Active area size

Introduction

Because the active area is rectangular, we can describe its size in different ways.

• Width & Height

• Diagonal length

• Area

Most often, we describe active area size by its diagonal length.

If you need help picking the right size for your tablet, see Choosing the right size for a drawing tablet.

Size in tablet names

You can often see the diagonal length in the names of pen displays. For example:

• Wacom Cintiq Pro 27

• Huion Kamvas Pro 16 Plus 4K

For pen tablets, manufacturers often use descriptive names such as "small" and "large" instead of numbers.

• Wacom Intuos Pro Medium

• Wacom Intuos Pro Large

Standard sizes

By looking at Wacom's product line and naming, we can build a useful framework for how descriptive words like "small" and "large" map to numbers. Note that the size names differ between pen displays and pen tablets.

Distribution of active area sizes

If we look at how drawing tablet models are distributed along this scale, we can see a lot of variation.

Diagonal vs Area

Is it reasonable to use the active area's diagonal length instead of its area?

I think it is, because diagonal length correlates reasonably well with area for drawing tablets.

Let's compare them by plotting the values for 180 different tablets.

For pen tablets:

And for pen displays:

Overall, I think using the diagonal is reasonable.