Artist Review: XPPen Magic Note Pad

Review unit provided by XPPen

The XPPen Magic Note Pad is the new standalone Android tablet with pen support released in March 2025. This tablet has 10.95-inch LCD with matte glass surface and 90Hz refresh rate.

Price at the time of review is USD 439.99. During the launch promotion until 4 April 2025, there will be a 10% discount to bring the price down to USD 395.99.

You can think of this as a variation to the XPPen Magic Drawing Pad (USD 499) released in Jan 2024.

The name of the product suggests that this tablet is made for note taking, but it can also be used for drawing, as the new X3 Pro Pencil 2 supports 16K levels of pressure sensitivity, and comes with a soft tip for that tactile writing experience.

XPPen has also teamed up with JNotes to provide a lifetime license for their note taking app.

Specs

Things included

• Magic Note Pad
• Magnetic flip case
• X3 Pro Pencil 2
• 4x soft pen tips
• Pen tip remover
• USB-C to USB-C L-shape charging cable
• 20W USB-C charger
• User guide
• Warranty card

Design

Design looks good but a bit unusual because of the bottom metallic bezel which is bigger and acts as a magnetic pen holder. Build quality feels solid. Weight is 495g.

Sides are made with metal, rounded off and comfortable to hold. Shown above are the volume buttons.

I'm not sure what the back is made of but it has this nice creamy coloured textured surface which thankfully fingerprints don't show too clearly.

There's no camera at the back so you can't take photos, scan QR codes or documents. If you do place the tablet flat on the table, the tablet may slide around since there isn't much friction on the back.

Bottom has one speaker and a USB-C charging port with USB 2 transfer speeds.

The top has another speaker so you get stereo speakers, and the audio quality is quite good, way better than I expected with good clarity.

The tablet can attach magnetically to the back of the included case, and the magnets are strong. Note the slot created for the pen.

The included flip case has this dense foam-like or felt-like material on the front and back, so that would attract dust and get dirty easily.

On the cover of the case, there's this plastic extrusion or housing for the pen that's underneath. The design looks kinda weird to me but it's a functional design that protects the pen and prevent the pen from dislodging.

This tablet uses a 10.95-inch LCD with 1920 x 1200 resolution with 90Hz refresh rate. Visuals look sharp enough.

Colour support is said to be 95% sRGB and the colours do look good out of the box. Advertised maximum brightness is 400 nits so real world brightness is probably 10-20% lower at around 300 nits which is more than bright enough for indoor use, not that great under the sun but okay under shade.

Viewing angles are good with minimal colour shift but there's drop in brightness due to the matte surface. The IPS glow of this LCD is quite obvious. Overall display lighting seems even.

Auto-brightness and face unlock work well enough.

One selling feature is the ability to switch between different colour modes, namely Nature, Light and Ink. And there's a shortcut button beside the power button for switching display modes.

Nature Color mode has the most vibrant colours. Colour images, photos and comics look great with this default mode. And the 10.95-inch display is still big enough for reading comics with the text sizes still sufficiently legible.

Light Color mode will make the colours less saturated.

Ink Paper mode provides a black and white monotone conversion from colour. The gray looks like warm gray or tone gray to me though. This mode will also remove the wallpaper and turns all icons into black and white.

1920 x 1200 resolution looks quite sharp on a 10.95-inch display. And thanks to the matte surface, the reading experience is quite good. The conversion from black and white looks good.

The matte glass surface has effective anti-glare and visuals can still be seen through the diffused reflection.

Display is laminated so there's almost no gap between the pen tip and the line beneath. The pen tip is soft and provides a nice tactile writing and drawing experience. It is highly unlikely for the pen tip to scratch the matte glass surface.

Four replacement pen tips are included.

I'm not sure how long the pen tips can last with usage but you can always buy more replacement pen tips if needed from XPPen online store. Make sure you buy the correct pen tips as these are different from those used by the pen tablets and pen displays.

10.95-inch is a decent size for drawing. When there are palettes on the left and right, the drawing canvas area is obviously gonna be smaller, but still usable.

You can hide the UI for drawing apps to get more drawing space, or use drawing apps with minimal UI design. The tablet is almost A5-sized so this is quite a compact portable digital sketchpad or notepad.

This is the X3 Pro Pencil 2, the new version of the pen used by the XPPen Magic Drawing Pad. The pen is not powered by battery so no charging is required.

The pen is almost cylindrical except for the flat side that attached magnetically to the tablet. Surface texture is matte with good grip, and the pen is quite comfortable to hold. Build quality is solid and pen has a good weight to it.

There's one side button with a firm click to it. Whether the side button can be customised will depend on the drawing or note taking app used.

This pen supports 16K levels of pressure sensitivity and palm rejection.

