Review: Parblo Coast 16 Pro (Gen 2) pen display

Review unit provided by Parblo

Parblo has just released the new Parblo Coast 16 Pro (Gen 2) pen display and it's priced at USD 399.

I'm not sure if I've reviewed the 1st gen but I did review the Parblo Coast 16 back in 2018.

Video review

Specifications

• Panel Size: 15.6 inches
• Active Area: 344.16 x 193.59 mm
• Resolution: 1920 x 1080, 16:9
• Pixel Pitch: 0.179253 x0.179253mm
• White Luminance: 220cd/m2
• Contrast Ratio: 800:1
• Color: 16.7M colors
• Color Gamut: 92% NTSC
• Viewing Angle: Horizontal 170°, Vertical 170° @CR≥10
• Surface Treatment: Tempered Glass 6H
• Full-Lamination: Yes
• Response Time: 30ms
• Colour Gamut: 92%NTSC Above
• Touch Solution: Wireless Passive Electromagnetic Touch
• Digitizer Resolution: 5080 LPI
• Sensor Height: 0-10mm
• Report Rate Speed: 266 RPS
• Pressure (Full Level): 16384 Level
• Pen tilt: ±60°
• Accuracy: ±0.5mm(Center), ±2mm(Edge)
• Pen: S01 Short stroke hard Pen
• Power Supply: USB 5V 2A
• Power Consumption: 7.5W
• Ports: 3 in 1 USB-C, USB TYPE-C
• Weight: 1060g
• Dimension: 386.83x 241.57 x 12.5mm
• Material: Aluminum alloy
• Support OS: Windows 8/10/11; Mac OSX 10.12, Android OS 10.0 or newer

Things included

• Pen display
• Parblo S01 short stroke pen
• 1.5m 3-to-1 cable
• 1.5m USB-C video cable
• Power extension cable
• 8x replacement pen tips
• Pen bag
• Drawing glove
• Cleaning cloth
• User manual
• Warranty card

There's no stand included and if you want to buy one, get the Parblo PR100 which is an excellent stand.

Connection

You can use either the HDMI or USB-C for video connection.

For HDMI connection, you've to use the 3-to-1 cable included. HDMI and black USB-A (data) will go to the computer, red USB-A will go to power, and USB-C will go to pen display.

For USB-C connection, you can just use the single USB-C video cable provided, and it should be able to power the pen display at maximum brightness (as shown in photo above).

Design

The pen display comes with a protective film over the matte screen protector. Do not peel off the matte screen protector while removing the glossy protective film.

The clean and simple design of the pen display looks good. Thickness is just 12.5mm. There are no hotkeys. Bezels are thick but not too thick.

The back is matte textured metal and overall build quality is solid. Lifting the pen display is easy with the angled and rounded off bottom edges. There are four rubber feet with good grip on the table.

There are two USB-C ports on the side, one for the 3-to-1 cable, and the other for USB-C to USB-C video connection. These two ports are recessed quite deep into the body, so they won't be compatible with third party cables, and you'll have to buy replacement cables from Parblo. Good news is the cable connect looks secure and damaging the cable is quite unlikely.

There's even a groove on the Parblo's USB-C cable to fit a guide inside the port. So even if you can find a third party cable, it's unlikely to fit.

Power button's located on the left, and there's a navigational toggle for the OSD menu.

Display

The display measures 15.6-inches, resolution is 1920 x 1080 and refresh rate is 60Hz.

I measured colour support for 100% sRGB, 81% NTSC, 83% AdobeRGB, 92% P3 and a maximum brightness of 180 nits.

To achieve maximum brightness, you've to set backlight and brightness from the OSD to 100% each, but doing so will affect contrast so I have backlight at 100% and brightness at 50% instead, and this gives me 150 nits of brightness.

150 nits brightness is sufficient for me as I usually use my pen displays at 150 - 200 nits.

The display is laminated so there's no gap between the line and pen tip while drawing.

Anti-glare on the matte screen protector is quite aggressive. Shown above is the diffused reflection from a cloudy day. On a bright and sunny day, diffused reflection will be glaring. Anyway, as long as there's no strong light source on the display, you'll get the best visual quality.

