Xencelabs, XP-PEN, UGEE, they are all from one single Chinese company Hanwang (Hanvon) Technology, in their own words, ugee is for beginners, xp-pen is for intermediate users, and Xencelabs is for the pros. Which doesn't explain that why Xencelabs cost more in China than outside Chinese market, like almost $100 more, while other 2 brands costs nearly the same.
They, including Huion are all probably using the same digitizer. For a long time, they all used UC-Logic so its plausable to think Huion is now supplying the digitizers although I cannot find any reference to prove what Huion is doing today. They have such a similar experience, thats why I believe this.
I'm a beginner who doesn't really jive well with OLED screens because of migraines, so I went for XP Pen's equivalent offering while it was on a good deal, and I'm super impressed by it.
@@chloek1182 I went for their newer tabs, so they have built-in feet, but I also have a couple tablet stands for different angles as well. There are some pretty inexpensive ones on Amazon and the like.
6:12 yeah that's why i returned my Cintiq pro 16 in late 2017. Could deal with 4k not working; but the screech of it's cooling fan and hot plate surface was too much.
OLED on something like this is a huge mistake (this applies to Wacom and the Movink too). Last year I had to replace a bunch of ASUS Zenbooks with OLED screens, every single one had the task bar permanently burned into the screen. On a bunch of office laptops it wasn't a huge deal, it was just time to replace them. However, on a drawing tablet it's going to be a nightmare, best get used to seeing the photoshop tools, whether you're using it or not.
I agree. I went with the Samsung Mini LED 32” G7 for the same reason. I use my monitors for gaming and work and I do not want my windows task bar or browser menu burned into them from 8 hours a day being on the same screen over and over.
The software looks way better than Huion's. Shame about the slight pen wave and no touch, though. I'm glad all the Wacom alternatives seem to be constantly improving.
@@cenciende9401i will always want buy screen display with touch function bc im alr too used with ipad..im more comfortable with touch screen as i can zoom in out,rotate,undo faster compared using the hotkeys. i hv both ipad and screen display(huion) which is non-touch and my work speed definitely waaaaayy slower when im using my huion bc i always had trouble adjusting the right zoom scale i want..the rotation etc..well it takes time to get comfortable but i want to start work asap as soon get the new tablet so i prefer the one that has touch screen (newest ipad just too expensive so rn im trying to find alternative touch screen display)
@@extreme123dz Sure but the amount of time can be huge. I've used my LG C1 as my main artwork display for 7600+ hrs now. 100% brightness, same 3 programs in the same spot. I have no burn in, no uniformity issues on any grey/colors and when I measure it, there's no real loss in peak/average nits. Now that's not a laptop screen or tablet. But some of the newer pc oleds are now coming with these kinds of features like pixel shift/logo dimming ect. They also come with 4 year warranties for burn in which means they know it will be fine. Hopefully we see that tech in the smaller devices.
I caught this a little while back on one of the social media sites and I'll say the same thing I said then. I don't want an OLED panel in a work display. Burn-in is a real concern. I spend unholy amounts of hours in Blender and I don't want that UI shadowed over everything I do, or any other software I use for that matter. Until the technology changes to make burn-in a less than zero occurrence hard pass. OLED looks amazing, but just not worth it here. It would me be like buying a one use only hammer to build a skyscraper.
Been mega impressed with the xencelabs gear. I have a 24" screen tablet plus a medium standard both of which I feel are better then wacom gear and far cheaper too. All the bonus gear is actually good and not just a gimmick. Wacom has gone down hill in recent years so glad to see some strong competition.
So happy to see them make pen displays, the quality looks top notch, glad its comes with a hub, I have a custom built pc thats a bit older and I cannot live that single cable lifestyle
Great review Brad and I love the detail you highlighted, the pitch sound when using one cord! Too many reviewers don’t include these aspects in their reviews, so I’m really happy you include these as well. I’ve had expensive brands and watched lot of reviews before buying, and then discovered high pitch noise, annoying fans running constantly, or even uneven display uniformity. So do keep this focus aspect in your future reviews, we are some who can get highly annoyed by these discoveries while working daily, and esepecially if it’s a high priced product :) (Reposted, accidently commented as a reply under another viewer :)
what program do you use? its neat for browsing but i think the dealbreaker is a bit overblown. In photoshop it's so janky it's almost unusable, not to mention keyboard shortcuts are faster anyway
@@lesnacke This. Most pen displays don't have touch. Mac doesn't have native touch and Windows touch is so-so. Most people turn it off I think. You don't need touch as much on a pen display because it is bigger and don't have to zoom in and out as much as you would on a 13" tablet.
