Review: Veikk A30 pen tablet
Review unit provided by Veikk
The Veikk A30 is a pen tablet for creating digital art and is selling US $46.99 on Veikk online store and $49 on Amazon where it has more than 3700 reviews.
This pen tablet is part of the A series lineup from Veikk and below's the whole family:
- Veikk A15 - 10 x 6 inch with 12 hotkeys, $49.99
- Veikk A15 Pro - 10 x 6 inch with 12 hotkeys and a dial, $59.99
- Veikk A50 - 10 x 6 inch with 8 hotkeys and a touchpad, $51.99
- Veikk A30 - 10 x 6 inch with 4 hotkeys and a touchpad, $46.99
Prices listed above are at time of review, and the links are to my reviews.
Things included
These are the items included in the box:
- Tablet
- USB-A to USB-C cable
- Veikk P01 pen
- pen sleeve
- 8 replacement nibs
- USB-A to USB-C adapter
- USB-A to micro USB adapter
- Artist glove
- Matte surface protector
- Manual
Veikk A30 works with Mac, Windows and Android.
If you get this from Veikk online store, there's 18 months warranty.
Design
The design is clean and simple. There's the matte drawing surface on the right, and the 4 touch buttons and touchpad on the glossy surface on the left.
This is a 10 x 6 inch pen tablet that needs to be connected to a computer (needs USB-A port or use the USB-A to USB-C adapter). This is a good size that pairs well with most monitor sizes up to 27-inches.
If you're a left handed user, you have reverse the USB-C cable to point up.
The back has 4 rubber feet with good grip on the table.
There is the usual matte textured drawing surface commonly found on such pen tablets. If you feel like you need even more texture, you can put the matte protector on top and stick it double-sided tape (already there). I personally don't think the extra matte protector is necessary but you have the extra option here.
This is the Veikk P01 pen that supports tilt and 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity. It's not powered by battery so no charging is required.
Build quality is solid and the body has a matte textured surface.
There are two customisable side buttons but no eraser button.
The pen tip will wobble slightly but does not have the in-out movement.
Downside to this pen is the body is cylindrical and diameter is constant throughout. You have to be careful not to have the pen roll off the table. A replacement P01 pen is $15.99.
The other downside is I find my fingers sliding down the pen as I draw. That's because there's no dedicated grip area and no taper to the pen body design to prevent your fingers from sliding down.
Maybe you'll want to add something between the pen tip and the side buttons to prevent your fingers from sliding forward. Maybe get a pen grip on Amazon and cut it to size.
There are four touch hotkeys by the side and their locations are indicated by little blue light indicators. Those hotkeys work fine but I prefer physical hotkeys because you can feel where they are easily.
Between the hotkeys is a touchpad that you can swipe left/right and up/down for controls, e.g. zoom, brush size. The touchpad works well and it's easy to change values more precisely compared to using a dial.
Four shortcuts together with the touchpad is not really enough personally for me, so I prefer to use my keyboard where I have access to all shortcuts.
Driver
The drivers I've tested are Windows driver v2.1.2.4 and Mac driver v1.0.1.8, both released on 8 Aug 2022. There are also drivers for Linux but I don't use Linux. No drivers are needed for Chromebook or Android, and that also means you won't be able to customise hotkey shortcuts or adjust the pressure curve.
The pressure curve can be adjusted by moving three control points. The two pen side buttons are customisable. I usually set one button to Switch Display for a dual display setup and that shortcut works fine.
This is where you can map the drawing area or aspect ratio to your display. If you're left handed user, you can choose Left-handed mode.
If there are any issues with pressure sensitivity, you can toggle Windows Ink on or off to troubleshoot.
These are the shortcuts you can set to the hotkeys
- Click: Left, right, middle, double clicks. Roller forward/backward
- Keyboard: Custom keyboard shortcut, undo, redo
- Tablet: Pen/Erase, Monitor Switch
- Navigate: Back, forward, zoom in, zoom out
- Application: Open application
It is possible to create groups of shortcuts for specific apps, and those shortcuts will switch automatically whenever the app is active.
For the touchpad, you can customise shortcuts for swiping left/right, up and down.
Drawing performance
Below are line tests created with Medibang Paint Pro.
1. Initial activation force is low so thin lines can be drawn easily even with a thick brush.
It may not be obvious but there is actually slight wobble or jitter with the diagonal lines. You can see the jitter/wobble more clear in line test #4.
2. Lines are able to taper smoothly and sharply.
3. Line transition from thin to thick to thin is smooth.
4. It's easy to maintain consistent pressure to draw lines with consistent width
5. Dots can be drawn by tapping the pen tip.
The diagonal line wobble or jitter doesn't really affect my drawing. Drawing performance overall is predictable and consistent without any surprises. I was able to get the lines to come out exactly the way I expect them to. Drawing performance with the pen and tablet is fantastic.
Medibang Paint Pro (Win)
Affinity Photo (Win)
Affinity Photo (Win)
This building was drawn specifically to test for diagonal line wobble or jitter. While there is slight wobble or jitter with the line tests, they don't actually appear when drawing.
Affinity Photo (Mac)
Clip Studio Paint (Mac)
Krita (Mac)
Tilt sensitivity works but the brush cursor preview does not follow the direction of the pen.
Android support
Both Android tablet and Veikk tablet have to be vertical. There's no way to change the orientation.
Pressure and tilt sensitivity works. An arrow cursor is visible with the Samsung tablet I tested but it's a circular cursor on my Huawei tablet.
Only downside to Android is there is no driver so you won't be able to customise the shortcut buttons and pressure curve.
You will still have to use finger gestures on your Android tablet for navigation since the Veikk pen tablet does not support finger gestures.
Conclusion
I did not experience any glitches while testing the Veikk A30 with MacOS and Windows.
Drawing performance is consistent, predictable without surprises. Overall drawing experience is positive.
The two main downsides would be the physical design of the pen without a grip and for some reason the tablet will not work with other USB cables that I have. It will be problematic if you have to replace the USB cable in the future. The included USB cable does look durable enough though.
Another downside or limitation is there are only 4 hotkeys which I find too few, and I also prefer physical buttons. But I prefer to use keyboard for shortcuts anyway so this isn't really a downside for me.
The Veikk A30 is a good pen tablet I can recommend easily to digital artists. It provides good value for money.
Pros and cons at a glance
+ Nice looking design
+ Solid build quality
+ Excellent drawing performance with pressure and tilt
+ Has drivers for Mac, Windows, Linux
+ Works with Android and Chromebook
+ 10 x 6 inch pairs well with monitor sizes up to 27 inch
+ Touch hotkeys and touchpad work well
+ Good value for price
+ 18 months warranty
- 4 hotkeys may not be enough
- Pen does not have dedicated grip area
- Other USB cables do not work with the tablet
Availability
You can find the Veikk A30 pen tablet via these links:
Veikk Official Store - Worldwide shipping included with 18 months warranty.
VEIKK AMAZON STORE:
Get 5% off with coupon code VKA30Teoh on Veikk Amazon stores as below:
Singapore: https://bit.ly/3J8QRln
USA: https://amzn.to/3J8EllW
VEIKK LAZADA & SHOPEE STORES
Send "FROM Teoh" to customer service to get 5% off.
Follow Veikk here to know more events:
And these are the other Amazon links (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | ES | IT | JP)
Add new comment