Overview

Wacom has existed for over 40 years. In that time they've released many different drawing tablets.

In this document I'll point you to different lists of tablets depending on what you're interested in.

Wacom's official current tablet models

You can see a list of all the tablets Wacom currently sells on their website (). However, this information does not cover the tablets they historically sold.

Kuuube's Wacom tablet mastersheet

Tablet expert Kuuube maintains a which as far as I know lists every Wacom drawing tablet ever made.

Overview

Wacom has a lot of consumer products on the market.

Some important notes

• newer does not necessarily mean better

• older does not necessarily mean bad

• You have to pick by the specific model

• Some models have very similar names but are very different. See:

Introduction

There are many tablet brands and picking the brand of the tablet is one of the most important decisions you will need to make when selecting a tablet to purchase

Landscape

Tier 1: Wacom

Wacom was founded in 1983 continues to make the highest quality and most reliable tablets. In general, Wacom has the best drawing experience. Their products are the most expensive. I consider Wacom to be the "safe choice".

• More here:

• Wacom -

Tier 2: Huion, XP-Pen, & Xencelabs

Huion and XP-pen since about 2021 have been releasing decent devices and size 2023/2024 a couple very good ones that compete strongly with Wacom. In many ways they deliver 90% of what a typical person needs for about half the cost. They do trail Wacom in reliability and in customer support however. If you carefully research a tablet from these brands, you can find one that works for you.

• More here:

• Huion -

• XP-Pen -

Xencelabs (founded 2019) is a new brand focused only on professional tablets for professionally users. Xencelabs has a very strong focus on customer support.

• More here:

• Xencelabs -

Tier 3: Smaller brands

After Wacom, Huion, XP-Pen, there are many other brands that focus on budget or consumer tablets. All these brands the same technology as the Tier 2 brands. In fact they are even owned by the same companies. These brands have smaller portfolios, less responsive customer support, and smaller online communities.

• Artisul -

• Gaomon -

• Ugee -

Tier 4: Everyone else

Avoid.

How to choose the right brand for you

More here:

Pen tablets

Consumer vs Professional

The first letter to indicates if the tablet is a consumer of professional model. C means consumer. P means professional

• C -> Consumer (example: CTL-472)

• P -> Professional (example: PTH-660)

Active area size

The first digit of the number Indicates the active area size of the tablet

• 4 -> small (example: CTL-472)

• 6 -> medium (example: CTL-6100WL)

• 8 -> large (example: PTH-860)

Overview

Xencelabs (https://www.xencelabs.com/) positions itself as a direct competitor to Wacom for the professional creative audience

They are a very new brand and have a small product line as of Jan 2024:

• Pen displays

  • Xencelabs Pen Display 24:

  • Xencelabs Pen Display 16:

• Pen tablets

  • Xencelabs Pen Tablet Medium SE

  • Xencelabs Pen Tablet Medium: (very minimal notes)

What Xencelabs does well

• They are very thoughtful about the design of their products. You can see small touches that make a difference. For example:

  • Their pen tablets are exactly 16x9 aspect ratio

  • The front edge of their pen tablets are slightly slopped so there's less of a hard edge hitting your wrist

How Xencelabs could do better

• Core Pen tech

  • MAX pressure of their pens as I have measured is GOOD but not yet as high as Wacom's Pro Pens which have an EXCELLENT high max pressure.

  • Their stated IAF is 3gf - which matches my measurements - is GOOD. But Wacom's Pro pens have an even lower IAF.

Overview

No brand's products are consistently perfect.

All brands will eventually ship a product that has defective units or that will have sporadic problems with their drivers, etc. So, at some point you will need help.

This is why you MUST choose a brand that:

• Supports its customers well:

  • Is publishing driver updates

  • Had good documentation

Brands I generally suggest

I generally steer people toward:

• Wacom

• Huion

• XP-Pen

• Xencelabs

More here:

You'll find people who've had good and bad experience with each brand. Though generally I do think Wacom has a better experience for customers overall.

Brands vs specific tablets

Within a brand, they will have good tablets and bad tablets. Even Wacom, which is the market leader has some tablets I will not recommend.

Instead of only thinking of the brand, consider specific tablet models.

Online communities

Communities are where a people can learn and get help with drawing tablets. Depending on the brand there are different options. More here:

Discussions

• - brands compared

Overview

The undisputed leading brand is Wacom (https://www.wacom.com). They have a variety of products and different price points that should fit everyone's needs. If you don't want to weigh the pros and cons of different brands and want an easy answer then choose Wacom.

My experience: I currently own 39 Wacom tablets (6 pen displays and 33 pen tablets). I have extensively used every tablet in their professional series.

Some basic summaries of their leading series of tablets

• Intuos Pro - professional pen tablets. continue to be the best pen tablets ever made

• Cintiq Pro - professional pen displays - continue to be the best pen displays ever made

• One by Wacom - consumer pen tablets - are terrific beginner tablets

What Wacom does well

• Best EMR tech. This may not be obvious just by comparing specs, but their EMR tablet technology is ahead.