@@markanthonyart On the cintiq 27 pro, ok for browsing when its a second monitor but i literally turned it off in photoshop as the palm rejection was bad, and its faster to use Z, R and spacebar to navigate than lift up your pen. I imagine touch drives up the price a decent bit. I rather they let us choose to not have touch if we wanna save money like the old Cintiq pro 24 but that trend seems gone now. iPad kids are driving up prices with their need for touchscreens and the inclusion of a second pen to mimic their little pencil (even though it's less ergonomic)
It's weird how overprice the OLED or any screen technology in drawing tablets... I know that drawing tablets profits margins isn't as huge as monitors and other consumer tablets, so the company makes the product more expensive so they don't sell it at a lost. but still, it is something to think about.
The small phone-sized OLEDs, and the large TV-sized OLEDs are a bit cheaper to make these days. To the point where it doesn't add much cost to add them to cheap phones, or use them on entry-level TVs. But monitor-sized OLED panels are still crazy expensive for some reason. TechAltar did a video on how they're actually different tech. There aren't any cheap good OLED monitors yet. Not even compared to what IPS monitors cost 8 years ago.
I have heard that some manufacturers send pre-production samples to reviewers, this being a review sample it could also have been sent to a another reviewer before and Brad will also have to return it after the review.
Yeah plenty of tech sponsors do the same thing, they have a set amount of review units that they require the item to be sent back so they can then send out to the next reviewer
I'd far prefer 120 hz to OLED -- I recently discovered I actually prefer a screenless tablet on a 140 hz monitor to a 60 hz drawing display, it feels that much smoother (even for lineart).
I was looking forward to this, but I''ll pass. Right now most tablets seem to be kind of stuck in the current gen. I'm waiting for that next gen leap, you know? Have we really plateaued on where we can go with screen tablets? Right now I mostly just want something as good as an ipad, but on desktop, and pen with proper macro buttons.
@thebradcolbow, I've been seeing tons of ads for the Alogic Clarity Pro Touch 27" 4K Monitor. It appears that the newest version of the Pro Touch has pressure sensitivity support with it's active stylus, and a separate folding stand to angle it for drawing. Anyway I haven't seen any reviews of this device and if the drawing capabilities are even real. I trust your opinions and reviews (I work in UX but am also an artist) so if you are looking for suggestions on future videos here's one for you.
Hey Brad! I really like the look of the xence labs shortcut remote, but i have a Huion display I'm happy with. Have you ever tried mix and matching the remotes with different displays? I've heard that doing this could cause driver conflicts in the past. Really wondering if that's still an issue.
The whistle is very likely coil whine. Which doesn't necessarily come from coils, but it's still named like that. It comes from current running through tiny parts and that creates a sound sometimes. The problem really is that if you have 3 of the same product it might occur on none, one, two or all of them. It might occur in the same or different situations. It might sound very different, and so on. On PCs it can happen on very specific hardware combinations - or just on any hardware. It usually gets worse over the years. You can "fix" it if you have settings under which it doesn't occur. My graphics card has coil whine when I use 100% of it and have over 200fps - which is an easy fix. If I limit my fps to 144 or 72 for example then it won't happen. It sounds like this screen produces it on low current. So using settings where it uses higher power is the fix. You can think of it as resonance. If you strike a specific note and you have something that resonates on that specific note then you have more sound. Coil whine is just something striking that specific note. And on some devices coil whine is just on every note.
Brad can you start showing if the pen can do tilt rotation in photoshop? It’s a really important part of my workflow, that is a bit niche so no one covers it haha I can send you a brush I use frequently that’s a good litmus test for it if you like!
Damn I’ve never heard of a tablet emitting a high pitched whistle when only connected via one cable. This tablet looks promising otherwise though. As someone with a Kamvas 22 plus I can definitely relate to Brad saying it’s hard to maneuver the tablet with all those neat of wires 🥲
I have one of these and mine had brightness issues. The xencelabs support was amazing and installed a new firmware update on my machine and since then the brightness is noticeably higher. No whistle on mine though
At this price i think it probably should have been touch enabled. Their bigger screen is touch enabled and i think they should have kept that feature in.
