Review: XPPen Artist Pro 22 (Gen 2) pen display

Review unit provided by XPpen

The XPPen Artist Pro 22 (gen 2) was released in January 2025. This belongs to the XPPen Artist Pro (gen 2) series of pen displays that now has the following products:

• XPPen Artist Pro 14 (gen 2) - USD 499 (USD 319 discounted)
• XPPen Artist Pro 16 (gen 2) - USD 599 (USD 497 discounted)
• XPPen Artist Pro 19 (gen 2) - USD 899 (USD 719 discounted)
• XPPen Artist Pro 22 (gen 2) - USD 699 (USD 594 discounted)
• XPPen Artist Pro 24 (gen 2) 2.5K 165Hz - USD 1099 (USD 879 discounted)
• XPPen Artist Pro 24 (gen 2) 4K - USD 1299 (USD 1104 discounted)

The prices can vary depending on whether there is any promotion. The pen displays come with 18-month warranty and there's free shipping (depending on location).

Links above are to my full reviews.

If you're looking for a large pen display to create digital art, the ones to consider now are the 19, 22 and 24-inch models. Which one to choose really comes down to how much you want to spend, and perhaps how big your table is, followed by the resolution.

Bottom line

The XPPen Artist Pro 22 (gen 2) is a well made pen display with solid build quality. The 22-inch 1440P display is large and comfortable for drawing. I measured colour support for 99% sRGB, 95% AdobeRGB and a maximum brightness of 280 nits. Colour accuracy is good and the display is thankfully colour calibrated at the factory.

Pen performance is excellent, and hence drawing experience is wonderful. The laminated matte glass surface feels good to draw on. The glass is not as thick as the 24-inch so there's almost no parallax, no gap between the line and the pen tip.

Downsides are mostly in the form of limitations which I'll talk more about later. There are no deal breakers.

Specifications

• Product Name: Artist Pro 22 (Gen2) Drawing Display
• Product Model: MD220QH
• Color: Black
• Dimensions: 547.0 x 362.0 x 33.4 mm
• Work Area: 475.392 x 267.408 mm
• Net Weight: 5.55 kg (Stand Included)
• Display Resolution: 2560 x 1440
• Color Gamut Coverage Ratio (typical): 99% sRGB, 99% Adobe RGB, 94% Display P3
• Display Color: 16.7 Million
• Full Lamination: Yes
• Viewing Angle: 178°
• Brightness (typical): 250cd/m²
• Stylus: X3 Pro Smart Chip Stylus
• Pressure Levels: 16384
• Tilt: 60°
• Initial Activation Force: 3g
• Accuracy: ±0.4 mm (center)
• Reading Height: 10mm (center)
• Resolution: 5080LPI
• Report Rate: ≥220RPS
• Adjustable Stand: 15°~88°
• VESA Compatibility: 100mm x 100mm
• Ports: USB-C, HDMI
• Power Input: AC 100-240V
• Power Output: 12V⎓3A
• Compatibility: Windows 7 (or later), macOS 10.13 (or later), Android 10.0 (or later), ChromeOS 88 (or later), Linux

Things included

• Pen display
• XPPen X3 Pro pen (PD21)
• Pen case with 4x plastic pen tips, 4x felt pen tips, USB-A Bluetooth wireless receiver
• 10x replacement plastic pen tips
• Artist glove
• Micro fiber cleaning cloth
• 36W (12V 3A) power adapter
• Power cable
• 1.5m USB-A to USB-C cable
• 1.5m USB-C to USB-C video cable
• 1.5m full-size HDMI to full-size HDMI cable
• Detachable pen holder
• XPPen ACK05 shortcut remote with stickers
• Back plate for covering cables
• Colour calibration report
• Warranty card
• User manual

Design

Design of the pen display is clean and simple. Bezels are thick but not excessively thick. Bezels are thicker at the top and bottom than the sides.

