At last a reviewer who understands software and doesn't just assume that PS is the be all and end all of drawing apps. If only more peole and companies could wake up and get off that bandwagon. So many people are blaming hardware for the faults in photoshop. Oh and I agree about the need for a larger version too... great review!
I agree! I really hate it when reviewers only show photoshops performance. I was almost going to buy an apple product instead of this because of how much input lag it was showing from photoshop. The other apps definitely helped show this tablet/laptops full potential
If im correct Companies want photoshop because of the file formate. They will take your work and tweak it around but to do so they want the .photoshop to mess with individual layers, ect ect. My In law brother who does web design told me this
@@nobody1575 that's not really an excuse anymore seeing as the majority of drawing programs out there can save in. PSD. companies who specify you can ONLY work in photoshop are seriously limiting their choices. and honestly, photoshop is a photo editing program first. it's drawing features, however, are not that good. companies and people hiring artists need to start understanding this, and also understand that photoshop is expensive as hell and not a lot of people can afford it on their own.
I remember in college when I was in some sort of storyboarding or character design class, the instructor informed us we NEED to work in photoshop even though I told him photoshop wouldn't allow me to showcase my full range of art skills because there are some things I can't do in that program that I can in my default program, and the drawing program I use saves in PSD anyway. I still used my go-to program and just gave him the files in PSD. there's no difference.
Thank you, this was very useful as a review from an artists' perspective and you're the first person I've seen who pointed out using apps other than Photoshop produced different results. Much appreciated for taking the time to go through this like you did!
24:00 The fault lies with Adobe's god awful After Effects code. I recently upgraded to a 200% faster CPU, after effects runs the same...worst code in history
Maybe it's just the fan-boy in me, but it seems that, just by looking at you drawing, Clip Studio brings the best performance to the table.. Photoshop obviously has the biggest following for painting, just by virtue of having been around for so long, but it's about the worst for just plain drawing!
I use Clip Studio on an HP Spectre x360 and it only lags of the stabilization is set very high. Otherwise it doesn't have noticable lag! And even with high stabilization, it's not a deal breaker.
Excellent video sir! You answered my question better than everyone else on youtube! I'm getting an i7 tomorrow and your information on the i5 (which I would be fine with) has put my mind at ease! Keep up the good work!
iPad Pro for me has just been phenomenal. It's very difficult going to anything else after drawing on an iPad. I like the Surface Pro for its desktop experience and tablet mode, but hopefully they fix the response time to match the iPad Pro.
very interesting, I'm looking forward to Surface Pro 7, hopefully the screen will be bigger....one question: I work with a program called Charpad, it is a simple editor for creating game maps for C64, do you think the pen is working for this program? Or it needs a specific driver?...Charpad works under windows...thank you!
First of all, Great videos! are very usefull! ;) I am trying to decide which one should I buy and your analysis are helping me, but still I have some doubts. Is the Surface pro 6 (for drawing use mostly) the one that you'd recommend over the competitors? Is there any other that maybe likes you more? Surface Pro 6 price is my very limit. Thank you in advance!
As a Windows tablet, this is one of the best. Actually if you don't need the quad core processors, the SP5 has some really good deals now with the SP6 out.
Hi! First of all, thank you for great review! I recently bought the Surface Pro 6 with 128 gb of RAM and i5 for 940 euro. Pretty expensive, but it comes with pen, and I found no alternatives with the same specs and overall quality which cost significantly lesser. So long I'm pretty glad with performance, but the soft-relative issue a bit spoiled my experience. For example, I wasn't able to draw angle-sensitive strokes at Painter 2018, so I was forces to upgrade up to 2019 in order to achieve that. Sketchbook also doesn't has this feature, but I don't know if it has it at all, because until now I was using a tablet and pen without this feature. Inking experience a bit worse than on my desktop Wacom tablet, but it was expected. The only thing that makes me feel uncomfortable its too luxury feel of the device. To be honest, I'm just afraid I can damage it while using, it feels fragile. With Wacom desktop tablet or my old windows tablet with wacom digitizer I haven't experienced this, they feels more solid and unbreakable. Also, I was a bit disappointed with a fact that Surface Pen comes without extra tips. I think for a price they could have add some extra. Wacom always did. To sum all it up, I think this 2-in-1 is one of the best on the market even considering the price, and if you don't want to use Apple ecosystem you definitely should consider buying this device.Thank you once again for a review and greetings from Cyprus!