I'm kind of curious if you tried using a run-of-the-mill PD-compatible hub. I've found a hub can act as a power injector for more power-hungry peripherals like external monitors over type-C. I like the idea of this product. But I feel like if i were to pick between this or the Wacom I would pick the Wacom Movink. Just because it is smaller and lighter. For my desk I want something bigger for on the go lighter means i am more likely to leave it in the bag
Hey Brad great video again. I do have a question though. So I have an iPad, and I also have in a box somewhere a newer ten XP pen 13 inch (I think) display tablet. I run mainly on Mac (which I know doesn't play super nice with pen displays) in your opinion should I just stick to the iPad or maybe look into upgrading to one of these or something like it to use as well as my iPad?
Hey Brad -- was wondering if you have tested the single cable solution with a different computer to see if you still get the high pitched noise. Its possible that the power supply on your computer may be marginal for some reason.
Hey was wondering wether you'd recommend the XP-Pen Artist 16 Pro (Gen 2) or the Wacom Cintiq 16. They're both the same price atm, but I'm unsure which of the two is a better tablet as I'm slightly worried over the parallax and color accuracy of the Cintiq.
Hey was wondering wether you'd recommend the Wacom Cintiq 16 or the XP-Pen Artist 16 Pro (Gen2) Theyre both the same price here. I'm slightly worried over the parallax and color accuracy of the Cintiq. Which of the 2 displays would you recommend?
I see 16 inches screen size and immediately think of eye strain. Some drawing program UI’s are so big ur gonna be drawing on a canvas the size of a flash card or even a post it note…
For that price you can get a Wacom 22" they are crazy. Nobody asked for OLED drawing displays, they often don't have accurate colors and burn-in is common. No thanks.
The Wacom 22" (2K) is not meant to be designed for professional use. The Xencelabs Pen Display 16 Bundle (4K 10-Bit OLED) is designed for day in/day out professional use and includes value-added accessories with everything you need to get up and running.
How are they about the warranty and out-of-warranty repairs? What countries have local repair and don't need to ship out of the country for warranty or other repair?
The Xencelabs Pen Display 16 Bundle competes with the Wacom 16 Pro & the Wacom 17 Pro. At this current time they are both significantly more expensive and you have to purchase all the extra accessories we include in the bundle. Wacom does not include a stand with their devices and that will be a significant expense.
You just saved me a bit of coin. i was getting ready to pluck some money down for this Xence Labs Pen Display 16 pro Bundle but after seeing the slight pen wobble and reading about the OLED burn in potential,....I'm out! I will wait a bit longer for something else to hit the market in that 16-17" screen size range. Too bad Apple won't ever make a 16" IPad pro. Even if they did,..it would likely go for around $3400 because they know the Apple Addicts will fall over themselves to give them their money.
yep pretty silly to use oled... surely there's other ways to increase the contrast? and pen wobble is no excuse anymore. the 3g IAF, wobble, these guys are just xp pen under the hood
@@lesnacke I know! Its crazy!! They have some heavy marketing behind them and it was pulling me in but then you get someone like Brad who actually gets into the details (hidden behind the flashy market speak) through an honest review and BAM there come the flaws and hidden “gotchyas”. As you stated, the wobble is just inexcusable in 2024. I mean, cmon, that stuff should no longer be an issue on even the cheapest devices and graphic displays out there. The OLED screen was a huge oversight too. Although I appreciated Brad’s workaround to mitigate the wobble, the mere fact that right after dropping just shy of $1300 on a product we are already looking for “workarounds” is insane to me!!! Add to that, no option for attaching it to a standard VESA monitor arm mount and the worry of screen “burn in” due to the OLED technology and you have instant buyer’s remorse.
With a 3-in-1 cable an extension cord will do the trick, thats what I've done with my Huion Kamvas 24 Plus. Still wobble? For this kind of price there should not be something like that. The rest looks good, but wobble and the sound is a deal breaker for me.
But ...how are the pens? I mean. Personally, I like Huion's pens better than Wacom's pens. Huion's Pen Tech 4 features some pretty hard to beat specs. I love the fact that Huion's pens feature great nib tech - very firm, not wobbly, and not super "clicky" or noisy, and very tiny retraction distance. I have drawn with every single pen Wacom offers, and I think Huion's pens are just better. They feel better. How about you? - How do Xencel lab pens stack up against Wacom or Huion pens.
I recently put a circular object on my Wacom Intuos Pro and manually drew a circle. I expected it to be a perfect circle but it was near a perfect ended up looking like a square with rounded corners almost to that of a circle. I wonder how the Xencelabs would perform Also, do you know if the Xencelabs software would conflict with Wacom software if on the same computer? A while back, I had problems with Wacom and XP-Pen installed on the same computer.
