Review: Veikk VK1560 Pro Pen Display

The Veikk VK1560 Pro pen display is the upgrade of the Veikk VK1560 which was released in 2018.

This review unit was provided by Veikk. I've actually reviewed several Veikk products in the past.

The Veikk VK1560 Pro is as thin as a laptop but it's actually a monitor and not a tablet, which means you'll need to connect this to a computer and power source.

The unit came in a brown cardboard box. All the items inside are padded with foam and packed quite securely.

These are all the items included:

• Pen display
• USB wall power adapter
• HDMI cable
• mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter
• USB data cable
• USB extension cable
• 2x pens
• Hard pen case
• Felt pen case
• Nib remover and many replacement nibs
• User manual and driver download card
• Micro-fiber cleaning cloth
• Artist glove

Specifications

• Display Area: 15.6 inch
• Resolution: 1920 x 1080
• Battery-free pen
• Pressure Sensitivity: 8192
• Resolution: 5080LPI
• Read Speed: 250 point/s
• Reading Distance: 10mm
• Brightness: 250 nits
• Colour gamut: 92% Adobe RGB

That's the USB wall power adapter. That three-pin plug is used in Singapore. Depending on where or who you buy from, the appropriate plug should be included. You can use your existing or phone USB power adapter too.

If your computer's USB port supplies enough power, the USB wall power adapter may not be needed.

Mini HDMI to full-size HDMI cable

USB data cable

USB extension cable. The red goes to the USB power.

Manual, driver location download card, micro-fiber cleaning cloth, artist glove.

Mini displayPort to full-size HDMI adapter cable

Pen with hard case.

Several replacement nibs are included. There are ones with more friction.

More replacement nibs.

Another pen with felt case. There are two pens included.

The pen is battery-free and does not require charging. Build quality feels solid enough. The body and grip have a smooth matte surface that's nice to hold, and easy to clean.

The pen supports up to 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity. There is no tilt support.

Two side buttons.

Two pen holders are included.

The pen holders slot into a hole on the right side. If you're left handed, unfortunately there isn't any hole on the left where the shortcut buttons are.

A plastic stand is included. It's quite sturdy. The rubber feet ensures the stand doesn't slip or move.

The angle of the stand can be adjusted by the locking latch behind.

This is the lowest angle with the rubber feet still on the table.

The Veikk VK1560 Pro uses a 15.6-inch IPS panel. The resolution is 1920 x 1080.

Overall design looks alright. It looks better compared to the previous model with the build-in pen holder. Build quality is solid.

A matte screen protector is already applied. Drawing on this matte screen protector feels smoother compared to others I've used that have more friction, and a more tactile feel. It's not slippery and it doesn't make any squeaky sound when the nib is moving on the surface.

The pen display has 7 physical shortcut buttons and a control dial. These can all be customised to specific keyboard shortcuts. The functionality of the dial can be customised too, and is changed by pressing the button in the middle of the dial.

Those shortcut buttons aren't aligned to the centre of the control dial. Looks a bit weird.

The pen display is just slightly thicker compared to the pen provided.

Power and brightness control buttons are at the bottom right.

The video and data cables connect just above the brightness control buttons.

15.6-inch is a comfortable size to draw on. The 1080P resolution does look pixelated when compared to other higher resolution monitors out there but it's still a very usable resolution.

While there are physical shortcut buttons, I still prefer to have my wireless keyboard around to access even more shortcuts.

When placed on the stand, the angle is comfortable to work with. The pen display does not produce much heat, so it's comfortable to rest your hand on it and work for hours. Note that there's no touch feature so it does not support any finger gestures.

As you can see, the viewing angle from the side isn't too good. But when viewed from the front, it's good, and that's all it matters.

This is not a laminated screen so there's a gap between the drawing surface and the actual screen beneath. But it's a small gap so parallax is not an issue. When viewed from the front, while working, the cursor will be beneath the pen tip at all times except...

When the pen tip is near the edge of the screen (less than 1cm from edge), there will be misalignment where the cursor will stray away from the pen tip. It's a minor annoyance but not a deal breaker because the cursor will still remain under the pen tip for most part of the display that you draw on.

When the pen goes to the left edge, the cursor will move further left. When pen goes to the right edge, the cursor moves further right.

Colour support is 100% sRGB, 91% Adobe RGB, 87% NTSC. Colour accuracy is considered quite good.

Maximum brightness I measured is just 152 nits which isn't really bright but this is still suitable for use indoors, in office environment with bright fluorescent lights.