For future reference... wait until the holidays, especially "Black Friday Sales in the USA," via the Microsoft Store (Store or Online at the Microsoft Store). You can normally get a sale that will include a bundle. The Bundle normally includes the Keyboard Cover and 200 to 500 off the base price. Some places like Costco, will also include the Pen as well! That said: if you are using a Surface for Artwork... Save, Save and Save some more. Get the i7 version. Yes it is worth every penny. This past holiday season, I bought mine - Pro6, i7 ,16gb Ram, 500gb HD. I paid 1599.99 + the Pen & a 256gb Micro SD Card. I also bought the Pro6 i5 with 8gb Ram, 256gb HD for 1199.99 + the Pen and a 128gb MSDC. A few months ago, I did a test to see if I could get away with the i5I ran Photoshop, Leonardo, Concepts and Sketchbook (App version). Working at a 150.00 PPI, (150ppi is the minimum print resolution you might be able to get away with, if not a high end publication). My i7 literally ran circles around the i5. To be fair, the extra 8gb of memory I have, most certainly helps. I have 358gb used out of 500gb and I still have a few add-ons for Photoshop I have to install. I don't know, how you get away with 128gb, if you're an artist. Anyhow... seriously, even if you wait an extra 2 years and use your current Surface Pro 6, until you have literally worn out the scree... if you're an artist, you are cheating yourself by not getting the i7 with 16gb of Ram. Food for thought mate. Hope my info helps a little.
Hi, Teoh. A great in-depth review as always. What is the second drawing app that you mention after Photoshop that you say one can draw slower? Is it free and is Krita free also?
Hello! I'm sorry this comment is very, very late (lol) but it came in very handy on my decision on which pro to pick to start digital artwork, thank you! =)
@@teohyc Thank you. I would like to purchase the SP6 but getting some mixed feelings over this one and the Lenovo C930. Did you happen to try the Lenovo? Would you still select the SP6 if you had to do it all over again?
@@teohyc Ahh, good to know. Thank you. I think I'll go with the Surface Pro 6, thanks so much for the insight. You have a new follower. I've been watching your video's and they are great. You are a great artist Teoh.
Hi Teoh, tanks for the great review! What are your thoughts about Screen Protectors? I'm really interested if they are affecting Pen performance in any way... I suppose you are not using one? I'd also like to know do you use any protection cases? Looking forward to buying Surface Pro and I'm just trying to figure out the best options for screen/case protection.
So is it primarily photoshop that you notice lag and jitter? I was thinking about getting the Pro6 since I also need something that functions as a laptop for school. I primarily use Clip Studio paint now for my line art, but nonetheless, I'm concerned about reports of lag and jitter. So would you say it's a problem with the surface, the pen or something else?
Nice video :D Just got my surface pro after watching this video. But I am having problem with krita, how do you setup krita for surface pro? Mine couldn't detect the pen pressure in krita but other programs like medibang works well with pen pressure (without configure anything) Thank you.
Have you tried the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga? I'd be interested in an artist's review. I'm a writer, so I love a comfortable keyboard. I'm looking for a durable mobile workstation with dedicated graphics, like the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Extreme. It'll take me a long to save up for it, so I want to get a fun & light 2-in-1 in the meantime to work on my novel & media consumption. Because it can function as a tablet, it wouldn't become irrelevant once I get my laptop. I would love your take on the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Tablet. It seems just like the MSP6, but the pen & keyboard are included. The Thinkpads are supposed to be really durable, which while the MSP6 looks wonderful, I've heard it scuffs/gets damaged easily & doesn't have a lot of ports. I'd love an artist's take on the Thinkpad pen vs. Surface Pen.
I draw slowly so I'm always concerned about diagonal lines being jittery. I saw your other reviews about jittery lines. I've decided that I'm going to buy the Surface Pro. My question.....In your opinion and in regards to slow drawing diagonal lines, would you say that the difference between the Surface Pro 5 and 6 almost non-existent? I believe you mentioned in another video that the Surface Pro 4 had jittery lines, so that's why I'm looking at the Surface Pro 5 or 6.