The tablet actually supports tilt but this pen isn't designed for tilt since the front is not tapered, so the pen cannot tilt low. I have also tested with other pens:

• X3 Pro Stylus has difficulty with tilt too
• X3 Pro Roller Stylus can show cursor but can't draw
• X3 Pro Slim Stylus can work with tilt, but tilt effect isn't good

If you like to draw with tilt brushes, this is a potential deal breaker.

OS and software

This tablet uses XPPen OS and runs on top of Android 14. The OS doesn't have many features but if you need more features you can always install your own launcher.

The processor is the MediaTek Helio G99, shown in the tablet settings, but is listed as MT8781 on XPPen product page. Either way, it's an 8-core processor. There's 6GB RAM with 6GB virtual RAM and 128 GB of internal storage.

Overall performance is quite smooth. I rarely experience lag or sluggishness. Apps are able to launch quick enough unless it's a huge app. I did not test gaming but I don't to expect to play games at highest graphics settings.

Multi-tasking seems fine but apps that were opened a long time ago would usually reload.

The tablet does not come with bloatware or adware. The only extra app installed is JNotes v3.1 which is repackaged as XPPen Notes in this tablet. The purchase of this tablet gets you a lifetime license for JNotes which is actually a very capable note taking app.

There's Google Play Store. For some reason, I wasn't able to install Amazon, X (Twitter), Shopee SG and Lazada SG. So the alternative is to install these apps using APK installation.

Line tests

These line tests were created with Medibang Paint.

1. Initial activation force (IAF) is advertised as 3g. IAF is low enough but I find there's a tendency for lines to appear thicker even when applying minimal pressure. To draw thinner lines more easily, you have to tweak the pressure curve, if available, from the drawing app you use. E.g. Clip Studio Paint can draw thinner lines easily after adjusting the pressure curve.

There's slight wobble and jitter with slow diagonal lines.

2. Lines are able to taper quite smoothly and sharply

3. Line transition from thin to thick and back is smooth. It's not as easy to draw thin lines after thick lines.

4. Consistent line width can be drawn by maintaining consistent pressure.

5. No issues with drawing dots

6. There is some cursor misalignment (not shown in the line tests) when the pen is tilted at an angle. You can adjust the cursor offset using the XPPen settings.

This was drawn with Medibang Paint. I did not experience any issues while drawing.

When actually drawing, I don't see the diagonal line wobble affect my line art. All my lines are smooth and came out the way I expect them to.

Drawing experience on the matte glass surface is good.

Latency will vary depending on the app used. For example, Medibang Paint has noticeable latency and Concepts has minimal latency.

The tablet display has auto brightness which works well. I'm right handed so when using the tablet in landscape orientation, my right hand would cover the camera and cause the display to dim. The alternative is to disable auto brightness.

These are additional sketches drawn with Medibang Paint. Palm rejection works reasonably well.

This was drawn with Clip Studio Paint.

A 10.95-inch display is a decent size for drawing, but it's not ideal for use with apps that have many user interface elements, such as Clip Studio Paint and Krita. At least with CSP, you can switch to Simple Mode UI for a minimal UI design which gives you more canvas space to work with.

The drawing apps are able to run quite smoothly.

Note taking performance is good. My handwriting style can be captured quite well.

The app used above is Concepts and I'm not sure if I was actually able to get some tilt effect. Anyway, the pen design does not allow the pen to tilt at a low angle.

Battery life

Battery capacity is 8,000 mAh.

Battery life is around 8 - 10 hours and will vary depending on brightness and usage.

Battery charges quite slowly though so it's best to charge overnight, or make sure you have time to charge it before you bring it out.

Conclusion

This is an interesting tablet from XPPen, and it's great to see XPPen coming out with more standalone tablet.

There are many things to like about this tablet. The display looks good. The matte glass feels great to write and draw on, and reading experience is wonderful.

Overall performance is smooth. Note taking works fine. Drawing works fine too but tilt sensitivity does not work well due to pen design.

This is a good tablet. There are many pros and some downsides but none are deal breakers.

At its price point, the tablet competes with the Samsung Tab S9 FE which is a very capable tablet. The differentiating factor is the XPPen Magic Note Pad has a matte glass surface and 16K pressure sensitivity. Samsung has SD card slot and you can easily find the model with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. It's a tough fight against the Samsung tablet.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Interesting design
+ Solid build quality
+ Display has good visual quality
+ Matte glass surface
+ Display is laminated
+ Display has auto brightness
+ 90Hz refresh rate
+ Size is good for reading comics
+ Pen has soft tip
+ Pen supports palm rejection, 16K levels of pressure sensitivity
+ Good audio quality
+ Case and pen included
+ Tablet is good for taking notes
+ Has face unlock
+ There's Google Play Store
+ 8 - 10 hour battery life
- Display IPS glow is quite obvious
- No SD card slot
- No tilt sensitivity
- Smooth performance but with occasional lag
- No rear camera

Availability

The XPPen Magic Note Pad is available for purchase from XPPen online store.