FYI, the XPPen Artist Pro 24 (gen 2) has noticeably thicker bezels.

This pen display has no hotkeys but you can use the included XPPen ACK05 shortcut remote, or just use your keyboard.

The metal stand attached to the back can be removed if you want to use VESA mounting (10 x 10cm). Total weight including the metal stand is 5.55kg.

The two rollers beneath the metal stand makes it easier to adjust the angle without having to lift the pen display.

This is the highest angle.

This is the lowest angle.

This is a big pen display so make sure you have enough table space when you tilt the pen display low for drawing.

Buttons for the power and brightness control can be found on the top right. The useful pen holder can be inserted into the slot nearby.

Ports available are power, USB-C, HDMI and 3.5mm audio jack. There is some cable management design and the cables will come out from the right side.

Here are some advantages of a big pen display:

• Multi-tasking with multiple windows. There's space to place references by the side
• There's more space for drawing with big arm movement
• The sharpness and display size allows you to see details easily
• If your artwork is smaller than 475.392 x 267.408 mm, you can view it at 100% actual size

The pen display has to be connected to a power source regardless of how you connect it to your computer.

If you use HDMI video connection, you'll also need to connect the pen display to your computer with another USB cable so that the pen can work.

If you use USB-C video connection, you can get video and data.

Display

The display is colour calibrated at the factory and the average Delta E according to the colour report is 0.83. Average Delta E is the variance between colour input and the measured colour output. Anything less than 2 is good, less than 1 is fantastic.

Having the pen display colour calibrated at the factory is great because not many people actually have colour calibrators. With a colour calibrator, I measured colour support for 100% sRGB, 95% AdobeRGB, 90% NTSC, 92% P3 and a maximum brightness of 280 nits.

The IPS LCD is 22-inch and resolution is 2560 x 1440 (1440P or 2.5K) at 133 PPI. There's slight pixelation if you look close enough, but from one arm's distance away the visuals look quite sharp to me.

22-inch and 1440P is not a good combo for MacOS so there could be some UI scaling issues, e.g. visual softness. To fix the UI scaling issues, you can use a free app called BetterDisplay to enable HiDPI.

If the drawing apps running on Windows look fuzzy, open the app Properties - Compatibility - Change High DPI settings.

This pen display comes with a matte glass surface that provides a subtle tactile experience when drawing on it. The surface is actually quite smooth, maybe slightly smoother than matte screen protectors, but thankfully not slippery so I can still get good control with the pen. And since the surface is glass, it is very unlikely for the pen tip to scratch it.

The anti-glare has medium aggressiveness, so if there's a strong and big light source, reflections would be diffused to become big, soft and glaring. Anyway, you will get the best visual quality when viewing the display straight on, even with a huge window by the side. Brightness is high enough to go through the diffused reflection.

Pen

The pen case is made with metal and is really well made. You'll find the pen nib remover, four plastic pen tips, four felt pen tips and the USB-A Bluetooth wireless receiver for the XPPen ACK05 shortcut remote.

The XPPen X3 Pro stylus is well made and has good build quality. It's not powered by battery so no charging is required. There are two customisable side buttons and an eraser at the back.

The pen supports tilt sensitivity and 16K levels of pressure sensitivity. Pen tip has slight movement when in contract with the drawing surface but can't be felt.

Driver

There are drivers for Windows, Mac and Linux from

By the way, I've duplicated portions of my XPPen Artist Pro 24 (gen 2) review below because these two pen displays have similar driver features.

The driver is quite simple since there are no hotkeys to customise.

The drawing or mapping area can be left as default most of the time.

The pen display has no OSD menu for display settings so you can only adjust the display from the driver. Settings you can adjust include colour space, brightness, contrast, RGB and colour temperature.

If you have to colour calibrate the display, set colour space to USER first as this will give you better AdobeRGB coverage.

Pen pressure can be customised by moving the three control points around, or you can choose from the pre-programmed pressure curves.