1. That's a strange test. Do you expect to use this technique in a practical capacity too? 2. Pen position is also affected by pen tilt. This is why most EMR art tablets are just noticeably larger than their drawing surface. They also read the position of the pen a little farther back from the tip. 3. EMR pens get interference from metal objects. If the circle thing was metal, pen position is going to be all over the place. You can try it with most metal objects on your tablet. Most commonly, if you have a metal keyboard, it will mess with the cursor position if your pen gets close to it. 4. You should definitely try it on other brands.
@@PharanBrush At work, I was trying to demonstrate how to use "forced proportions" (in my Wacom settings) and I expected without forced proportions to give me a slight oval and forced proportions to give me a perfect circle. I was surprised by the results. I tried it at home and got the same results. It just struck me as very strange. I suppose I can use a circle template but I do expect the same results.
When you draw a circle in our Xencelabs display you get a circle because we have a 16:9 aspect ratio. Our driver will not conflict with Wacom's driver.
@@Xencelabs That is nice to know that your driver will not conflict with the Wacom driver. Conflicting drivers was the reason I retired my XP-Pen tablet. Otherwise I would still be using it from time to time. I might have to give Xencelabs tablet a try one day soon.
Bonjour, je suis illustrateur concept art Français et j'hésite entre la Xencelabs display 24 et celle ci en échange de ma Wacom cintiq pro 16 UHD. sur un display 24 vs display 16 vous conseillerez plus la quel? les critères important pour moi c'est : - surtout une excellent colorimétrie. - Oled a toujours eu le problème de ne pas pouvoir être calibré avec une onde pour avoir la même concordance de couleur qu'un écran 4k UHD et surtout une concordance avec les prints que je peux faire… ( est ce que cette technologie s'est amélioré la dessus ou vaut il mieux toujours privilégié un bon IPS) - Oled qu'est ce que ca apporte réellement vu que c'est tout nouveau sur des tablette graphique (je précise à utilisation professionnel) le 4K UHD et certification pantone de la 24 vs l'Oled de la 16, la quel est la plus intéressante pour une utilisation professionnel ?
What no drawing glove dance?…😁 Xencelabs have, among its crew, a few former Wacom engineers so they should know what they are doing. Despite that the need for a stationary drawing tablet is becoming less evident specially with a few high quality computer tablets on the market.
I know this may be a strange question. But do you know any other 16:10 tablet other than XP-Pen gen 2 14"/16". I prefer to work in a vertical format and this ratio would be very useful
do you need a monitor hood since xencelabs thinks 300 nits is enough for a professional drawing tablets in 2024? oh ya xp pen had their new artist pro 16 for 500 bucks less with comparable spec there ya go
Closest you'll get is probably one of the higher-end Samsung tablets that come with their S-Pen, paired with the Android version of Clip Studio (or Krita). Procreate is (and always will be) Apple-only, so that option necessarily comes with everything else a typical iPad does.
We were making so much progress on price in the last few years but now this nonsense comes along? No. We need cheap, quality, matte touchscreen displays for the masses.
1k-1.2k$ for a tablet that can't draw straight line without wobble and also has OLED which burns in after 2 years - no amount of accessories can compensate this. This is bad.
The reason we have a larger bezel is two fold: 1) The bezel allows one to support their hands while drawing on the edge of the active area and 2) A larger bezel allows the EMR (electro magnetic resonance) board to stretch beyond the corners and edges thus reducing pen jitter and the ability to read the pen's tilt.
Bezels should always be on a drawing tablet. If you don't have large bezels, I'm not going to take it seriously, because I'm an artist. I didn't buy my drawing tablet to watch netflix lmao. This is ESPECIALLY important for tablets with touch screen. So god help me if Wacom gives their next tablet even smaller bezels than the Movink they just released.
As someone who has the Samsung s8 Ultra, i have to disagree with the rest of the comments here. I appreciate smaller bezels a lot, I dont draw near the edge when the only things at the edge of my tablet are the tool windows. Wayyy more drawing real estate. I dont draw on a display tablet on my computer but I really appreciate the smaller bezels on the Movink.
@thebradcolbow Can you please recommend two or three tablets with a monitor at a price below 400$ and a couple tablets without a screen under 200$ to choose from that I will not regret buying? I have a good enough PC and I want to get into drawing with no experience. I will be very grateful!
