-month subscription to Clip Studio Paint\u2014the best purpose-built drawing program, IMO\u2014which is worth some of the cost on its own, and is bumped up to six months if you register the program with Celsys.<\/span>\n

Build Quality<\/span><\/h2>\nI\u2019m not going to put too fine a point on this: People\u2019s biggest question before buying a Wacom is why it\u2019s more expensive than its competitors. That\u2019s because this is what you\u2019re paying for.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nI still have a Cintiq alternative from before I started working for Wacom. I won\u2019t say which one, but it\u2019s one of the most popular. I know you have no reason to believe me, but these are my genuine thoughts on the difference between the two, and they still would be even if I wasn\u2019t being paid to express them:<\/span>\n\nThe other one is perfectly functional. You can make just as good art on it. I won\u2019t deny that. But there\u2019s a world of difference in the experience.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nThe unit itself feels more plasticky, with less heft. The screen is smooth and slippery, making it like drawing on a phone, and it got scratched enough to cause ridges after just a few weeks of carrying it in a backpack. If I\u2019m going to comfortably use it again in the future, I\u2019ll need to buy a textured screen protector\u2026 And generic ones don\u2019t fit its aspect ratio. If I buy one for the same size iPad on Amazon, it won\u2019t cover the whole surface. And they don\u2019t sell specialty ones for drawing tablets in stores, so I can\u2019t check the sizes myself. And so on and so forth.<\/span>\n\nMeanwhile, the Cintiq comes with a subtly paper-textured matte screen, as does the One. The alternative is fine for painting, but the Wacom is better, and knocks it out of the park for drawing, offering a nice level of friction that really helps with precise details. (And makes a pleasing \u201cpifft\u201d sound on strokes.)<\/span>\n\nThe alternative\u2019s pen is bulky, cumbersome, and the factory grip started to come off within days of purchase. It\u2019s stiff, requiring a starting amount of pressure just to register, then more pressure on top of that to control the line width.<\/span>\n\nWacoms, though\u2014every one I\u2019ve used\u2014respond to the pen barely touching the surface, yielding a much better range of line widths without having to either adjust the brush size constantly or ram it into the tablet like Excalibur.<\/span>\n\n\"\"\n

This is the magic setting.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \n\nIt also has a softer feel and more give behind the nib.<\/span>\n\nThis seems minor... But as someone who both draws and types for a living, repetitive strain can become a serious problem, to where it takes careful management to keep it at a functional level. Taking frequent breaks and making sure to do other things with your hands helps, but the cumulative effect of needing to put less pressure into every stroke really builds up over the course of hours.<\/span>\n\n...Plus, the alternative doesn\u2019t have a pen flap. Those have saved my pen from getting lost so, so many times.<\/span>\n\nThese are the kinds of kinks and quirks you don\u2019t discover until you\u2019ve tried the unit. I recommend Youtube comparisons for this kind of thing, but TL;DR: Wacoms, in my experience, have always just been more comfortable and a more reliable buy.<\/span>\n\nNot to mention our stuff lasts forever. In another article last year, I mentioned that Youtuber Squashy Boy once<\/a> ran water over the same model of tablet I used to have, smashed it with a hammer, set it on fire, and still found it functional. I dropped both the tablet and the pen several times, once from table-height, spilled things on it, often set it down way too hard in unpadded backpacks, and it barely scratched. At five years old, I gave it to another artist who\u2019s giving it a whole new life.<\/span>\n

So, here\u2019s the plug:<\/span><\/h1>\nI\u2019ve been honest about the benefits and potential drawbacks of The One so you can decide if it\u2019s really for you. But at the end of the day: It\u2019s a drawing monitor. It\u2019s under $400. It\u2019s a Wacom. And that name isn\u2019t just a flex. It means it\u2019s built solid, and the originator of the features its competitors only imitate, with an unparalleled feel, refined over the course of 36 years making the equipment that defined digital art.<\/span>\n\nIf you\u2019re in the market for a new tablet, you owe it to yourself to at least take a look at them.<\/span>\n

About the Author<\/h3>\n\"CSCS Jones is a Philadelphia-based freelance writer and illustrator. He spends his spare time listening to Spotify and falling down Youtube rabbitholes. In his past articles, his bio said \"someday, he\u2019ll finish that graphic novel,\" but he's actually working on it now. His other work is best seen at\u00a0thecsjones.com<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0@thecsjones<\/a>\u00a0on Instagram.\u00a0 (Including the drawings he did for this article, which will be up soon.)\u00a0 He genuinely likes his One.\u00a0 Promise.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2317,2342,2340],"tags":[404,405,406,75,407,408,409,410],"class_list":["post-3346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-drawing-painting","category-wacom-one","category-products","tag-copywriting","tag-month-one","tag-one","tag-one-by-wacom","tag-sales","tag-shopping","tag-tablets","tag-wacom-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}