We review the new XP-Pen Deco Pro and we compare it against the well stablished Wacom Intuos drawing tablets
With some pretty impressive specs, an award-winning design (yes this drawing tablet has won awards for how well designed it is), plus some technological features that no other drawing tablet on the market has, as of the date of its launch, XP-Pen's Deco Pro clearly does have potential to position itself as one of the best drawing tablets you can get with professional quality at an affordable price.
With these assets, can this drawing tablet become a market leader? Does it have what it takes to become the number one choice when it comes to drawing tablets for professional or semi-professional use, or even for entry-level users?
In this full analysis we strip down all the details about the XP-Pen Deco Pro, reviewing its unique features and hopefully giving you all the information you need to decide whether this is the ideal drawing tablet for you.
This is all based on our own testing of a demo unit provided by XP-Pen.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you buy something we get a small commission at no extra cost to you (learn more). This allows us to keep this website alive.
- XP-PEN DECO PRO
- XP-PEN Star 06
► Professional Quality:
Professional Quality at an affordable price
The new Deco Pro is at launch date the most advanced drawing tablet of the XP-Pen range. The specs are pretty impressive:
- Dimensions:
- Product dimensions: 399.7mm x 227mm x 16.5mm (M) / 350.8mm x 199.5mm x 16.5mm (S)
- Thinnest height: 7 mm
- Active area: 11'' x 6'' (M) / 9'' x 5'' (S)
- Weight: 808g (M)
- Left-handed use: Yes
- Digital stylus:
- Tilt sensitivity: +/-60 degrees
- Pressure sensitivity: 8192 levels
- Battery-free stylus: Yes
- Accuracy: +/-0.01''
- Detection height: 10mm
- Lines per inch: 5080 LPI
- Interface:
- Data: USB type-C
- Data: USB type-C
- Programmable buttons:
- 8 shortcut keys
- Double wheel
- Touch-sensitive trackpad
- Compatibility:
- Windows 7 or later
- Mac OS 10.10 or later
- Android 6.0 or later
- Price: XP-Pen Deco Pro price
Brand / Model | XP-Pen Deco Pro M | Wacom Intuos M | Wacom Intuos Pro M |
Size / Active Area | 11'' x 6'' | 8.5'' x 5.3'' | 8.8'' x 5.8'' |
Pressure levels | 8192 levels | 4096 | 8192 levels |
Tilt sensitivity | Yes | No | Yes |
Battery-free pen | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Report rate | 200 RPS | Not specified | Not specified |
Android support | Yes | No | No |
Programmable keys | 8 buttons + Double wheel + trackpad | 4 buttons | 8 buttons + Rocker ring |
Price | $ | $ $ | $ $ $ |
Wireless | No | Yes | Yes |
Review | |||
Price | |||
That's a lot of stars. Let's see what this all means.
Looking at the figures above, it looks like the XP-Pen Deco Pro is a pretty well rounded drawing tablet with enough features to take on even the toughest competitors.
On the Medium size model, its ample active area (11'' by 6'') makes it particularly well suited for those working with two monitors.
It is clear that the Deco Pro is not just another drawing tablet in the market. XP-Pen have definitely put a lot of thought into its design and specifications, and with good results.
The Deco Pro does have some very unique features, which is quite an achievement. For example, Android support on a drawing tablet is a feature that very few drawing tablets out there have (if any) at this point. Perhaps in the future more models may come out with this feature, but certainly XP-Pen is leading the way on that front with the Deco Pro.
Sure, one functionality that it does not support is wireless connectivity. We don't know if XP-Pen will release a wireless version of this tablet in the future, but for now the Deco Pro works pretty smoothly with standard USB connectivity, plus the USB is Type-C which is also a plus.
If you care about the numbers, on paper 200 RPS may look a bit on the low side, specially if we compare it to 233 RPS or 266 RPS available on other drawing tablets from this and other manufacturers. However when we tested this drawing tablet it responded quite smoothly and we did not feel any noticeable delay.
The unique double wheel design is another feature that has been carefully engineered and deserves attention. We talk about this further down.
But as a summary, the set of specifications of the Deco Pro is pretty impressive, even more so when you look at its price, which is much cheaper than a Wacom Intuos M or an Intuos Pro (you can check the price here).
When we tested this drawing tablet the first impression we got was: Quality and Durability.
The moment you open the Deco Pro box, the feeling you get is that of a well rounded product where they have put a lot of attention to every detail.
The tablet is light and compact and the materials are smooth and resistant. The drawing surface is smooth, the finish is quite sleek. The casing is made of aluminium, which you can notice on the front and on the back.
The tablet feels light, weighing in at 808 grams (Medium size model), but at the same time it feels sturdy and you get the impression of a durable product that, well taken care of, will last you forever.
Once set up on your desk, the appearance is professional. The device is extremely slim, with just 7 milimeters height on most areas, except on the side where the buttons are, where it reaches a 16.5 mm height.
One of the things that XP-Pen promote quite a lot about this product is its design, and for a good reason, as it has won a few design awards, like the Reddot Design Award and the Good Design Award. Kudos to them, as it proves that they have put a lot of effort into creating this drawing tablet, and the results speak for themselves.
The drawing tablet comes nicely packaged and in the box and along with tablet you get:
We liked the fact that an artist glove is included with the tablet, this is handy and comfortable to work with.