Pro 5 and 6 has significantly less jitter. For normal drawing speed the jitter is not that noticeable. But you can definitely see slight jitter when drawing slowly.
Thank you for this very detailled review. I am currently using the i7 version of the Surface Pro 6. It shows some delay in opening apps or clicking even here in the textbox. I will have to optimize it a bit I guess. But I have another question. I tried Krita, but unfortunately, neither pressure nor tilting works for me. I use Windows 10 out of the box at the moment. Did you have to install/modify anything? I read a lot about the WinTab driver, but even that did not help. I have pressure sensitivity in Medibang though.
hows the heat when doing using programs? does the screen gets hot? the first surface was unbearablly hot within the first hour and my hands and lap could'nt handle it, i hope this and 7 have atleast make it bearable
Also, could you please say if you use Microsoft Dial on Surface Pro? Is it useful? Can it be set for any programs or only for some specific one? Never used it and thought may be I should try if it make my drawing process more efficient and quick. Thank you in advance!
Thank you for the improvement of the video. Why can't the line be drawn even worse than the tip of the pen? Is it a recording problem? Please pause for a moment so that we can see the exact position of the tip. Also please test the various angles of the pen to see if the tip of the pen can be accurately positioned.
There's no parallax because the gap between the screen and the glass surface is very minimal, and because it's just a 12.3-inch so you're not really using the pen to the far sides. Cursor will always be directly beneath the tip. Pen tip is small so you'll always be able to see the line come out. There's no misalignment. If there's misalignment, I won't be able to join the lines properly.
@@teohyc: Some people still suffer from the offset issue. Also there is another big issue, where the Surface Pens deactivates prematurely when you have a steady hand.
@@JohnSmith-gb8hd My new Surface Pen becomes unresponsive every couple of minutes and on a little investigation it appears that if I draw normally it happens every time. I suspect that when I draw from my shoulder there is little barrel rotation or angle change and therefore the pen thinks I have stopped using it and then goes to sleep. If I rotate the pen intermittently or select the buttons I have no such issue. It happens on my Surface Go and my Surface Pro 2017 and it forced me to buy the Adonit Ink which does not have this issue. Quite a few people on reddit have also reported this, so I am pretty sure I don't have a defective pen. I have just posted a video on my channel demonstrating this issue.
Hey I got the surface pro 6 recently, for some reason while using medibang there’s a cursor lag. Like the cursor lags across the screen leaving a after shadow. Is there anyway to fix that?
Medibang Paint Pro does not have the fastest refresh rate compared to other drawing apps. Things like zooming, pan and rotate are going to appear laggy. That cursor lag. Do you mean the trailing cursors when you are drawing? You can turn that off. Go to Menu->View->Brush Size and uncheck that. Cursor will turn into a crosshair.
I have both and use my surface pro for photos. I draw on my iPad Pro 2018 using Procreate which is far better drawing app then most.
5 лет назад
Does the pro 6 version has the same problem when drawing when the other hand touchs the device as the 2017?? I usually hold the tablet with one hand while I draw with the other.
Do you use screen protector on your surface pro? If yes, tell please which one? Film or glass? How does it work when you use a stylus on a film or glass? Are there any bugs?
Hey Teoh! I want to start digital drawing, but I dont wich product I should take. A Surface Pro 6? A Wacom Intuos ? Which device would you recommend for a start?
Hello, this against Samsung Notebook 9 Pro??? I will use it for drawing and also music production, i like it cause it's 12" so small and portable but maybe not enough powerful against the samsung?
First of all, great video and great job with your chanel. (And sorry for my english) I have a question. I want a tablet to draw. And i don’t know which s the best option for me. Surface pro or Ipad pro. I do not currently have a computer and I'm worried that the iPad is a very complementary device. But i also know that is the best option to draw. ¿What do you think?
If you don't have a computer, the Surface Pro is a better option. Desktop OS is more productive and versatile. There's a proper file system that people have been using since computers were made.
