Xp-pen Artist22e Pro Drawing Pen Display Graphic Monitor Review

XP-Pen Creative person 22 (2nd Gen) is the new 22-inch (really 21.5-inch) pen display XP-Pen has just added to their line up. Offical retail price is US $469 and information technology comes with 18 months of warranty.

At the fourth dimension of this review, XP-Pen is selling four 22-inch pen displays and here's the tabular array comparison:

Model	Artist 22 (second Gen)	Artist 22 Pro	Creative person 22E Pro	Artist 22R Pro
Price	US $469	US $449	US $499	US $699
Cartoon surface area	21.v inch	21.5 inch	21.5 inch	21.v inch
Drawing surface	Matte screen protector	Matte screen protector	Matte screen protector	Matte screen protector
Resolution	1080P	1080P	1080P	1080P
Shortcut keys	None	None	16	xx
Roller wheel/dial	None	None	None	2
Response time	8ms	14ms	14ms	15ms
Dissimilarity ratio	800:ane	g:1	1000:1	1000:1
Brightness	250 nits	Not stated	Not stated	Non stated
Colour back up	90% Adobe RGB, sRGB≧122%, 86% NTSC	77 to 82% Adobe RGB	77 to 82% Adobe RGB	90% Adobe RGB, sRGB≧120%, 88% NTSC
Data and video interface	USB-C, HDMI, Headphone Jack	USB A, HDMI	USB-A, HDMI, VGA port	USB-C, 2x USB Hub, HDMI, VGA
Pen	PA6 Battery-free Stylus	P02S Battery Stylus	P02S Battery Stylus	PA2 Battery-free Stylus
Reading height	1cm	1.5cm	1.5cm	1cm
Tilt sensitivity	Yes	None	Aye	Yes
Pressure sensitivity	8192 levels	8192 levels	8192 levels	8192 levels

Main matter to note is whether there are physical shortcut buttons, tilt sensitivity and battery-free pen, and the colour support. The better models are the Artist 22 (2nd Gen) and Artist 22R Pro which take battery-complimentary pens and better colour support.

By the way, this is a review unit XP-Pen has provided for me to evidence you guys how the Creative person 22 (2nd gen) looks and performs.

These are the accessories and cables included, namely:

• Creative person glove
• Warranty info
• Transmission
• Micro-fiber cleaning cloth
• USB-A to USB-C cable
• USB-C to USB-C cable
• Full-size HDMI to total-size HDMI cable
• Power cable and adapter
• PA6 battery-complimentary pen and pen case
• eight replacement nibs

If you buy the pen display from XP-Pen's website, y'all get to cull the power plug. If yous buy from elsewhere, eg Amazon, information technology should come with the advisable plug used in your country.

The cylindrical pen instance is well build and solid.

The pen is extremely safe in the instance.

The cap from one end of the pen instance can be used every bit a pen stand up.

At the other end of the pen case you can find eight replacement nibs.

The XP-Pen PA6 pen is a stylus that does not use a battery so no charging is required.

The pen is well congenital, solid and comfortable to hold with its huge rubber grip. The two side buttons are customisable and have good feedback when pressed.

The pen tip has slight movement just overall all the same considered firm. The pen supports tilt sensitivity and upwardly to 8,192 levels of force per unit area sensitivity.

The stand up is already fastened to the back of the pen display.

The stand tin be removed with a screwdriver to reveal a VESA mount area that measures 10 x 10cm.

The two big rubber feet provides good grip and keeps the pen display stable on the table.

Rollers on the lesser of the movable stand allows yous to adjust the bending of the pen display easily.

Lifting the latch behind will unlock the stand up and allow y'all deploy the pen display at any angle. Changing the display'southward angle is a two hand operation.

This is with the pen brandish nearly vertical.

The lowest bending is comfy to work with.

Beside the stand is the compartment for the ports and inside are some plastic protrusions to assistance with cable direction.

Ports there are 3.5mm audio jack, USB-C, full-size HDMI and the power port

After the cables are continued, you can encompass the cables and ports with the plastic flap provided.

On the top right side of the pen displays are buttons for the OSD menu. Two buttons at that place are for quick volume aligning.

The OSD menu allows adjustments for brightness, contrast, gamma and colour temperature

The pen brandish comes with a pasted notation that says yous should peel off the protective film earlier use.

The gild is this:
- Protective motion-picture show #1 (looks dirty)
- Protective flick #ii (glossy)
- Matte screen protector (don't peel this off)
- Bodily brandish surface

Those are the 2 protective films.

Peel off the commencement protective film and you'll run across a glossy protective pic #2 which you have to peel off.

Thankfully, the matte screen protector seems to adhere to the pen display well so it'south not likely to accidentally peel that off.