The pen's side button can be customised. I usually set one pen button to Switch Display for my dual display setup and it works well.

The XPPen ACK05 shortcut remote also uses the same driver.

All configured settings can be backed up.

Line tests

Line tests below were created with Medibang Paint Pro.

1. Initial activation force is very low and thin lines can be drawn easily even with a thick brush selected. There's no wobble or jitter with slow diagonal lines.

2. Lines can taper smoothly and sharply.

3. Line transition from thin to thick and back is smooth.

4. Line width can be maintained consistently by maintaining consistent line width.

5. Dots can be drawn

6. There are no issues with cursor misalignment. I could join separate lines without leaving gaps or overshooting. Cursor tracking at the extreme edges is accurate.

There's the usual amount of latency for drawing which is not something I would notice unless I'm looking out for it.

Tilt sensitivity works great with Sketchbook.

Tilt works well with Krita. Tilt brush cursor can follow the direction of the pen.

Drawing experience

This was drawn with Medibang Paint Pro. Since the pen has excellent pressure support, I was able to use one thick brush (55px) for the whole drawing, adjusting the pressure to get the thin or thick lines that I want.

This drawing has numerous diagonal lines and I did not experience any issues with diagonal line wobble or jitter. Pen accuracy is fantastic.

After including palettes on the left and right sides, there's still a drawing area that's almost 12 x 9 inches. With the 19-inch pen display, the drawing area is slightly smaller than A4.

The huge size of a 22-inch display is nice to work with but I don't actually feel like I needed all the extra space. 16-inch is a size that feels alright to me. 19-inch is the size that feels just right. In terms of value for money, the 22-inch is USD 699 and the 19-inch is more expensive at USD 899 because of the 4K resolution. Between 19-inch and 22-inch, I would go with the 22-inch simply because of the lower price point. While 4K resolution is certainly sharper, 1440P on a 22-inch display is sharp enough, and you get a USD 200 savings, and a larger display.

After having palettes on the left and right column, there's still an area around 9 x 12-inches for drawing, and that's a big area for drawing.

The pen display does not generate much heat.

Clip Studio Paint works well.

This was drawn with Concepts. Pressure works fine but tilt does not work consistently or just doesn't work.

Conclusion

The XPPen Artist Pro 22 (gen 2) is a pen display that looks nice, has good colour accuracy and excellent pen performance. The matte glass is wonderful to draw on and the matte surface does not affect display quality.

In terms of value for money, this is probably a better choice than the XPPen Artist Pro 19 (gen 2) because it's USD 699 vs 899. While the visuals may not be as sharp compared to the 4K resolution of the Artist Pro 19, 1440P resolution still looks quite sharp or sharp enough. A USD 200 savings is significant, and you get a larger pen display.

If you compare this with the Artist Pro 24 (gen 2) 165Hz, it's USD 699 vs 1099. The price advantage is heavily in the 22-inch favor.

The XPPen Artist Pro 22 (gen 2) is a great pen display that I can recommend easily.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Beautiful design
+ Solid build quality
+ Laminated display
+ Stand included
+ Good colour accuracy with 95% AdobeRGB
+ 1440P resolution provides sharp visuals
+ Big size good for multi-tasking
+ Matte glass drawing surface
+ Matte drawing surface has minimal grain and colour noise
+ Accurate cursor tracking
+ Pen has tilt and 16K levels of pressure sensitivity
+ Pen case included
+ X3 Pro pen is accurate and sensitive
+ Many replacement pen nibs
+ ACK05 shortcut remote included
+ USB-C to USB-C video connection support
+ Cables connection seems secure and durable
+ Fantastic drawing performance
+ Supports Mac, Windows, Android, Chomebook and Linux
+ 18 months warranty
- No OSD menu for manual colour adjustments
- No Power Delivery from pen display

Availability

The XPPen Artist Pro 22 (gen 2) is available from XPPen online store and Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | ES | IT)

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