Hi There, can you please let me know the vertical usable drawing screen display area in Photoshop I know the display area is 12.3 but I want to know how much of screen area is available in Photoshop with tool bar and layer menu open as it is in your video.
does it work with SAI? i heard that SP 4 and above having diffiulties with some old program like SAI ( some ppl said, installing wintab is not always work ) as usual, nice review !
Yes. I had sai v1 on my sp3 and im using sai v2 on surface 2017. The only downside is sai app isnt touch capable. You can use tablet pro screen for short keys but it will take abit of screen view. Sai is the only app so far that i find working with pen without problems.
Hey, great review! I have the option of getting the SP2017 with the i7 and 16gb ram, or the SP6 with the i5 quad-core and 8gb ram. Which one would you choose? Thanks a lot
What type of work do you do? 16GB RAM is useful if you use a lot of apps, work with huge files. SP6 is a better choice if you really need the processing power, such as when exporting videos.
@@teohyc Thanks for your answer! I'm using MS Office a lot, 10-20 Chrome tabs at a time and photo editing with lightroom and photoshop CC. I don't know if especially for lightroom, the processing power is more important than doubling the ram or if 16 gigs of ram are more important than the two extra cpu cores.
Hey Teoh, have you considered reviewing the Samsung Notebook 9 Pen? I felt that the experience was better than the IPad Pro 2018, and it's hands down better than Surface Pro 6. The pen is def. on the small side, but it beats Surface in polling rate, jitter, accuracy, latency, activation force, pressure sensitivity (same figures but 9 pen feels better in practice) and precision (much finer tip) from my experience and testing. Basically across the board. I've heard that you can also use any Wacom stylus with it but I've never seen anyone try. I would love to see your take on it.
@@teohyc Dayum. Maybe I post something on it. Never posted anything and I'm hardly an artist. DX Thanks for the great reviews tho! Also, what criteria do you use to review products? Guess it's gotta be mainstream enough so it's applicable to people I'm guessing?
@@21area21 Unless I can borrow a product to review, I would have to buy it myself and the criteria is that product must be easy to sell off later without losing too much money.
So you're a Singaporean artist! Thank god. I hardly find Singaporean artists who do tablet reviews. Instant new subscriber! I'm not sure if you'll reply but I wanted to ask. I'm a digital artist headed to poly soon and I'm getting a new laptop. I was hoping for a good hybrid laptop to draw on and use for studying. Is the Surface Pro 6 the best for its price or can I get other cheaper and better alternatives?
If you don't already have a computer, the Surface Pro 6 is good enough. You may want to check out the Lenovo Miix 520 also. www.parkablogs.com/content/lenovo-miix-520-vs-surface-pro-2017-artist-review If you have more budget, the Surface Book 2 is good. As a student, you should be eligible to educational discount when you buy from Microsoft Singapore website.
if you want a cheaper option you may get a good deal on a new surface pro 4 or 5 the 6 isn't really much of an improvement over them ,,, im still using a base i3 surface pro 3 and it runs clip studio no problem,, other than a bit of lag on very large lair heavy works or large particle brushes ,,even then it's not enough of a problem for me to upgrade until it breaks and i will probably get the pro 4 or 5 i5 model then as they have better cpu and double the ram of what i use now,, which like i said im not in a rush to upgrade but would have no problem buying another surface pro
I use iPad Pro for drawing mostly. If you already have a computer, I recommend iPad. If not, SP6 because it can double as a drawing tablet and computer.
@@teohyc Thanks for your comment. I own a PC (windows) with a Cintiq 27". Maybe i am just afraid to learn something new. Is the iPad not lacking with the Adobe CC suit? is sharing working between PC / iPad easy for you?
@@yoRRnl To transfer files from iPad to PC, I would upload to Google Drive and download from there. Drawing on iPad is intuitive. I'm sure you will have no problems learning or getting used to.
I have pro 5 for 16 months now, 7 days ago my battery capacity decreased by 0.3% a day later decreased by 1% after another one day decreased by 2% and today by 2.6% so the capacity now is 97.4%, what is the explanation of this decrease, it decreases every day?
The Lithium battery has a life span. It will deteriorate with age. You may want to visit Microsoft forum or Reddit to research on how to lengthen the battery life/health.
