XPPEN's Deco Pro Gen 2 Review - their pro screenless tablet evolves
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- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2025
- XPPEN maintains some solid value with their pro screeneless drawing tablet. I've been using this tablet on and off for a few months, and so far, I still really enjoy it. It may even be a solid option for the intermediate or professional artist on a tighter budget that want's an alternative to Wacom's Intuos Pro. This is my review of the XPPEN Deco Pro Gen 2 drawing tablet.
Buy it on XPPEN website: shrsl.com/4j8us
Buy it on Amazon: amzn.to/4erSqYo
My written review of the Deco Pro Gen 2: drawyourweapon...
The Deco Pro Gen 2 comes with a pen case and X3 Pro stylus, a drawing glove, and XPPEN's ACK03 shortcut remote.
I tested the tablet using three different digital art software options:
Clip Studio Paint for drawing
www.kqzyfj.com...
Rebelle 7 for painting
www.dpbolvw.ne...
and Magma.com for casual drawing with friends
magma.com/index
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With the amounts of advancements lately, the quality of many competitive brands will soon rival the best. Thanks for reviewing this tablet.
100%. Both Huion and XPPEN seem to have delivered some really great products recently. The exciting part about that is how it might push Wacom (andall the competing brands) to innovate in more interesting ways.
Been browsing and losing my mind going back and forth through the tabs opened on my laptop for almost a day, looking for an affordable yet high performance graphic tablet to start my journey. Coming across this video right after settling on this Deco Pro is so satisfying and validates my choice lol. After gawking at specs for hours, this one really checked a lot of boxes and I can't wait to start drawing digitally!! Thank you for your review, it's in depth and informative
You're welcome! I'm glad this was helpful. It's a good tablet by the look of things, so I hope you'll be happy with it and many awesome pieces it too! Feel free to drop me any questions if you run into issues while setting it up.
xp pen now is my go to brand for drawing tablet. here in malaysia, the price for wacom tablet (the intuos pro and cintiq) are ridiculously expensive.
Yeah, I remember that from my visits to Malaysia too! (I really enjoy KL)
I bought a couple of XPPEN tablets there when there was a big sale happening. Really good prices on their products
cool video Eyekoo and nice penguin art too. I see Flareon and Hpyno provided the paint and brushes. I used one of these graphic tablets without a display screen back in 2007 I think. It took lot of practice getting the right strokes without seeing your hand. But one good thing you mentioned was it helps keep your posture straight. That is a huge plus.
Thanks DPO! Haha, well spotted with the Pokemon there, haha. Got those while I was in Thailand last year.
It really can take a while to get comfortable with a screenless tablet. I still have a difficult time with doing neater line work with one, but I think that is mainly because I have been working a lot more on display tablets in recent years and generally bounce a lot between tablets so it's like my hand-eye coordination is always readjusting. Once it clicks though, it's great. And for painting where I don't need that same precision, it's not a problem.
I think maybe this is where display tablets where you can also switch off the display to use as a screenless tablets might be kind of nice... let's you change modes and posture, but the hand movements and distance to get the marks you want is still the same, so you keep that familiarity of the area you are working on
Finally another youtuber who understands the importance of slow diagonal lines to test a drawing tablet's performance.
Thank you so much for the review! It answered many of my questions about it.
Here in Brazil, it is priced the same as the Intuos Medium, while the Intuos Pro version is four times more expensive than the XPPEN DECO PRO GEN 2.
In this case, what would you recommend, considering that my main focus is painting?
Once again, thank you for the excellent review!
I see no reason why not to go with the Deco Pro for painting here :-)
Thanks a lot bro. The bluetooth issue was driving me crazy.
Haha, nice, I'm glad this video helped you with that. Yeah, was quite annoying for me too XD
I really love the industrial design of the Deco Pro Gen2 series. I have the XLW version and it's the most stylish of the tablets I have. But LOL I have "lost" my pen under it the surface so many times :-)
Haha! I'm glad I'm not the only one that that happens to.
I have the Xencelabs Pen Tablet Medium on the way and will be nice to put these two next to each other. Also has that slightly curved wrist wrest area
@EyekooDrawsStuff sweet I got a xencelabs for the past year been loving it. Sometimes the pen tip is a bit "clicky" but otherwise pretty good.
@RFSketch nice. I look forward to testing it. What type work are you using it for?
@@EyekooDrawsStuff mainly draw and paint with it and a little graphic design work as well.
8:00 That's because Wacom has a much higher range of force for the pen pressure.
Wacom has 1gF-800gF min-max pressure range, while other brands have about 3gF-400gF min-max pressure range.
Wacom is therefore built to capture more gradual force change and smooths out the pressure very well.
