Review: Veikk A50 Graphics Tablet

Submitted by  Teoh Yi Chie on  October 29, 2018 - 6:35 pm

Thanks again to Gearbest for sending over another tablet for review.

The Veikk A50 is the third product I've featured that's made by Veikk. The earlier two were the VK 1560 pen display and the small S640 signature tablet.


This is a 10 by 6 inch graphics tablet that comes with 8 shortcut buttons and a touchpad for additional shortcuts.

Direct product link:
https://www.gearbest.com/graphics-tablets/pp_009826316913.html?lkid=168…


These are the items included: the tablet, battery-less pen, pen case, USB-C connection cable, welcome card and instruction manual.

The design looks good. It's thin. Corners are rounded off. The matte drawing surface is a single piece that extends to the button area. 10 by 6 inch drawing area is a good size to work with.


The 8 shortcut keys and touchpad are customisable. Buttons have firm feedback when clicked. The touchpad also works properly.


On the back there are 4 rubber feet to prevent the tablet from sliding around on the table. The back is designed with patterned dots which looks good too.


The connection for the cable is located at the top left. There's also an on-off switch for the touchpad just beside.



This is how it looks with the L-shape USB-C head.


If you're left handed, the port is at the bottom right of the tablet.


The pen comes with a slot-in type fabric case (or pouch). The fabric is thick so it provides good protection for the pen. It's good to use it since the cylindrical pen may roll around on the table.


The pen feels solid but rather lightweight. The hard plastic matte texture is nice to grip and easy to clean.


The pen does not use battery so it doesn't need to be charged. It supports up to 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity.


8 replacement nibs and a nib remover are included. The pen tip feels nice to draw on the surface. Has just the right amount of friction.


The box does not come with a driver disc so you have to download the driver from Veikk's website. There are Mac and Windows driver. The driver version I've used for this review is Version 1.0.0.0. And the OS I've tested on are Mac OS 10.12.6 and Windows 10 Pro.

This card has the email address of the support as well, and the claim to reply within 24 hours. I did contact them via the messaging bot on their website and they got back to me within an hour.

Driver

Before installing the driver, you should uninstall all previous tablet drivers, if any, on your computer.


After installing, the driver can be found on Mac's System Preferences or on Windows' desktop or System Tray as an icon. The driver features are exactly the same on Mac and Windows.


Pressure sensitivity can be changed by adjusting the pressure curves. The two side buttons are also customisable.

When you click on the drop down menu, these will appear:

  • Click - different mouse click options
  • Keyboard - Customise your own keyboard shortcuts
  • Tablet - Get into Accurate Mode, Eraser Toggle, Monitor Switch, Dial Function Switch
  • Navigation - Back, Forward, Zoom In, Zoom Out
  • Application - Choose an application to run
  • Invalid - No action
  • Default - Reset to default


These are the mapping options. If you're left handed, you can change to left handed mode here. And if you want to move the pen like a mouse, there's the Mouse mode available.


Here's where you can customise all the 8 physical shortcut buttons. The drop down menu has the same options as previously mentioned.

Note also that you can create different sets of shortcuts. Let's say you use Photoshop and Illustrator a lot, you can create a set of shortcuts specifically for Photoshop, and one set for Illustrator.


The touchpad allows you to customise 4 directional shortcuts. I've customised swipe up and down to zoom in and out, swipe left and right to change brush sizes. It works really well in action. Each swipe will give you several increments. So if you just need a one-step increment, you just swipe in small movement.

Drawing performance

In short, it works really well on Mac with all the drawing apps that I've tested. But on Windows, I was only able to get pressure sensitivity working with Medibang Paint Pro and Clip Studio.

I've emailed Veikk support and they told me to delete "wintab32.dll", reinstall the tablet driver but that did not solve my Windows problem.


Drawing performance is fantastic with Photoshop CC 2019. Lines taper well, curves, transition from thin to thick are smooth. Lines come out just the way I want them to. Pressure sensitivity works great. There's no lag and lines always appear instantly below the pen tip.

This fantastic performance is similar with other drawing apps on the Mac.


Mediang Paint Pro (Mac) version 19.


Clip Studio (Mac)


Krita (Mac)


Clip Studio (Windows)


Medibang Paint Pro (Windows).

The Windows apps that I've tested that do not work with pressure sensitivity are Photoshop, Affinity Photo, Sketchable, ArtRage Touch, Wacom Bamboo Paper and Krita.

Conclusion

Overall fantastic performance on Mac OS. If you're using Mac, you can go ahead and purchase. The tablet gets 5 out of 5 stars rating from me. Button and touchpad shortcuts work well. Pen is nice to draw with. Overall build quality is solid and design looks good.

