Review: Parblo Intangbo X7 pen tablet
Review sample provided by Parblo
The Parblo Intangbo X7 is an affordable 7.2 x 4.5-inch pen tablet targeted at beginners and the younger crowd. Price of the pen tablet is USD 54.99. The colours available are black, pink and green.
This pen tablet is a variation of the Parblo Intangbo M that I reviewed recently. There are slight design differences but the main difference is Intangbo M is available in small and medium sizes.
Specs
- Model: Intangbo X7
- Pen Technology: battery-free electromagnetic resonance
- Workspace: 7.2 x 4.5inch (182.88 x 114.3mm)
- Dimensions: 271 x 166 x 7.2mm
- Tablet weight: 230g
- Sensing Height: 10mm
- Resolution: 5080LPI
- Report Rate: 266RPS
- Pressure Sensitivity: 8192 Levels
- Tilt Support: ±60 degrees
- Interface: USB-C
- Power Supply: USB 5V
- Shortcut Keys: 5 customizable express keys + mechanical mute wheel
- OS support: Windows 7, 8, 10, 11. MacOS 10.12 or newer. Android 6 or newer. HarmonyOS 1.0 or newer. Chrome OS 88 or newer
Things included
Parblo is probably the only company that has rather fun looking packaging for their pen tablets.
Included in the box are:
- Tablet
- USB-A to USB-C cable
- USB-A to USB-C adapter
- Pen and case
- 8 replacement pen nibs
- Nib remover
- Artist glove
- Micro-fiber cleaning cloth
- User manual
- Warranty info
- Stickers
These are the stickers included.
Design
The packaging and tablet looks like they were designed for the younger crowd, teenagers and digital art beginners. Even the green and pink are pastel colour options. If you want something more serious looking, there's always the black.
The four rubber feet on the back provides good grip on the table.
Build quality of the tablet is solid even though everything is made with plastic.
The tablet is quite thin. All corners are rounded off and edges are beveled.
This pen tablet is only available in 7.2 x 4.5 inch size. And that's how big the tablet is with a 16-inch laptop. Personally I would prefer a 10 x 6-inch tablet but here the pairing of this Parblo tablet and display size still works fine. This is small tablet but thankfully it's not that small.
At the top left is a knob for selected the device the tablet is connected to. This tablet can work with Windows, MacOS, Android devices and Chromebook.
The dial or wheel can be customised with keyboard shortcuts. It is only possible to rotate the canvas with the dial if your drawing app uses keyboard shortcuts for rotation.
There's a button in the centre of the dial to switch between different functionality (up to six).
There are five customisable hotkeys included. The buttons have little symbols on them and the click is firm with good feedback.
The pen case included is the slip-in type.
Design of the pen is unusual in the sense that there's a non-removeable big circular extrusion with the Parblo brand on it. Behind the circle or badge is the metal nib remover. The brand badge also prevents the pen from rolling off the table.
The pen end cap can be unscrewed to store 3 pen nibs within.
The pen has a comfortable rubber grip and 2 customisable side buttons.
Parblo markets the new short-stroke hard pen technology that "mimics drawing effect of a traditional pen, more stable and doesn't shake". The pen nib has some texture on the drawing surface and provides good tactile drawing experience.
Driver
The driver tested is Windows driver v3.6.5.7, firmware 1.22 and hardware version 2.01.
The pressure sensitivity curve can be adjusted by moving three control points.
There's Windows Ink which you may need to toggle on or off for troubleshooting if pressure if not working as expected.
The two side button on the pen can be customised and these are the options available:
- Right, left, middle click
- Eraser
- Launch an app
- Keyboard shortcut
The dial or wheel can be assigned with 6 shortcuts, and you can press the button in the middle to switch between the shortcuts.
The five customisable hotkeys can be used with keyboard shortcuts or for launching apps.
These are the available shortcuts that can be assigned to each hotkey.
Note that Switch Display is Windows + P instead of the actual Switch Display functionality that moves the cursor from one display to the other, and back.
Update 22 Aug 2023: Parblo has released an updated driver to fix the Display Switch issue
Note that this is the Windows driver. I thought this driver can be used to save settings into the tablet, and later have the tablet connect to an Android device but it does not work that way. The aspect ratio and hotkeys customisation for phone or Android does not seem to work. Anyway, since there's no Android driver, the hotkeys won't work and cannot be customised.
Drawing performance
These line tests were created with Medibang Paint Pro.
1. The pen has low initial activation force which means drawing thin lines can be drawn easily even with a thick brush selected. Note that there is diagonal line wobble though, unfortunately.
2. Lines are able to taper smoothly and sharply.
3. Line transition from thin to thick is smooth. Note the diagonal wobble here again.
4. Consistent line width can be created by applying consistent pressure but there's some variance with the thickness so the lines are not as smooth shown in test #3.
5. Dots can be drawn easily.
6. The diagonal line wobble may affect drawing.
I repeated the same line tests with Clip Studio Paint and CSP performed better with test 4 where the lines are smoother. However, there's still the slow diagonal line wobble.
This was drawn with Affinity Photo and there is difficulty getting the lines (the tentacles) to taper smoothly. Pressure sensitivity works fine. These are my daughter's imagined monsters designs redrawn by me.
This was drawn with Medibang Paint Pro.
This was also drawn with Medibang Paint Pro. While the line tests with Medibang Paint Pro were not the best, the overall drawing experience is still quite good. This was drawn with my usual drawing speed and I did not experience wobble with the lines.
This was drawn with Clip Studio Paint. There wasn't any issues with drawing this. The slow diagonal line wobble did not affect this drawing too.
Tilt sensitivity works fine.
Android support
User experience with Android is not ideal
Both Parblo tablet and Android device have to be in vertical orientation. Switching both to horizontal orientation will result in mis-match movement, e.g. pen draws horizontal line but a vertical line will appear instead.
I do not have a Chromebook so I cannot say much about the compatibility, but I suspect it will be similar to the Android experience.
There is no driver so the hotkeys and pen buttons cannot be customised and cannot be used. There is also no pressure curve to adjust.
The Parblo tablet does not support touch so navigation gestures for pan, zoom and rotate cannot be used. If you want to undo, you have to tap on your Android device.
Conclusion
The Parblo Intangbo X7 has decent drawing performance even though the line tests would suggest otherwise. The tablet is small but not too small and is still comfortable enough for me to use together with a 16-inch laptop.
The main downside is Switch Display doesn't work so this tablet cannot be used conveniently in a dual display setup.
The design looks good to me but the cute design may not appeal to everyone.
Pricing seems reasonable enough.
Pros and cons at a glance
+ Beautiful
+ Solid build quality
+ Good drawing performance (with downside)
+ 8 replacement nibs included
+ 1.5m long braided L-shaped cable included.
+ Works with Android
+ Textured drawing surface provides nice tactile experience
+ 5 shortcut buttons and dial
- Slight wobble with diagonal lines
- No Display Switch functionality is inconvenient for dual display setups
- Android compatibility is not ideal
Availability
You can find the Parblo Intangbo X7 at these locations:
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