Thanks for giving some more detail to that point! :-)
Thanks for the review. I really don't want to bother with crappy drivers anymore, but I still don't want to spend a lot on Wacom. I have a couple Huion tablets which are pretty good (H1060P being my main). Is this Deco a more substantial upgrade- or should I save up for the 2017 Intuos Pro? Crazy that Wacom hasn't released a new pen tablet in a long time.
Yeah, the Intuos Pro is already pretty much a peak tablet, so there has been little need for Wacom to really release a new one. BUT since their Pro Pen 3 is now out with newer devices, I think we may see a new Intuos Pro in the near future (maybe 2025) that also supports the new pens.
I suppose main questions are why you want to upgrade/what are you hoping to get from upgrade, how much are you prepared to spend, and how urgent is the need?
I think the pen experience of the Deco Pro will be quite a step up on the H1060P. Huion's latest pens that come with the Frego and Kamvas Pro 19 and gen 3 Kamvas tablets is also really good, so if you prefer to stay with Huion, maybe they will release a more pro version of screenless tablet with PenTech 4.0 soon.
I also have the Xencelabs Pen Tablet medium on my desk at the moment that I'll be reviewing soon.
@@EyekooDrawsStuff Thanks for the reply- you've given me a lot to think about. I'd like to upgrade cause I absolutely despise Huion drivers at this point. The countless times I've had to reset settings / wintab stuff when I lose pressure sensitivity is driving me nuts. I actually don't think I'll stay with Huion anymore, despite having 3 of their tablets (owned 5 in total, including a display tab).
Looking forward to your Xencelabs review.
Hello!, great review! Is the surface of the Deco Fun xs similar to the pro?
Hmm good question... I have to really dig into my memory for that one... Um..
The pen on the surface definitely felt a bit different. The nibs on Deco Fun pen are a bit broader so it kind of sounds and feels like more contact is being made with the surface. Drawing on the Deco Pro feels more controlled and precise. But of course, these are different lines of tablet in a different price range so that is expected
@@EyekooDrawsStuff oh i see, ty! I'm asking because i like how the deco pro looks, it's very premium, but I wanted to get the deco fun for the pistache version. Ty again for answering!!
I liked the designed of 1st gen, but... Chose Wacom intuos pro anyway. I was a bit surprised to hear that my Intuos has the best and lowest initial activation force, because I was never happy with it... I mean it does register very light strokes well, but the thing is to have good control over pressure levels I need pretty strong S curve in my pressure graph (making it hard tip feel). Otherwise it feels very sloppy and hard to control. I'm not sure why... maybe it's not just amount of levels, but also non-linear nature of sensitivity... 🤔 With pencil I can draw very light, but with Pro pen 2 I need x2-4 more force to control the pressure (which eats nibs fast). I tried playing with graphs, but again on soft side of "tip feel" it is pretty sloppy.
The design of the first one was great. Interesting to hear that you struggled with getting the right pressure feel with the Pro Pen 2. Which app are you using to draw and paint in? You could also try tweaking both the pressure curve of the stylus and for the brush? I'm not sure if one overrides the other if can be combined to refine even further.
@@EyekooDrawsStuff originally I was working in Photoshop all my life, but once I started painting I shifted to Krita for sketching. It has per brush pressure curves, few very strong brush engines, and super cool quick navigation and brush controls with shift, space, and mouse. Curves work the same as in wacom driver, but they are not overriding. So if you make strong curves in both places, they will multiply each other and go crazy.
How do you compare the Deco Pro surface texture to Intuos Pro 2017 and 2013? I love the surface texture of the 2017 Intuos Pro and don't like the too smooth surface of 2013.
Should u prefer a small one MW or larger one LW drawing surface area ?
Hm... well, it depends on the main screen size, how much space you have on your desk, and how much movement you're okay with your arm doing.
I'd say once you go over a 22" monitor, you might want to consider the larger size. But I used the MW with 27" and it was fine. But with larger tablet in this scenario, it might give more control. If you're using a laptop screen as your main display to draw on, go with the MW.
Maybe test out by creating a mockup tablet with paper to match the size of the LW and MW to compare how much space they occupy on your desk and if it will work for your setup.
Are you South African?
I am, yes. Raised in the Eastern Cape
That's why the African Penguin is getting some love here too in recent videos
@@EyekooDrawsStuff Good to know. I'm Western Cape. Great video btw, looking forward to checking out your other stuff. All the best for you in EC this festive season.
@@blahblahblahdeeblah Right back at you, man. Thank you. I'm actually living abroad and enjoying a wintery festive season for a change 🙂 Cheers
@@EyekooDrawsStuff LUCKY!!! That's the dream. Make a snowman for me.