If you're using Windows, well, I can't recommend it based on my personal experience. I have reviewed many graphic tablets and this is the first time I'm experiencing so many Windows app that do not work with pressure. I just cannot figure out what's wrong.

If you have a Veikk A50, let me know if you have the same problems on Windows. Maybe it's just me.

Availability
You can check out more reviews of Veikk A50 on Gearbest at https://www.gearbest.com/graphics-tablets/pp_009826316913.html?lkid=168…

It's priced around US $50 and includes free shipping from Gearbest. For a 10 by 6 inch tablet, that's a good price. Just for comparison, the 7.9 by 6.3 wired Wacom Intuos is selling at US $70 and the 10.4 x 7.8 wireless Wacom Intuos is US $170.

If you want to check out more drawing tablet reviews, visit https://www.parkablogs.com/tags/drawing-tablet-reviews

Tags
drawing tablet reviews
veikk
art product reviews
tech reviews
pen tablet reviews

Comments

Mike (not verified) Thu, 01 Nov 2018 - 03:41

I use the A50 on a Windows 10 system and works NICE with CorelDraw, Photoshop, etc. I think this pen tablet is a real Wacom killer...

Joske (not verified) Tue, 06 Nov 2018 - 18:55

I got it to work well in Windows after fiddling with the settings in both the driver and software. I enabled 'Windows Ink' in the driver (under 'Mapping') and Windows 8 Pointer Input in Krita (Configure Krita->Tablet settings). After this, everything works, including pressure sensitivity.

Lynn (not verified) Fri, 28 Dec 2018 - 02:16

I bought this for my daughter for Christmas and can't get it to work at all on Windows but I have no clue about technology,I will need to get some help

AMMS_Art (not verified) Tue, 01 Jan 2019 - 17:48

Does it work well with windows 10 paint tool sai? I was wondering because I thought it would work with my photoshop, but the pen pressure was not working at all.

I've been using medibang, but so far I'm not comfortable with using since Ive never painted with it. I know how to use paint tool sai and that is why I would to know if I could use it for windows 10

Gary Webb (not verified) Mon, 07 Jan 2019 - 14:54

I use the tablet under Windows 7 and cannot find fault with it. So far used with Photoshop CS6, Corel Painter 2018, Krita, ArtRage 4. Only minor niggle would be that Windows seems to sometimes lose the driver, which could be an incompatibility issue with other hardware I have installed. It's only happened twice in the last 6 weeks, and only after the machine had been running for considerable time without tablet being connected. Rebooting solved the problem on each occasion.

Teoh Yi Chie Mon, 07 Jan 2019 - 20:42

@Gary Webb
I'm also not sure what's the problem. Maybe check the Task Manager to see if the driver is still running. If so, force quite and launch the driver again (create a shortcut on the desktop) and see if the tablet works.

I get this problem with some tablets that I test too and it's annoying.

Yeshua Licett (not verified) Tue, 15 Jan 2019 - 07:16

Could you update me on your experience with this tablet? I want to buy one and I have Windows 7 but from what other users have seen the tablet doesn't work very well for Windows.

In your case? Does the pressure function work?

this is mi email yeshualicett135@gmail.com

THX!

Gabriel Tickle… (not verified) Tue, 22 Jan 2019 - 11:34

I recently bought this tablet and well I was pleasantly surprised it works very well and is quite nice to use, until a few hours later I was working and my pen fell of my table and well stopped working I am very sad now as I cant find a replacement pen and I cant attempt to repair it since their is no manual for the pen

Aly B (not verified) Wed, 01 May 2019 - 05:52

It took me a long while to figure this out but I did manage to make pen pressure work on Photoshop. You need to create a text only file in something like Notepad (.txt) and write:

UseSystemStylus 0

And save the file under this name: PSUserConfig.txt

It has to be saved in the folder:

C:\Users\[YOUR_USER_NAME]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2019\Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 Settings

Which can be accessed by hitting the windows key, typing run, then in the window that comes up typing %appdata%.

I had the Windows Ink option checked if that helps. It's kinda long-winded and I really wish I found an easier way to fix it.

Alex (not verified) Sun, 19 May 2019 - 04:00

Hi guys, i have the Veikk A50. But with photoshop the cursor doesn't move. Going out PS, it works. In Gimp works quite good. But in photoshop it seems as the tablet doesn't exist. I have win 7 64bit. WHat can i do? I even reinstalled driver.. nothing
Thanks

Teoh Yi Chie Sun, 19 May 2019 - 16:30

@Alex
Hi, I no longer have the tablet to test.
Does Windows driver have the Windows Ink option? Try turning that on and off to see if it makes a difference.