Design of the pen display looks clean and unproblematic. In that location are no concrete shortcut buttons on either side. Yous'll take to use a keyboard for keyboard shortcuts which is my preferred style of working. Bezels are thick but non likewise thick.

All corners are rounded off and edges are beveled.

The display is an IPS panel so viewing angles are groovy. Colours don't shift much even when display is viewed from the side.

That'due south how the anti-glare matte screen protector looks when there's reflection. Just make sure there's no low-cal source pointing directly at the display and there won't exist the white "brume".

The matte drawing surface is considered the smoother blazon but not glace. There are matte screen protectors with more texture merely the tradeoff is you go even more ambitious anti-glare and white "haze".

Generally speaking, the rougher the surface, the easier information technology is to have your palm glide on the surface while drawing. The smoother surface on this XP-Pen may introduce some friction with your palm, specially and so if yous happen to sweat easily, in which instance it'due south great that at that place'southward an creative person glove included.

XP-Pen did non mention whether or non the brandish is laminated. If you look from the side, y'all can meet a small gap between the pen and LCD below. That gap is not noticeable when looking at the pen brandish from the front.

This is not a laminated display but that modest gap so it doesn't cause pregnant parallax. By default, the cursor is already set to runway directly below the pen tip. At extreme edges where there could be slight parallax, you lot may demand to calibrate the pen and cursor.

I noticed afterwards the pen and cursor scale, when the pen tip is most the left and right edges, the cursor'south position will first from the pen tip by a few pixels. The tracking accuracy is non perfect nearly the edges. Only thankfully the kickoff is not that serious and I was withal able to click on things accurately enough.

Pixelation is quite noticeable due to the 1920 x 1080 resolution on a 21.5 inch display. It would be squeamish to have a sharper display but that would hateful a college price likewise. 1080P resolution is still a very usable resolution. At to the lowest degree all the user interface elements are large and easy to come across and read.

The matte screen protector does affect the paradigm quality of the display. All matte screen protectors produce this color noise that affects the prototype quality so it's not surprising. Having said that the colours and brightness do look good out of the box.

With colour calibration using a Spyder5Pro, I measured colour back up for 99% sRGB, 84% AdobeRGB, 82% NTSC and 91% P3. Measured maximum brightness is of 233 nits isn't too far off from the advertised 250 nits.

This is basically an sRGB monitor which means it'due south good for graphic design, digital fine art or any piece of work that's meant to exist put online. This level of colour support is more than sufficient for almost people and most blazon of piece of work. If yous work with print, and accept to compare against printed proofs, or need fifty-fifty better color accuracy, you'll have to wait for AdobeRGB displays which are more expensive.

The pen display can connect to devices that can output video signal from USB-C. The upside of using the USB-C to USB-C cable for video and data connection with your reckoner is you will but need to use one cable. If you utilise HDMI cable, you lot will likewise need to use the USB cablevision and then that the pen display can find the pen.

Shown above is the pen brandish connected to my Samsung Tab S7+. The pen display does not have touch screen so you still have to navigate the tablet with the tablet. Unfortunately I don't have whatsoever computers with USB-C ports to test.

There'southward no ability delivery via the USB-C port on the pen display.

Driver

These are the two drivers I used

• Mac driver "XP-PENMac_3.0.6_201226(New UI Beta Driver)" from Dec 29, 2020
• Windows driver "XP-PENWin_3.0.8.201225(New UI Beta Commuter)" from January 6, 2021

There are instructions on how to install the driver on MacOS 10.15 so my gauge is the driver is supported on Apple Macs with the M1 chip.

I have an issue with the Mac driver. When my organization boots up, the pen doesn't work. The pen only works later on I launch the driver. When I quit the driver, the pen stops working once more. This is unusual because the driver is suppose to work in the background and you don't have the manual launch the driver each time yous start your figurer. Thankfully, the workaround is simple: only have the driver launch during startup. You lot tin do that on the Mac via the dock, select the app and choose "Open at login" or through System Preferences - Users and Group - Login.

The side buttons on the pen and pressure sensitivity can be customised. The pressure level curve can be adjusted past moving the point to different positions.

If you're using dual displays, you will need to gear up one side button on the pen to the Switch Display functionality so that you can accept the cursor switch between 2 monitors.

These are the other functions or shortcuts yous tin can set to the pen's side buttons.

The commuter allows you lot to calibrate the pen and cursor to remove the parallax.

Drawing performance

More often than not speaking, cartoon experience is improve on MacOS than with Windows considering there are several bug that may be related to Windows Ink.

Medibang Paint Pro (Mac)
Lines taper nicely. Line transition from sparse to thick is polish. Pressure sensitivity works swell. The pen is also able to maintain consistent pressure level for a consequent line thickness.

This is the drawing operation to expect with most drawing software.