Driver

The driver I've used are Windows driver version 2.0.0.3 and Mac driver 2.0.0.6 downloaded on 9 Jan 2020.

Driver functionality for Windows and Mac is pretty similar so I'll just show you the Windows driver.

The pressure sensitivity can be adjusted by adjusting the pressure curve. Great.

The two side buttons can be customised to mouse clicks or keyboard shortcuts.

Here's where left handers can rotate the display 180 degrees.

Note the Enable Windows Ink Function. You have to enable Windows Ink for pressure sensitivity to work in Photoshop. However when Windows Ink is enabled, you won't be able to select text with the cursor of the pen – you have to use the mouse cursor for text select. MacOS users don't have issues here.

To calibrate the screen to remove misalignment, you have to enable extended display mode first.

For some reason when I tried to calibrate with the Veikk as the one and only display, the error dialogue box appears to tell me to use extended display mode. I'm able to use dual screens here because I'm connected to a laptop. I'm not sure if you can calibrate if the Veikk is your only display. Anyway, the cursor tracking is quite accurate to begin with so you may not need calibration.

Here's where you can customise the physical shortcut buttons. You can input whatever keyboard shortcuts you want.

These are some predefined shortcut functionality you may find useful.

• Accurate Mode makes the cursor move slower so that you can draw more accurately.
• Pen/Erase toggle. You know that.
• Monitor switch allows the cursor to jump from one screen to the other in extended monitor mode.
• Dial Function Switch allows you to switch the dial's functionality

These are the four functionality you can assign to the control dial.

On MacOS, you can find the driver inside System Preferences. In Windows, the driver is located on the task bar and somewhere on the Window Start menu.

If you're using MacOS Mojave, you need to give permissions to the driver. Otherwise, you can move the cursor but you can't click anything. There are MacOS Mojave driver install instructions provided on Veikk's website.

If there's already a tick in the checkbox beside TabletDriverCenter, and cursor still can't click, untick and tick that checkbox again.

Drawing performance

For the most part, drawing performance is quite good on both Mac and Windows with the drawing software that I've tested.

Photoshop CC 2019 (Mac) works well. Pressure sensitivity works. Performance is responsive. Lines are smooth and turns smoothly. I did not notice any jitter.

Medibang Paint Pro (Mac) works well.

Clip Studio Paint (Mac) works well.

For some reason, lines with Krita (Mac) can jitter.

Pressure works with Adobe Illustrator (Mac).

Pressure works with Affinity Photo (Mac).

Photoshop CC 2020 (Windows) works well. Lines taper nicely.

Adobe Illustrator (Win) works well.

Drawing performance with Medibang Paint Pro (Win) is good but there are some issues. Sometimes when tapping the pen to create dots, the dots don't appear. This problem does not happen with other drawing apps. The pen display's control dial can zoom out but can't zoom in.

Drawing performance with Krita (Win) is good but it has zoom issues with the shortcut buttons too.

Clip Studio Paint (Win) works well.

These are settings required for Clip Studio Paint (Win) to work well.

Affinity Photo (Win) works well.

Conclusion

Drawing performance is quite good. Only issues are with Krita (Mac) where there's jitter, Krita (Win) with the zoom, Medibang (Win) with the dots and zoom. These issues seem like driver issues because other drawing software did not have these problems. The only deal breaker here is for those who use Krita (Mac) as their primary drawing software.

The display is nice. I like the colour accuracy. Brightness is low if you just focus on the numbers but in real life it works alright in indoor environment.

Official retail price is US $379 (last seen on Amazon). Pricing is competitive with other pen displays I've reviewed. One year warranty is included.

Overall build quality is good. Drawing performance is satisfactory. So this is a pen display I can recommend.

Pros and cons at a glance

+ Good build quality and design
+ Pen does not require battery
+ Pen is quite sensitive
+ Many replacement tips included
+ 7 shortcut buttons included
+ Matte anti-glare screen already applied
+ Nice texture on screen to draw on
+ 1080P resolution on the screen this size is sharp enough
+ Screen has good colour accuracy
+ Does not heat up significantly. Can be used for long periods of time without discomfort
+ Drawing performance generally good
+ HDMI-miniDisplay port adaptor included
+ Stand included
- Some issues with the specific drawing apps
- Not a laminated display but parallax is minimal because gap is very small
- Cursor misalignment happens when pen is less than 1cm from left/right edge
- Not VESA mountable

Availability

Check out more reviews via these links below:
Amazon.com | Amazon.co.jp | Lazada Singapore | eBay | Gearbest