All matte surfaces will introduce some grain, colour noise or anti-glare sparkle. All that is kept to a minimal with this matte screen protector with slight colour noise. Sharpness does not seem to be affected much. There will be slight noticeable pixelation due to the 1080P on a 15.6-inch display size, but overall the resolution is still very usable.

Pen

The Parblo S01 pen support tilt and 16K levels of pressure sensitivity. The pen is not powered by battery so no charging is required.

There are two customisable side buttons, no eraser at the back.

The cap on the back can be removed to reveal some slots for storing replacement pen tips. The metal clip is actually removable and can be used as a pen tip remover.

Driver

Drivers available are for Mac and Windows.

While installing the Mac driver, there was a window that showed Chinese instructions talking about MacOS security and privacy settings. Basically, you have to click around to give the Parblo driver permissions in the MacOS System Settings - Privacy & Security section.

There are no hot keys to customise.

Here's where you can customise the pen pressure.

The two pen side buttons can be customised.

These are the options available for customisation and unfortunately there's no Switch Display, a feature that is crucial or must-have for users of dual displays.

Here's where you can customise the working or drawing area.

Line test

Line tests below were created with Medibang Paint (Mac).

1. Initial activation force is low but you do need to press down ever so slightly to get a line. The pen cannot draw with its own weight. There's slight wobble when drawing slow diagonal lines but this doesn't really show up when drawing unless you draw really slow.

2. Lines are able to taper smoothly and sharply.

3. Line transition from thin to thick and back is smooth. Thin line can be drawn easily after thick line which suggests the pen can detect pressure sensitivity accurately.

4. Line width can be maintained consistently by maintaining consistent pressure.

5. Dots can be drawn easily.

6. There are no issues with cursor misalignment after pen calibration. Lines can join without gaps or overshooting.

Pen performance is pretty good. I won't worry too much about the slight wobble with diagonal lines since it doesn't really show up while drawing.

I had problems getting tilt sensitivity to work consistently. Shown above are strokes created with Krita on Windows, and Photoshop has the same problem. I've also tested Krita and Photoshop on MacOS and I could not get tilt to work, but that's maybe because I did not troubleshoot enough.

Drawing experience

The matte screen protector provides a more noticeable tactile experience compared to other pen displays which usually have smoother surfaces. Since it's a matte screen protector, I'm not sure if the texture can remain intact in the long term, or will the surface become smoother.

This was drawn with Medibang Paint Pro and I did not experience any issues.

There's more latency compared to other pen displays due to the 30ms response time. 15ms would be considered good by pen display standards. 20ms is average and 30ms is slower than average. It's not a deal breaker but it would be great if response time can be faster.

This was also drawn with Medibang. No issues with workflow here.

I wasn't affected by the diagonal line wobble or jitter that showed during the line tests.

Conclusion

The Parblo Coast 16 Pro (Gen 2) is a good looking pen display with solid build quality.

Drawing performance is good and tactile drawing experience on the matte screen protector feels nicer than other pen displays with matte but smoother surfaces.

The main downside for me is the lack of Switch Displays feature with the driver since I use dual displays. This has been a feature that's missing from Parblo drivers for the longest time and I wish they can add it.

Another downside is tilt sensitivity does not seem to work consistently when during my tests.

Pros and cons at a glance
Pros and cons at a glance
+ Nice looking design
+ Good build quality
+ USB-C support with cable included
+ 100% sRGB colour support
+ Laminated display
+ Tactile drawing surface with matte screen protector
+ Pen is not powered by battery
+ 8 replacement nibs included
+ One artist glove included
+ 16K levels of pressure sensitivity with pen
+ Pen is not powered by battery
+ Does not produce much heat
- Stand not included
- Switch Display does not work with Mac and Win drivers
- Slight diagonal line wobble and jitter
- Tilt sensitivity not working consistently
- More latency than over pen displays I've tested

Availability

You can find this pen display from Parblo online store and retailers that sell pen displays.