Medibang Paint Pro (Mac)
The pen supports upwardly to 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity. The initial activation force is lower than I expected. You can draw with the lightest of pressure and still get a line. And since you lot can adapt the shape of the pressure curve, yous tin can go finer controls with the pressure.

Clip Studio Paint (Mac)

Krita (Mac)
At that place are some issues with tilt sensitivity. Tilt works fine when drawing at normal speed.

When drawing slowly with tilt brush, when the pen changes management from right to left or up to down vice versa, at that place will be a gap. When shading at moderate speed, and the pen changes direction, at that place's no gap.

Another issue with tilt is tilt sensitivity volition end working when the pen is near ane inch away from the edges of the display. If need to use tilt brushes at the edge of the display, this is going to exist a deal breaker. The areas around the edges are usually taken up by the palettes, menus, taskbar, dock so we are usually drawing away from the edges which means we won't be experiencing this trouble.

Photoshop (Mac)

Pressure level sensitivity does not work with Adobe Illustrator on Mac. The functionality to plow on pressure to bear upon brush size is greyed out and tin can't be selected. The workaround is to install Wacom Intuos driver in add-on to the XP-Pen commuter (and hope there'south no conflict with other cartoon software).

Analogousness Photo on both Mac and Windows work surprisingly well.

Tilt sensitivity works with Affinity Photo.

Windows Ink is needed for tilt and pressure sensitivity to work properly in Photoshop (Win).

Pressure level works with Adobe Illustrator (Win)

Clip Studio Paint (Win) works fine.

Tilt and force per unit area sensitivity works fine with Krita (Win).

Medibang Paint Pro (Win) works fine when Windows Ink is disabled.

I noticed 2 problems when Windows Ink is enabled. Starting time, when cartoon, the line only appears split second afterwards pregnant you lot will offset drawing with a gap, e.thou. you can't join lines together properly. Second problem is when tapping on the display to create dots, dots won't appear until yous drag the pen tip slightly.

Pressure sensitivity works fine with Affinity Designer on Mac and Windows.

The problem with Windows Ink

Windows Ink will interfere with the XP-Pen commuter to crusade problems with tilt and pressure sensitivity. E.g. Windows Ink is needed with Photoshop (Win) but not Medibang (Win).

If you see the Windows Ink starburst cursor, it's a sign that tilt and pressure sensitivity may have problems. You'll want to see the normal pointer cursor. It is possible to permanently disable Windows Ink if that'southward something you desire to do, but it's a hassle to always be turning Windows Ink or or off.

Video review

Conclusion

The XP-Pen Artist 22 (2nd gen) is a well built pen display that looks good. The colour accuracy is reasonable good and brightness is acceptable.

Other downsides. The lack of physical shortcut buttons is non a big deal for me since i prefer to utilise my keyboard for shortcuts. If you use dual monitors, y'all'll have to customize ane side push button on the pen to Switch Display. The other downside is with the minor MacOS driver glitch where you demand to launch the driver before the pen can work but thankfully the workaround is unproblematic.

Windows Ink is a perenial problem with Photoshop and Medibang Paint Pro, and information technology'due south not specific to XP-Pen products.

Medibang Paint Pro (Mac)

Overall drawing performance is very satisfying. Drawing performance is consistent, predictable with no surprises (except for tilt). Line quality is skilful. The initial activation force is surprisingly depression making the pen really sensitive.

Official retail toll of Usa $469 is price competitive with other brands. And the pen display comes with eighteen months of warranty. You tin decided whether it's worth your money based on the functioning I've presented.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Make clean and unproblematic blueprint
+ Good build quality
+ 21.5-inch display is massive to draw on
+ Good colour accuracy. 99% sRGB measured
+ Maximum brightness of 233 nits measured
+ Matte drawing surface has nice texture to draw on
+ Laminated brandish with minimal gap between pen tip and LCD
+ Using USB-C connection means you can employ one cable for video and data
+ viii replacement nibs included
+ Pen does non crave charging
+ Pen supports tilt and 8192 levels of pressure level sensitivity
+ Initial activation force is mininal
+ Stand can exist deployed at various angles.
+ Stand is stable at all angles.
+ Can be VESA mounted (10 x 10cm)
+ Does not produce much estrus
+ Fantabulous cartoon functioning when commuter works properly
+ Works with MacOS 10.15 (eg. on Macs that run M1 chip)
- Windows Ink affects force per unit area and tilt for some apps
- No physical shortcut buttons
- Mac driver needs to be launched before pen tin work
- Tilt sensitivity does not piece of work when pen is 1 inch away from the edges

Availability

At the time of this review, the XP-Pen Artist 22 (2nd gen) is only sold through XP-Pen'southward online store. Click hither to buy or to see the full specs and more details.

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Source: https://www.parkablogs.com/content/review-xp-pen-artist-22-2nd-gen-pen-display

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