TOP 5 BEST DRAWING TABLETS OF 2025
We’ve tested all the best drawing tablets for designers, illustrators and photo editors.
The top drawing tablets could help you advance your skills as a photographer, animator, or digital artist. With the best digital art and drawing tools, these slates provide a more tactile approach to sketch, retouch, and edit works for creatives of all skill levels, from novices and students to seasoned pros.
However, there are many things to take into account, which makes selecting the best drawing tablet a little more difficult. First off, there are three types of drawing tablets: general-purpose tablets, pen tablets, and pen displays. We’ve covered the differences between them in our FAQ section below.
You’ll be better off with one of the top tablets from companies like Apple, Microsoft, or Samsung if you want a more portable experience because both pen tablets and the great majority of pen displays require a laptop or PC. Below is a list of few that are very beneficial for creatives.
We have personally examined every tablet that is featured below, taking into account both practical considerations like cost and portability as well as crucial specifications like pressure sensitivity to display, drawing experience to easy key shortcuts, and more.
Table of Contents
Best Graphics Tablet
1. Xencelabs Pe Display 24
Best value display
2. XPPen Artist Pro 16 (Gen 2)
Best professional display
3. Wacom Cintiq Pro 27
Best general use
4. iPad Pro 13 (2024)
Best graphics tablet
5. Xencelabs Pen Tablet Medium Bundle
1. Xencelabs Pen Display 24
With a 24-inch 4K display, IPS panel, brilliant 330 nit brightness, extensive color reproduction (99%, AdobeRGB, 93% DCI-P3), and 8,197 levels of pressure sensitivity in its included stylus, the Xencelabs Pen Display 24 is a capable, well-designed drawing tablet that can showcase your creations at their best and support you in making the most of them while you’re creating. It’s difficult to find anything bad about it because it does so much, so well.
The Xencelabs Pen Display 24 is a large tablet that you won’t be carrying around cafes in a tote bag anytime soon, but it’s hard to beat for a dedicated drawing tablet to sit on your desk. The Quick Key Remote, with its OLED display and ability to bolt onto the edge of the tablet, ensures that your experience using the Pen Display 24 is as stylish as possible. If you’d prefer a smaller size option, we also highly recommend the Xencelabs Pen Display 16.
Although this is by no means the first company to challenge Wacom’s dominance, Xencelabs has been leading the effort to unseat Wacom’s professional-grade products since the release of its first product, the Pen Tablet Medium, in 2021. With the release of the Xencelabs Pen Display 24, it appears that it may have done so.
The Pen Display 24 is a great deal at its list price because of its many included accessories and strong specifications. A pen case that holds the 3 Button Pen V2, the Thin Pen V2, a Quick Keys dongle, six extra standard nibs, four felt nibs, a drawing glove, a variety of cords, and a cleaning cloth are included. The Xencelabs Quick Keys remote and its holder are also included.
2. XPPen Artist Pro 16 (Gen 2)
One of Wacom’s main rivals in the market, XPPen, provides tablets at a lower price point without sacrificing performance or design quality. With the XPPEN Artist Pro 16, which is in its second generation and has a very reasonable price point for its feature set, that is never more evident.
While not nearly 4K, the 2560 x 1600 pixel panel does mean you receive a significant degree of detail over a regular Full HD display, and fine brightness adjustments ensure you can calibrate it to best fit your environment.
This drawing tablet is enhanced by a number of amazing accessories, such as a tactile keydial and a next-generation stylus with an unparalleled 16,000 levels of pressure sensitivity. This feature doesn’t feel all that different from the 8,092 levels found in other top tablets, but it’s nice to know that the Artist Pro 16 is currently the market leader in this area.
Given that the first-generation model did have a more adjustable arrangement, the integrated stand’s fixed 19-degree angle is the one drawback. Nevertheless, this is a minor grievance in an otherwise excellent drawing tablet.
3. Wacom Cintiq Pro 27
Bigger is sometimes better, and the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 pen display is a perfect example of that. It has a 27.9-inch Ultra HD screen, a very spacious drawing area, amazing sensitivity levels, and multi-touch capability for simple stylus or finger interface.
The Pro 27 costs about twice as much as its smaller Pro 16 counterpart, but it has twice the refresh rate (120 Hz vs. 60 Hz), a wider color gamut (30 vs. 8 b), and the ability to use its large screen as a full-on monitor for the laptop or PC that you connect it to.However, given that it is a tablet designed primarily for career professionals and offers the ability to eliminate the need for a second monitor, the cost may be justified.
Just be aware that compared to some of the other options in this guide, a display this size is more cumbersome. The tablet is just too big to truly benefit from a wrist support on your desk, and sitting up close for extended periods of time can be unpleasant. Beware, aspiring and amateur artists.Anyone accustomed to using other tablets, such an iPad, will recognize and find the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27’s built-in motions for your fingers and the bundled Wacom Pro Pen 3 easy to use.
As a multi-touch display, the Cintiq Pro 27 is, of course, incredibly responsive when working on designs with your fingers or a pen. These degrees of sensitivity can occasionally be frustrating to use. For instance, when writing with the pen while multi-touch is enabled, it’s not unusual to begin a pen stroke and then have it vanish because your finger unintentionally touched the screen.
