What are the Best Graphics Drawing Tablets for Artists in 2023?

Apple iPad Pro Tablet

When it comes to tablets, Apple lives up to its reputation for pioneering many innovations and technologies. Well, its iPad Pro doesn’t disappoint at all. This powerhouse of a device is a designed to do most things, including using it as a graphics tablet to draw just about anything imaginable.

This tablet is made from premium materials, in keeping with the Apple tradition of outstanding product quality. The iPad Pro is a traditional tablet, a PC, a graphics drawing tablet, and a presentation tool.

Now in terms of hardware, this device is equipped with top-notch components, from the processor to the graphics processor, camera, you name it. It handles your workflow fluidly without breaking sweat. It comes in two sizes, the 11-inch and 12-inch variants. Storage options range from 128GB up to 1TB, and also comes in two colors, space gray and silver. Memory capacities range from 4GB to 6GB in the 1TB models.

The display on the iPad Pro is touted to be the world’s most advanced mobile display, with the edge-to-edge Liquid Retina display which not only looks gorgeous and immersive, but also features incredibly advanced technologies including True Tone and ProMotion. Everything just looks stunning and drop-dead gorgeous.

According to Apple, the Apple Pencil “sets the standard for how drawing, note‑taking, and marking up documents should feel – intuitive, precise, and magical. All with imperceptible lag, pixel‑perfect precision, tilt and pressure sensitivity, and support for palm rejection. Incredibly easy to use and ready when inspiration strikes”. We couldn’t agree more.

Drawing with this Pencil is every artist’s dream come true. The drawing is quite smooth and responsive, with no lag. The Apple Pencil supports pressure and tilt sensitivity really well, and is very accurate.  The glass is laminated, but if you want some texture, you can get a different screen protector. When not drawing with it, you simply place it close to the side of the tab, and it attaches magnetically to the side of your iPad Pro and automatically pairs and charges on the go. Sweet.

Check out this review of the iPad Pro as a graphics drawing Tablet.

The screen colors are vivid, crisp and sharp, thanks to technologies such as the ProMotion technology, Wide color display (P3), and True Tone display, with a resolution of 2732 x 2048 pixels. The screen brightness is quite impressive, with 600 nits of brightness, working in daylight is quite possible without the sunlight blocking out your screen brightness.

Battery life is also impressive, clocking up to 10 hours of continuous use. However, we expected a higher output for a device of this caliber. Playing music on this device produces great sound, with well-balanced highs and lows. The audio is crisp and sounds great. Also, the included stand is a great accessory that makes this device even more useable, especially when drawing or making presentations.

One thing we noticed lacking on the device is the absence of a standard headphone plug, which means you can’t use a headphone with this. The integrated Face ID doesn’t quite work great if the range is longer. It must be quite close before it can recognize the facial features.

Overall, the iPad Pro is an outstanding device, with plenty of horsepower to play around with. Whether for work or play, it lives up to its billing as one the best portable devices out there.

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Wacom Intuos Pro Small

Wacom’s entry-level Pro graphics drawing tablet is well built and designed for users on a low budget, or entry-level artists. It’s metal housing feels sturdy, it is lightweight and doesn’t take up much real estate on your desk. Besides, it has features you will find in the higher priced models.

This is an upgrade from Wacom’s graphics earlier generation tablets without screen. It does the job fairly well, and you can even use it without the connecting cables, thanks to Bluetooth. This frees you up to move around while you sketch.

The smooth surface has multi-touch capabilities, which means you can actually use it to navigate your drawing canvas just like a smartphone screen. In addition, it has 6 programmable ExpressKeys™ with which you can assign different shortcuts for easier drawing, and the Touch Ring provides control of canvas rotation, brush size, scrolling, & other function.

You also get the Wacom Pro Pen 2 which gives you Wacom’s most accurate pen performance. With 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity, tilt support and lag-free tracking, the Pro Pen 2 makes your drawing experience seamless and effortless. In addition, the Pen is battery-free, meaning you don’t have to recharge it from time to time.

Finally, you get 2 months of Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan when you purchase and register your tablet online. However, one of the things you should take note of with this device is that you can’t replace your mouse with this for the obvious reason – the mouse mode is not effective. It is designed to work as a large trackpad, however, it does not.

Whenever the stylus is contacting the pad, it triggers as a “click”. So if you drag the stylus across the pad, as you would a trackpad – the Wacom treats this event as a “click and drag”. This is a completely different functionality than a trackpad, and unfortunately, this functionality cannot be disabled. So you just have to forget about using it as a trackpad or mouse replacement.

UGEE M708 Graphics Tablet

This is another budget graphics drawing tablet that is well worth the price. Don’t be fooled by the low cost, but this graphics tablet performs incredibly well. The chassis is made from solid and durable metallic material, with a generous 10×6 inch work area, giving you more space to create with.

It also comes with a battery-free precise pen stylus with 8192 pressure sensitivity for drawing accurate lines of any weight and opacity. There are also 8 customizable keys for assigning your shortcuts to enable efficient workflow. The tablet also comes with extra pen nibs and pen holder, and is suitable for right and left-handed individuals.

The active drawing area is smooth and has a papery texture surface, providing fluid and smooth drawing for your digital artwork creation. Painting or drawing on the Ugee M708 is lag-free, enjoyable and fun. Finally, it is compatible with Windows and Mac OS.

It is also lightweight and portable, though it doesn’t have Bluetooth wireless functionality. One of the downsides is the quirky driver issues it has. In the course of using it, you may have to reinstall the driver several times because it just stops functioning. Otherwise, it’s a good tab for the price. The Ugee M708 is great for beginners, though if you’re really experienced with graphics tablets, you might want to get something better. After all, you get what you pay for.

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Wacom One Digital Drawing Tablet

The Wacom One is another one of Wacom’s new gen graphics tablets with screens, aimed at professional artists and designers. With it, you can sketch, paint or edit photos, sign documents digitally, or take notes. Besides, the screen can function as an extended display, a duplicate or the main display.

The Wacom One is well-built and sturdy. The pen quality is nice and it feels fluid on the screen. Setup is fairly simple with the included setup manual. The Wacom One graphics tablet is very lightweight, probably one of the lightest we’ve seen, weighing just 4 ounces.

With the big 13.3” HD screen, you can sketch with ease. With surface friction on the HD screen, it feels like you’re drawing or writing on real paper… so real, you’ll forget you’re doing it digitally, thanks to the battery-free Pen with which you can create your digital art effortlessly.

The Wacom One can be used on the Mac, Windows PC and Android smartphones for drawing, gaming, or office productivity applications. Simply connect using the supplied cable and you’re good to go. The pen is cordless and battery-free with 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity. The supplied stand also comes in handy for holding the tab when sketching or drawing.

In this model, Wacom simply stripped off the ExpressKeys™ and the pen eraser. This can be quite frustrating since you have to click on the eraser icon anytime you want to erase something. Also, you lose the ability to map shortcuts to the ExpressKeys™ you find in other models. But never mind, the shortcuts can be accessed from the Pen via a programmable side-switch to put shortcuts at your fingertips.

Finally, on purchase and registration online, you receive bonus access to select graphics software that should get you started. Another thing to note is that if you have an Apple computer, you will need to purchase the USB-C multi-port adapter from Apple. This is because Apple PCs don’t have HDMI ports, so you should take note of that.