5 Best Drawing Tablets for Artists in 2024
Not so long ago, artists had to spend obscene amounts of money if they wanted to create digital drawings and paintings. While many artists still use pen displays and tablet styluses, tablets have recently become favored by amateurs and professionals alike. They offer excellent value for money, and their functionality goes far beyond drawing.
Product | Brand | Name | Price |
---|---|---|---|
MEKO | MEKO Universal Stylus,[2 in 1 Precision Series] Disc Stylus Touch Screen Pens | Check Price on Amazon | |
Wacom | Wacom DTHW1620H Mobile Studio Pro 16" Windows 10, Intel Core i7, 512GB SSD | Check Price on Amazon | |
Lenovo | Lenovo Yoga Book - FHD 10.1\" Android Tablet - 2 in 1 Tablet | Check Price on Amazon | |
SAMSUNG | Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 (64GB, White) | Check Price on Amazon | |
Microsoft | Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (256 GB, 8 GB RAM, Intel Core i5) | Check Price on Amazon | |
Apple | Apple iPad Pro (128 GB, Wi-Fi, Silver) - 12.9" Display | Check Price on Amazon |
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All tablets featured on this list can be used with stylus pens like the MEKO 2-in-1 Disk Stylus. Drawing with a stylus pen gives you far better accuracy than if you were to draw with your fingers (which works surprisingly well, too), and you can use various replaceable tips to enhance your drawing experience.
Wacom DTHW1620H Mobile Studio Pro
Please, don’t click on the product link just yet. We first need to give you some information about it to save you from a nasty sticker shock. First, this tablet is aimed at professionals who are earning good money and need the best tools available. What may look like an ordinary tablet, at first sight, is a very powerful Windows computer with Intel Core i7 processor, NVIDIA Quadro M1000M 4GB GDDR5 GPU, 512 GB SSD storage space, and the ability to run the full version of Windows 10.
But that’s just where things start to get interesting. The DTHW1620H is Wacom’s most advanced drawing tablet, with 4x greater accuracy and pressure sensitivity compared to regular drawing tablets. The tablet’s stunning 16” screen with the 4K resolution and 94% Adobe RGB color coverage perform miles above ordinary Android tablets.
3D designers can capture 3D scans with the built-in Intel Real Sense camera and scanning software. Digital artists can use the new Wacom Pro Pen 2, which has 4x higher pen accuracy and pressure sensitivity than the previous version, to sketch, draw, and edit in a way that feels natural and intuitive.
The only downside is the price. The Wacom DTHW1620H Mobile Studio Pro is just far too expensive for most artists, despite how amazing it is.
Lenovo Yoga Book
You never know when inspiration hits, so it makes sense to buy a drawing tablet that’s so light that you can carry it with you anywhere you go. The Yoga Book from Lenovo is the world’s lightest 2-in-1 tablet, and, in this case, the low weight doesn’t come with any compromises.
The tablet opens like a traditional book, revealing a high-resolution display on one side and Lenovo’s innovative Halo keyboard with real haptic feedback. The keyboard shows only when you need it. When you don’t, it turns into a smooth surface for your notes or for the included Rear Pen, which detects 2048 levels of pressure. The pen allows you to write notes and jot down your ideas with real ink, seamlessly digitizing everything on the fly and showing it on the tablet’s display.
The Yoga Book is powered by a 2.4 GHz Intel Atom chipset with 4 GB of memory and fast GPU. It can last up to 12 hours on a single charge. These specifications, along with the high-fidelity speakers, make this tablet perfect for multimedia consumption as well as drawing.
Samsung Galaxy Note Pro
Samsung has been pushing tablets and smartphones as instruments of artistic creation for many years now. Their Note line of devices is loved by artists and business professionals alike for its inclusion of the S Pen. With the S pen, it’s possible to jot down notes precisely, phone numbers, search terms, and much more on the large 12.2” display of the Galaxy Note Pro tablet.
As with all high-end Samsung devices, you can expect top-of-the-range specifications. Indeed, the Note Pro features Samsung Exynos 5 Octa processor, 8 MP rear camera, 2 MP front-facing camera, 64 GB of on-board memory, up to 13 hours of battery life per charge, and a handful of special Galaxy Perks, including 50GB of Dropbox space.
Back in 2014, when the tablet was released, it would set you back quite a bit, but it has since become very affordable. An excellent choice for anyone who would like to get into digital art.
Microsoft Surface Pro 4
Arguably, Microsoft has single-handedly made PCs cool again with their Surface range of tablets, laptops, and computers. The Surface Pro 4 is a large, powerful tablet designed to replace your laptop. It features a fantastic 2.3” PixelSense screen with extremely high contrast and low glare, allowing you to work even in broad daylight without any eye strain. Using the back hinge, you can choose from several different positions, from fully flat to the standard laptop configuration.
Microsoft offers the Surface Pro 4 in quite a few configurations, from the super-quiet but the modestly powerful low-end model with Intel Core M processor all the way up to the most expensive model with Intel Core i7 and 16 GB of memory. Our recommendation is right in the middle of these two extremes, featuring Intel Core i5 CPU and 8 GB of RAM—more than plenty even for the most demanding Windows applications.
Included with the Surface Pro 4 is also the Surface Pen, a pressure-sensitive digital pen made by artists for artists. You can customize how the pen writes, and the included eraser lets you quickly correct your mistakes. The pen supports most modern Windows applications, including Sketchable, Mental Canvas, Drawboard PDF, StaffPad, and others.
Apple iPad Pro
Professional graphics designers and artists love the Apple iPad Pro not just because it’s an excellent tablet in its own right, but also because it can be used with the Apple Pencil. The iPad Pro was designed with creative professionals in mind. It features a gorgeous 12.9″ retina display with the resolutions of 2732 x 2048, dual-core A9X chipset, and future-proof connectivity options. However, the impressive features of the iPad Pro are easily overshadowed by the sheer awesomeness of the Apple Pencil.
It looks and feels like an ordinary pencil, but you wouldn’t believe just how smart this sleek plastic instrument is. The Pencil’s digital subsystem, combined with Apple‑designed software, reduces input lag to an almost imperceptible level. The tip of the pencil is pressure-sensitive, allowing you to easily draw lines of any weight just by applying different pressure. The built-in accelerometer can calculate the exact orientation and angle of your hand, making shading feel natural.
You get around 12 hours of drawing on a single battery charge, and it takes just 30 seconds of charging using the Lighting connector, hidden under the top cap, to get 30 minutes of use. It doesn’t matter whether you want to occasionally draw a few sketches or paint a digital masterpiece—with the Apple iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil, you’ll have everything you need to make your creative visions come to life.
Product | Brand | Name | Price |
---|---|---|---|
MEKO | MEKO Universal Stylus,[2 in 1 Precision Series] Disc Stylus Touch Screen Pens | Check Price on Amazon | |
Wacom | Wacom DTHW1620H Mobile Studio Pro 16" Windows 10, Intel Core i7, 512GB SSD | Check Price on Amazon | |
Lenovo | Lenovo Yoga Book - FHD 10.1\" Android Tablet - 2 in 1 Tablet | Check Price on Amazon | |
SAMSUNG | Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 (64GB, White) | Check Price on Amazon | |
Microsoft | Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (256 GB, 8 GB RAM, Intel Core i5) | Check Price on Amazon | |
Apple | Apple iPad Pro (128 GB, Wi-Fi, Silver) - 12.9" Display | Check Price on Amazon |
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