I have the same line endings problem with my surface pro 5, it seems like the pen pressure changes are correctly detected only when the line starts, but not when the user is ending the line (decreasing pressure). This can be noticed in the Surface hub app, when testing pen pressure in advanced mode. The pen pressure curve starts slowly and ends in an abrupt way. I hope they find a firmware fix for this annoying issue.
@@teohyc I use SpeedyPainter, a free drawing app that I am developing (very basic app, without many features, but I think it can be good for fast sketching) . If you want to give it a try it is available for free on the microsoft store :) . I'm trying to optimize it for the microsoft surface but the pen seems to have a quite different behaviour in terms of pressure sensitivity from the wacom pen and tablets (using wintab technology), especially when drawing fast lines. When I want to draw fast lines that are thick at the start and thin at the end, it is very very difficult to achieve that result. With Wacom instead this comes naturally, as it would happen when you use a normal pen/ink brush on paper. Many compliments for your amazing reviews, they are very informative and detailed :) Keep up the wonderful work :)
I currently have a refurbished Surface Pro 4 with an Intel Core m3 CPU, 4GB RAM, and a 128GB SSD. I also have a 512GB microSDXC card for extra storage space, a Wacom Bamboo Ink Plus stylus pen for drawing, and a USB 3.0 hub for connecting multiple USB accessories. Speaking of drawing, my go-to apps are GIMP and Krita, which, according to my experience, both perform quite well. As for 2D animation, I'm torn between Krita and OpenToonz.
Probably use a different brush thats more solid and clean when showing the pen jitter... cause its hard to tell what jitter is caused by the pen or if its just the brush.
Hi! I really enjoy your content! Was wondering if you could review the HP Envy X2 or the Lenovo Miix 630? I'm interested in buying one of those for the insane battery life but I don't find any reviews on how the drawing/ writing performance is on those tablets
I'm not sure if the Snapdragon 835 processor is powerful enough to run desktop graphic software efficiently without lag. The insane battery life comes from the combination of a smartphone processor and laptop battery. I'll see if I can get my hands on a Lenovo Miix 630 but the review won't be out so soon as I've got the two more drawing tablets to review.
I own the HP Envy X2. The major problem you will find is that it is ARM which means that in order to use powerful applications at least you should ask for the native version. Currently there are very few applications ported to Windows 10 ARM. Emulation for x86 applications achieves a decent performance for applications that do not require huge power, say office apps for instance. 64bit intel applications are not suppored. In my opinion it is not a good choice for image processing or art. Still there is a new model, the Samsung book 2, wich wears the Snapdragon 850, so it should be a bit better.
I recently Bought Surface pro 5th Gen online as a gift but not from the Microsoft store.When it arrived and I opened the packaging, the box does not have any pictures on it except for the "Microsoft Surface Pro" writing. I am freaking out because I wanna make sure it is not fake or anything like that.
You should search online for images of the box to compare. Also check your serial number on Microsoft Surface website mybusinessservice.surface.com/en-US/CheckWarranty/CheckWarranty
@@crybb Surface Book 2 doesn't have a kickstand, doesn't last long on tablet mode and much more expensive. I do digital art so a bigger tablet screen makes more sense to me. If they put a USB-C then I can use a second screen as well.
Fukk Dat I checked it and they’re having problems shipping the product. I don’t take risk on new products especially at that price point ($1k+). Besides, I normally wait for the product to become refurbished before I purchase one so I know it’s working. Different with phones though
It looked like it had little to no jitter from what he showed and what he said. Can you refer to a specific timestamp where you saw unacceptable jitter levels?
Please help! I would be able to buy a surface book 2 i7 8gb 256gb very cheap or dell (surface pro 6 clone) i7(8gen) 16gb 512gb with almost the same price. I use photoshop for large raw file edits (sony a7r2) with actions etc. Is the surface book 2 better for me with the dedicated GPU for photoshop and illustrator with only 8GB of ram or would you go with a tablet? mostly i am worried about 8GB of ram since you can not upgrade. Please help, thank you for your videos
@@calchan9010 It's sort of comparable. Clip Studio Paint has more features for drawing comics. Anyway, you can download the trial version of Clip Studio to try.
