Review: Gaomon M10K Pro drawing tablet (10 x 6 inches)

Review unit provided from Gaomon

The Gaomon M10K Pro is a drawing tablet Gaomon released towards the end of 2020.

This is a 10 x 6 inch drawing tablet that supports tilt and 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity with a pen that is battery-free. Retail price is US $69 which may or may not include free shipping depending on who you buy from. The pricing is quite competitive.

Items included in the box are:

• Pen and pen case
• Pouch with nib remover and 8 replacement pen nibs
• Artist glove
• Quick start guide
• Clothed tablet case
• USB cable
• USB C to USB A adapter
• USB C to Micro USB adapter

The USB cable that connects to the computer is USB type A.

Gaomon is pretty generous with replacement pen nibs.

These USB-C and Micro USD adapters are included so that you can connect to Android phones and tablets.

The included small pouch is useful because you can throw all the USB adapters in it as well.

Build quality of the pen is solid. It's comfortable to hold with its large rubber grip. This pen is not powered by battery so no charging is required.

The two side buttons (customisable) on the pen have nice feedback when pressed.

Design of the tablet is simple and clean. Build quality is good. It's well made.

It's about as thin as other drawing tablets I've reviewed. Thinner than my 15-inch laptop.

Top and bottom are tapered so that you can rest your wrist comfortably on it.

On the back are four rubber feet with good grip on table.

On the side is a slot that you can use to hold the pen.

There's a total of 10 customisable physical shortcut buttons. Five above the scroll wheel, and five below.

The buttons have firm feedback when pressed.

The button in the middle of the touch-sensitive scroll wheel allows you to switch between different functions. The default functions allow you to change brush size, scroll and zoom. The scroll wheel works quite well. Function switch also works fine.

This tablet is almost the same size as my 15-inch laptop.

Because the port on the tablet is a Micro USB, if you use the tablet in left handed mode, the cable will point downwards.

Driver

The drivers I've tested at Windows driver v14.8.133.1259 and Mac v14.4.5.200924. Their features are almost similar except for the additional Windows Ink functionality which you may or may not have to turn off if there are issues with pressure sensitivity or pen recognition.

Oh, the drivers have to be downloaded from Gaomon's website since they are not provided in the box. Windows installation is straightforward. MacOS installation requires more steps but there are detailed instructions provided on Gaomon's website.

Pressure sensitivity can be adjusted with the slider. You can't plot points on the pressure curve. Two side buttons on the pen are customisable.

The 10 physical shortcut buttons and the scroll wheel can be customised to mouse clicks, keyboard shortcuts, switch display and to launch apps.

The keyboard shortcuts work well.

You can change the orientation of the tablet here if you're left handed.

Drawing performance

Overall drawing performance on Mac and Windows is fantastic. The pen is sensitive and accurate. Line quality is predictable.

Photoshop CC 2021 (Mac) performs well. Pressure sensitivity works well with Adobe Illustrator CC 2021 too.

Zoom does not work well with Medibang Paint Pro (Mac). I was able to use the physical shortcut buttons and scroll wheel to zoom out, but I can't zoom in for close up. This problem does not happen with Windows driver.

Zoom doesn't seem to work well with Medibang Paint Pro (Mac) initially. It can zoom out but can't zoom in. However, for unknown reasons, the problem went away by itself. Anyway, this zoom problem with Medibang Paint Pro (Mac) is something I see quite often, and it only affects this app so it's an app-specific problem.

Krita (Mac). Tilt sensitivity works well.

Clip Studio Paint (Mac) performs well.G+

Pressure sensitivity works well with Affinity Photo (Mac) and Affinity Designer (Mac).

I don't have any drawing tests on Windows because the performance is similar to Mac.

Drawing on Android

Support for Gaomon M10K Pro on Android will vary depending on the device you're using and the Android system, version 6 or newer is required.

You may experience issues with cursor not appearing or mapping is off.

When I connected the tablet to my Xiaomi Android phone (yes I know it's crushes quite badly), pressure sensitivity works fine. However, only the left side of the tablet is mapped to the vertical orientation of the phone. Thankfully the cursor is visible.

Drawing performance is alright but there's no driver so you won't be able to customise the shortcut buttons or adjust the pressure curve.

With my Samsung Android tablet, the mapping is off.

The horizontal drawing tablet is mapped to the vertical Android tablet so the orientation is off, and drawing is, well, disorienting.

When Android tablet is vertical, only the left portion of the drawing tablet is mapped and that portion's aspect ratio does not match the Android tablet, hence drawing feels disorienting as well.

In short, this is a tablet that will perform best when used with Windows and MacOS. While it's nice to be able to draw on Android devices, don't buy it if that's your primary usage.

Conclusion

The Gaomon M10K Pro drawing tablet looks good and is well built. Drawing performance is fantastic on Windows and MacOS. Pricing is competitive with other brands so overall it's quite worth the money.

Downsides: functionality with Android devices can be surprising.

Availability

The tablet is available from Gaomon webstore.

You can get this tablet and find more reviews on Amazon:
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