The two adapter dongles are there so that you can connect the drawing tablet to Android devices such as tablets and smartphones.
How about this Double Wheel feature? - Actually, It's Pretty Awesome
One of the key features of this drawing tablet is its innovative "Double Wheel" design. But what does that mean?
Basically, it's the combination of a mechanical wheel on the outside of the dial, plus a "virtual" (i.e. touch sensitive) wheel on the inside of the trackpad.
That means that you can turn the outside rim of the dial (the mechanical wheel) and assign that to one function such as zoom in & out, or increase & decrease the brush size, etc. And additionally you can use the inner or "virtual wheel", which is the circumference of the touch sensitive trackpad, assigned to something completely different, such as rotating the workspace, scrolling, etc. You can configure these functions in many different ways according to your needs. And the touch sensitive trackpad itself works as a mouse function, so you can control the mouse pointer by sliding your finger over it.
I think this feature can be particularly useful for 3D artists. When you are sculpting in ZBrush, 3DS Max, Maya, etc. you need to rotate your 3D workspace in various axes, with this Double Wheel feature you can do that much more easily than with other drawing tablets that come with less flexible systems such as sliding bars or single dial rings.
Also, the wheel and trackpad ensemble is quite large which makes it more comfortable to work with.
Apart from this double wheel functionality, you can also use the trackpad as if it was a touchpad mouse (like the ones usually found in laptops).
An extra feature is the fact that you can adjust the brightness of the blue indicator light. This can be useful when working in lower light conditions or simply to adjust the brightness to your personal preference.
Battery Free Pen With Tilt Support
One of the key strengths of the Deco Pro is the battery-free stylus with tilt support.
Tilt sensitivity is considered a premium feature that can make a big difference if you want to achieve great results when drawing. This is a good feature for concept artists, illustrators, and also 3D artists. It means that the tablet can detect the inclination angle of the stylus and change the brush stroke to achieve a more natural and realistic feeling. This is great for shading but has many more applications.
We did a test drawing to see how the tilt sensitivity on the Deco Pro responds, and the result was awesome. Tilt support on the Deco Pro works perfectly well in Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint. It should also work just as well in other drawing programs that support tilt sensitivity, such as Krita, Artrage, etc.
In the video below we did a realistic portrait drawing using tilt sensitivity on the Deco Pro in Clip Studio Paint. We found that the tilt function works great for shading, so you can draw fine lines with the tip of the sylus or you can do soft shades by tilting the stylus, as if you were shading with the side of a pencil. This saves you time, as you don't have to change from one brush to another all the time. The result is pretty realistic.
We also tested tilt sensitivity of the Deco Pro in Photoshop, and it also works fine.
We also did some slow diagonals with a ruler, to see how the tablet performs. This is a difficult test for most drawing tablets and most drawing tablets will show some jitter while drawing slow diagonals. In the XP-Pen Deco Pro, the jitter in slow diagonals is very small, which is good.
Android Support
The Deco Pro supports Android devices, which means you can draw on Android tablets or smartphones with the Deco Pro.
If you have an Android tablet or smartphone without a digital pen, you can connect the Deco Pro and draw with pressure sensitivity on your Android device.
You may be wondering, can I not just buy a digital stylus for my Android tablet? Well, you could do that, but you won't have pressure sensitivity or tilt. However, if you connect the Deco Pro to your Android device, then you can have pressure sensitivity on drawing apps that have support pressure (such as Ibis Paint, ArtRage, Adobe Sketch, etc).
If you use an app that supports tilt, such as ArtRage, then you can also use the tilt function of the Deco Pro to draw on your Android tablet or smartphone.
When you first plug the Deco Pro into your computer, it detects it automatically and you can start to control the mouse pointer with the drawing tablet straight away.
Then you can download and install the driver and configuration utility in order to configure all the features of the Deco Pro such as the pressure curve, customize shortcut keys, etc.
You can download the latest driver for the Deco Pro here from the XP-Pen website.
Once installed, open the "PenTablet" utility and you get a configuration panel like this:
On the same driver utility you can configure the mapping of the active area of the drawing tablet to the computer monitor. You can assign the drawing tablet working area to one monitor or two monitors.
Here you can choose to configure the tablet to be used horizontally or vertically, with the wheel and buttons on the top or on the bottom, or you can also rotate it 180 degrees for left-handed use.
You can also choose to use only a specific area of the working surface.
You can get this drawing tablet on Amazon, or on XP-Pen's online store.
The following are affiliate links, which means that if you make a purchase through these links we earn a small commission automatically at no extra cost to you, this way we can keep this website going.
Select your location:
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/33AdmZB
Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/2q1tpRl
Amazon ES: https://amzn.to/2Ko1i6b
XP-Pen online store: https://www.storexppen.com/
Final Verdict
Looking at the balance between specs and cost, and having compared this drawing tablet against other models with professional quality, we believe it's fair to say that the XP-Pen Deco Pro is a very solid drawing tablet with impressive specs at an affordable price. We do think that it certainly has what it takes to become a market leader in its segment.
It is comfortable to use, slim, sleek in appearance, and it sells at an affordable price for all that it has to offer. This tablet can be perfectly suited for creating digital art at a very high level with professional results and at the same time it's user-friendly enough that less experienced users will also find it easy to use.
Pros:
Cons:
We hope you found this info helpful.
Want to know what are the best Pen Display graphic tablets of this year?
Looking for a tablet computer?