Alex (not verified) Sun, 19 May 2019 - 21:56

Hi, yes i tried with and without ink option. In gimp works, but as often happen, no pressure... exist only 1 driver release of this Veikk... Pity because it's a good tablet
Thanks

Edoardo Amadii (not verified) Tue, 21 May 2019 - 23:21

ciao ho acquistato una tavoletta grafica Veikk A50 ma non riesco a far fare il click alla penna. come posso fare?

xmas (not verified) Fri, 14 Jun 2019 - 15:09

If you have problems within Windows, try installing Wacom tablet driver over Veikk drivers (do not uninstall Veikk driver)

Teoh Yi Chie Wed, 19 Jun 2019 - 21:46

@Jack
Yes it does work with Adobe Illustrator.
However, to get pressure sensitivity working, the Wacom Intuos driver needs to be installed as well.

Tatiana (not verified) Wed, 28 Aug 2019 - 04:14

Hello, I'm about to buy this tablet, I'm Mac user, Mojave OS, I've been reading all I can about it and this page and your video was the best info I could get, thanks so much for your effort and time, I was just wondering is it fully compatible with all adobe suite?, I just saw I will need a wacom driver, how come? which one? what for?, sorry to ask too much just want it to work perfectly, really dislike wacom hahaha

Rad (not verified) Sun, 15 Sep 2019 - 15:11

Has anyone figured out how to map “page down”, “page up”, “home”, “end” keys to the A50? For page down, I’ve already tried {PAGE DOWN}, {PGDN}, {PG DN}.

Aroun Prasath (not verified) Sat, 07 Mar 2020 - 22:39

I purchased Viekk A50 it is not working with my macos catalina.

So i feel it is not a right product as descibed.

Thanks
Aroun

david tinney (not verified) Thu, 02 Apr 2020 - 19:27

hi I have just purchased the A50, nice bit of kit, can I switch between the pen and my Bluetooth mouse with a shortcut button

zenia (not verified) Wed, 12 Aug 2020 - 03:39

Am I the only one whose touch pad isn't working? Like all the keys are working in the default mode but the touchpad is like dead? I'm so sad i wish theres something ive missed instead of this being defective:(

hannan (not verified) Tue, 22 Dec 2020 - 22:32

hi

i bought this tablet but i had a touchpad zoom in problem then i decid to return it.

then i bought it again ,its araived now i tested the zoom in but it didnt work

i wonder now is the driver issue or the model pls help me if someone have the same problem

Teoh Yi Chie Wed, 23 Dec 2020 - 00:32

@hannan
What drawing software are you using?

Does zoom work with other software? Test the free Medibang Paint Pro and Krita

Ilayda (not verified) Fri, 15 Jan 2021 - 09:48

It's same issue with mine. I work with photoshop and krita. Zoom in absolutely doesn't work and when i change shortcuts its getting weird way. They dont work well either.

Eduardo (not verified) Tue, 23 Mar 2021 - 09:51

Ent, comprei o a mesa, mas a caneta ao invez de ficar no modo de cursor, ela habilita sozinha um modo onde o cursor vira um pontinho branco, e os comandos ficam todos embaralhados, sempre q tento mudar os comandos, nao funciona

Mac (not verified) Thu, 09 Jun 2022 - 18:39

I just bought A50 few days ago. And I'm struggling to find out how to click+pan in Mac (Catalina). It seems when you click button on the pen, it will lock the moving sensor until you release the button. If you click+pan above the tablet's surface, nothing will happen but the click (no pan action). If you do on the tablet's surface, it will be jump from start moving point to end moving point (you can't see the movement of cursor). Do you know any solution?

Teoh Yi Chie Fri, 10 Jun 2022 - 10:14

@Mac
You mean like pan around an art canvas?
Just press Spacebar and click+hold. It's the same as using a mouse.

Depending on the app you use, sometimes the cursor does not show. But most drawing software will show hand/arrow icon when you pan around.

With some web browsers, you can click+hold to scroll webpages. But some web browsers require you to use scroll bars. All mouse will need you to use wither scroll wheel or scroll bar.

Mac (not verified) Mon, 13 Jun 2022 - 10:29

Thank you for your respond. I'm learning 3D modelling with Maya. I have to do middle click + move cursor to pan on it, but it can't be done with A50. Also with dropdown function of right click (the dropdown demand hold right button+move cursor to choose or it will disappear). When I search on Wacom, i have to hold pen's button and move nib above the tablet's surface (not touch the tablet), but i can't do like that with A50 (the cursor stop moving right after I click+hold button). I realized this device cannot do hold+move, only click or move at once. I don't know it's device deficiency or I'm missing some setting.

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