• Long-term reliability. Their older tablets (20+ years old) still work today if you use the appropriate driver.

• They have products for beginners, intermediate users, and professionals - but even their beginner products are very high quality.

Feature availability

One thing you'll notice about Wacom is that they tend to keep certain features in their professional line of products. In fact over time they have tended to remove features from their consumer tablets and move them only to the pro line. Other manufacturers tend to have those features consumer and professional lines.

If you are new to Wacom, you should understand this issue because it is a constant source of confusion for people looking to buy a Wacom tablet, get help with a Wacom tablet, or buy a replacement pen for their Wacom tablet.

The problem: Wacom makes two sweveraldifferent devices with confusingly similar names:

"One by Wacom" refers to any of 2 pen tablets

• One by Wacom Small (CTL-472) released in 2018

• One by Wacom medium (CTL-672) released in 2018

"Wacom One" can refer to any of 5 drawing tablets in two generations

• Wacom One GEN1 (DTC-133) - a pen display released in 2019

• Wacom One 12 GEN2 (DTC-121) - a pen display released in 2023

• Wacom One 13 touch GEN2 (DTH-134) - a pen display released in 2023

Overview

HUION (https://www.huion.com/) and XP-PEN (https://www.xp-pen.com/) are the next big tablet brands. Their recent (2021 and later) models have been pretty good - but still trail Wacom a bit in quality and reliability. In general I think they offer 90% of what you get with a WACOM but at a substantial price reduction.

Their best tablets

In 2023 and 2024 Huion and XP have released models with upgraded tech that are challenging Wacom's professional line.

• Huion Kamvas Pro 19

• Huion Kamvas Pro 27

• XP-Pen Deco Pro GEN2

• XP-Pen Artist Pro GEN2

A lot of their improvements with these tablets are due to their pens handling pressure better: lower IAF and much wider pressure ranges than before.

What HUION and XP-PEN do well:

• Good price vs cost

• Their latest offerings since 2021 are very usable for creative tasks.

• They introduce new models frequently - much more often than Wacom.

How Huion and XP-PEN could do better

• Huion pen displays - especially the high PPI ones tend to show more AG sparkle. more here: .

• Pointer lag:

  • XP-pen pen displays tend to exhibit slightly more pointer lag than Wacom or Huion. More here: .

Switching from Wacom

If you are an existing Wacom user yuou should keep in mind there are somethings that Wacom does where Huion and XP-Pen are still catching up on. In particular some of Wacom's pens (especially the Pro models) have an extremely low IAF (<1gf) . Huion latest pro pens can get to 2gf (per Huion's statements) and 3gf (per XP-Pen's statements). If you are used to a Wacom pen making marks at very tiny pressure you may find these higher IAF values hard to deal with.

I'm collecting information about the last drivers available for discontinued products. This list is incomplete and may be merged with other docs in the future.

Overview

All drawing tablets have multiple components, but the primary component is the EMR sensor - which also called the digitizer.

And despite all the many brands of drawing tablets you see, there are only a couple of manufacturers of digitizers. These are: Wacom, Hanvon Ugee, Huion.

Resources

2022 ()

Overview

Wacom has several separate lines of pen tablets. This document will help you understand the difference and help you make your choice.

• One by Wacom -> product page

• Intuos ->

• Wacom One 2023 ->

• Intuos Pro 2017 ->

• Intuos Pro 2025 ->

If you are interested in a pen tablet (a drawing tablet without a screen) for drawing/sketching/painting and want to go with the "safe choice" then you should pick a Wacom tablet. In particular the Wacom Intuos Pro models identified here are THE BEST PEN TABLETS EVER MADE.

Wacom One 2023 tablets (CTC-x110WL)

The Wacom One 2023 pen tablets are intended to be upgrades to the consumer Wacom Intuos tablets. I do not recommend them because their pressure handling is (in my opinion) not acceptable for the Wacom brand. More here:

Recommendation summary

• Sketching, digital painting, illustration, etc. -

  • If budget permits,

    • Wacom Intuos Pro 2025 Medium (PTK-670)

Pens

Each product line uses different pens. And the pens can only be used within that product line. For example if you try to use the LP190K pen with the PTH-860, the tablet does not even recognize there is a pen there. More here:

REMEMBER: You cannot MIX AND MATCH these pens. For example, it is not possible to use the amazing Wacom Pro Pen 2 with the One by Wacom, Wacom Oner, or Intuos tablets.

Of the pens identified, the Wacom Pro Pen 2 and Pro Pen 3 is the best in terms of design, materials, shape, weight distribution.

Overall drawing experience

All of the tablets except the Wacom One 2023 tablets have a very very good drawing experience. The Intuos Pro series definitely the best of all of them though - largely driven by the amazing pressure handling of the Wacom Pro Pen 2 and Wacom Pro Pen 3.