4. iPad Pro 13 (2024)
The iPad Pro is without a doubt the greatest all-around tablet for drawing, and the latest 12.9-inch M4 edition is a true artist’s dream, offering an amazing canvas size, a dazzling display, and plenty of power. Additionally, it is much more portable than its competitors; as was previously said, the majority of pen displays and all graphics tablets require external equipment to be connected in.
The iPad Pro leads with its dual OLED Liquid Retina XDR 12.9-inch screen, while the iPad Air is lighter and less expensive. Of course, you can choose the somewhat smaller 11-inch iPad Pro model, but it doesn’t have as good of a display.
The iPad Pro’s 120Hz refresh rate allows images to refresh twice as quickly as they do on many other tablets, giving you access to incredibly quick and responsive drawing capabilities. The iPad Pro becomes a strong competitor when you combine this with the amazing toolkit provided by the new Apple Pencil Pro (available separately), which has capabilities like barrel roll, hover, and squeeze. For that authentic pen-to-paper experience, a tactile screen finish is the only thing lacking; however, this can be fixed by purchasing a paper-textured screen protector.
The iPad Pro, which has the M4 CPU, is undoubtedly the most potent tablet for image editing and drawing. You’re also far less constrained than with other tablets thanks to iPadOS’s compatibility with a wide variety of innovative apps and support for Apple Intelligence capabilities.
5. Xencelabs Pen Tablet Medium Bundle
The Xencelabs Pen Tablet is a traditional graphics tablet that requires an external monitor, unlike the pen displays in this guide that have built-in displays. This makes it a better choice for people who are worried about the brittleness of pen display screens or who are on a tighter budget. It satisfies every need you would have for a graphics tablet, offering a fantastic combination of portability, power, and a sleek, sturdy build at an incredibly affordable price.
One of the most important features of graphic tablet design is the texture of the surface, which provides a good amount of resistance for a realistic and simple drawing experience. The tablet is ergonomically designed with a comfortably curved front edge, which is more than many competing drawing tablets can claim. Along with the tablet, the package includes a pen case and two battery-free styluses with 8,192 pressure sensitivity settings that may be independently programmed.
Another distinctive feature that distinguishes the Xencelabs Pen Tablet from other products is the rapid key remote control, which can be customized. Although these separate components mean you have two extra parts to consider, the tablet is quite lightweight and portable, so it’s worth the minor premium for a complete and excellent setup.
We include all of the big and minor market participants, including Wacom, XPPen, Xencelabs, and general-purpose manufacturers like Apple and Microsoft, while selecting the best drawing tablets.
We evaluate each drawing tablet’s setup, compatibility, performance, and reliability on Windows and macOS in order to determine who will benefit from it and why. Since most professionals prefer Adobe Creative Cloud, we primarily used it, but we also looked at well-known and free programs like Kitra and GIMP to suit a range of budgets.
After that, we will sketch, write, and test the tablet to determine its natural feel, find any bugs, and ensure that it is safe for extended usage.
How can I pick the best drawing tablet for me?
The most crucial factor in choosing a drawing tablet is your artistic process: how, where, and when do you like to draw? If you prefer to sketch while on the go, free from the constraints of cables, screens, and PCs, you might be better off with a general-purpose tablet like the Surface Pro 7 or the Apple iPad Pro, which offer excellent portability and compatibility with other devices, but at the expense of drawing experience and cost.
A graphics tablet is your best bet if price is your top concern but you don’t mind a steeper learning curve. These tablets are also typically more sturdy. The finest overall sketching experience is provided by the more delicate pen displays, which may lose points for portability but give artists a pen-to-paper feel with features, design, and display that are focused on the artist.
Which is superior, a general-purpose tablet, a graphics tablet, or a pen display?
Since every artist has distinct demands, there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to the best type of drawing tablet. Therefore, it’s critical to comprehend how each form of tablet differs from the others.
Graphics tablets, which are more hardware-light, are the less expensive choice. If you can get used to gazing up at a screen while drawing, they usually react quite accurately. Additionally, they are more durable because they do not come with an integrated display. Therefore, if you have access to laptops or external monitors that you can connect them to, graphics tablets are the ideal option for regular travelers.
Although pen displays are slightly more expensive and more brittle, they are easier to learn to use and you don’t need to rely as heavily on shortcuts and programmable buttons to move around your canvas. Although they are somewhat expensive, some high-end pen displays have operating systems built right in, so you don’t need to connect them to a PC or laptop.
The more traditional, multifunctional slates from companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung that also function as drawing tablets are known as general-use tablets. Certain gadgets, like the Apple iPad Pro, more obviously cater to the needs of artists through performance, display quality, and stylus design.
Which graphics tablets are used by pros?
In general, Wacom tablets are used by the majority of digital illustrators, animators, and similar professionals—at least, the majority I’ve spoken to use them. However, Wacom’s market dominance is in jeopardy due to increased competition in the professional area from companies like Huion and Xencelabs.
Wacom is king, though, and for good reason—it has been for a very long time. With their exquisite pen-to-paper feel, exceptional precision, and well-considered incorporation of productivity tools like fast keys, its tablets provide an amazing drawing experience. There is a real price for this; Wacom’s devices are quite costly, with many variants costing thousands of dollars, while low-cost competitors like XPPen offer devices at a far lower price.