Pen pressure

Learn more here:

2048 pressure levels is all you need for creative work. All of these pens are enough in that regard. Wacom has strong marketing towards their higher pressure level tablets, but the vast majority of users will not be able to make use of these higher levels in their work.

More than pressure levels, the pressure range has a greater impact on your drawing experience. And this is driven by the quality of the pressure sensor in the pen.

Pens pressure range compared

Notes:

• Data for IAF and max pressure measurements independently made by .

• Learn more about

• Learn more about how

Drawing features

Notes on pen tilt

TILT - Not all drawing styles require tilt. And if you do want to control the rotation of your brush many drawing apps let you control the brush rotation based on the direction of the pen movement instead of tilt. Lean more here:

Tablet resolution

Resolution means how many separate points the tablet can distinguish (i.e. resolve) in a given length. This is specified as Lines Per Inch (LPI) though it is also useful to think about it as lines per millimeter (LPMM)

You will not notice the difference between 2048 LPI and 5080 LPI.

• One by Wacom -> 2048 LPI = 80.62 LPMM

• Wacom One 2023 pen tablets = Unknown

• Intuos -> 2540 LPI = 100 LPMM

Accuracy

Accuracy = tablet & computer know the correct position of the tip of the pen. As far as I have observed, all three tablets are very accurate.

Pointer lag

Pointer lag is the difference between the physical position of the pen and where the operating system pointer is drawn. Pen tablets in general display very little pointer lag. In comparison, all pen displays all show very noticeable lag.

• One by Wacom -> very little pointer lag

• Wacom One 2023 pen tablets -> very little pointer lag

• Intuos -> very little lag (when hovering has a little bit of pointer lag)

Learn more here:

Accuracy / Diagonal wobble

The Intuos Pro models exhibit less wobble than the Intuos of One by Wacom. But all of the tablets are good for diagonal wobble

Position smoothing

Position smoothing makes for better looking strokes but introduces pointer lag. All of these Wacom tablets are great for artists in terms of position smoothing.

Driver position smoothing

Wacom drivers by default add a little bit of position smoothing - which is needed - to make their strokes look better. The smoothing is not much and Wacom pen tablets still feel more responsive than other tablet brands.

Hardware position smoothing

Wireless/Bluetooth

Touch support

USB port on tablet

The consumer series use older USB ports than the professional series.

ExpressKeys

Touch support

For these tablets that do support touch, touch can be enabled/disabled with a physical switch on the side of the tablet.

More here:

• .

Tablet design

With the Intuos Pro tablets and pens - everything feels great to me. The texture the weight of the pen, etc.

The One by Wacom, Wacom One 2023, and Intuos models feel a more plasticky/cheaper. Also I just don't enjoy how their pens feel in my hand.

Active Area

The size of the tablet is based on it's active area which is the region on the tablet that is sensitive to the EMR pen. Besides the height and width of this area it is also convenient to discuss them in terms of their diagonal lengths.

Aspect Ratio: Most monitors are 16:9 (1.78) or 16:10 (1.60) If the Aspect Ratio of the tablet does not match the monitor, that means your strokes will be slightly distorted. So, remember to enable the Force Proportions checkbox to have undistorted strokes. More info here:

Reliability

All of these are very reliable tablets. Their pens are also very reliable. But remember, DO NOT drop your pens. they are much more delicate than the tablets and you can break from a fall.

Drivers

As of October 2025, the same Wacom driver works with all three product lines.

Surface texture

The Intuos Pro models a more textured surface, the Intuos and One by Wacom have less texture.

The Intuos Pro 2017 has more texture than the Intuos Pro 2025.

Texture sheets

Wacom sells texture sheets for the the Intuos Pro 2017. Three texture options are provided for both the Medium and Large sizes.

Wacom sells texture sheets for the the Intuos Pro 2025. One texture options are provided for both the Small, Medium and Large sizes.

More here: .

Potential future versions

• Intuos - In August of 2023, The Intuos models seem to be replaced by the Wacom One GEN2 pen tablets.

• One by Wacom - No sign of any updates coming

• Intuos Pro - Wacom released new versions in 2025, so we expect it will learn about new Intuos Pros around 2032. We certainly hope they will arrive sooner.

Intuos Pro generations

There are three Intuos Pro generations and unfortunately the have the same name "Intuos Pro". So if you are purchasing an Intuos Pro you really need to pay attention to the model numbers.

• Intuos Pro 2025 (PTK-870, PTK-670, PTK-470):

• Intuos Pro 2017 (PTH-860, PTH-660, PTH-460):

• Intuos Pro 2013 (PTH-851, PTH-651, PTH-451):

Distinguishing physical features

• The One by Wacom has a bright red back

• The One by Wacom has a fabric pen holder on the side of the tablet

• The Intuos in available in several colors for the back plastic

Notes on older Wacom tablets series

• The Wacom Bamboo series has now been renamed to the One by Wacom series