Review: XPPen Artist Pro 14 (2nd gen)

Review unit provided by XPPen (Facebook | Twitter)

The XPPen Artist Pro 14 (gen 2) was announced in May 2023 and released for pre-order in June. This is the world's first pen display for digital artists that features 16,384 (16K) levels of pressure sensitivity.

By the way, I don't recall XPPen ever released an Artist Pro 14 (gen 1) so I'm not sure why this is a gen 2. It's just trivia from having reviewed so many XPPen products over the years.

Official retail price is USD 419.99 and that includes the XPPen ACK05 Wireless Shortcut Remote ($49.99) and two years warranty. During the pre-order which ends mid-August 2023, there's a 10% discount which drops the price down to $377.99 with two freebies included: a 3-in-1 cable ($19.99) and a tablet case.

Oh, in case you don't know, a pen display is actually a monitor you can draw on and has to be connected to a computer. A pen display is not a tablet with its own operating system and built in battery.

Specifications

• Product name: Artist Pro 14 Drawing Display (Gen 2)
• Product model: LPH1416
• Color: Black & grey
• Stylus: X3 Pro Smart Chip Stylus
• Initial activation force: 3g
• Pressure levels: 16384
• Tilt: 60°
• Display type: IPS LCD
• Display resolution: 1920 X 1200, 16:10 aspect ratio
• Display surface: Matte glass
• Refresh rate: 60Hz
• Display lamination: Yes
• Viewing angle: 178°
• Contrast: 800:1
• Brightness (typical): 250 cd/m2
• Resolution: 5080 LPI
• Color gamut coverage ratio (typical): 99% sRGB,85% Adobe RGB
• Color gamut area ratio (typical): 123% sRGB,91% Adobe RGB
• Reading height: 10mm
• Response rate: 25 ms
• Report rate: 200 RPS (max)
• Accuracy: ±0.4 mm (center),±0.8 mm (corner)
• Port: One full-featured USB-C, one 3-in-1 USB-C
• Weight: 1.415kg
• Power input: AC 110-240V
• Power output: DC 5V ⎓ 2A
• Compatibility: Windows 7 (or later), macOS 10.10 (or later), Android (USB3.1 DP1.2), Chrome OS 88 (or later), Linux.

Things included

The box packaging art looks amazing and is created by Shan Jiang, an artist from Shanghai who's based in London. You can see more of his artwork on his Instagram page.

These are the items included in the box:

• Pen display
• XPPen ACK05 wireless shortcut remote
• 1x USB-A power adapter with interchangeable plugs
• 1x USB-C to USB-C video cable (1.5m long)
• 2x USB-A to USB-C cable
• 1x USB-A to USB-A extension cable
• 1x Microfiber cleaning cloth
• 1x Drawing glove
• 1x X3 Pro Smart Chip Stylus
• 1x Pen case (with 4 plastic nib, 4 felt nibs, one USB-A wireless receiver)
• 1x Quickstart guide
• 1x Warranty card

What's not included is the 3-to-1 cable with HDMI, USB-A and USB-C. If your computer does not have USB-C for video, and you use HDMI for video, you will need that 3-to-1 cable which cost USD 19.99. This cable is included as a free gift during the pre-order period before mid-August 2023.

Design

This is a beautiful pen display with a clean and simple design. The build quality feels solid with the metal back.

The thick bezels provide space for resting your palm while drawing. At the bottom is a comfortable wrist resting area that curves down gently.

The corners are rounded off but the metal frame is not beveled so they can be sharp, thankfully not cutting-edge sharp.

This pen display is quite thin and weighs 1.415kg which is slightly heavier than I expected. The physical size of the display is quite similar to a 16-inch laptop with 16:10 display.

There are two foldable feet can deploy the pen display at a comfortable angle for drawing.

If you plan on using the display for non-drawing work, e.g. watching videos, web browsing, you will need a stand that can prop up the display more vertically. XPPen does sell tablet stands from their online store. The stand I recommend (shown above) is the Parblo PR100 which can be adjusted easily to many angles.

The power button and brightness controls are located on the top-left.

The two labeled USB-C ports on top are not interchangeable. The bigger port is for the USB-C video cable and the smaller one is for the 3-to-1 cable, or the USB-C to USB-A cable for extra power.

The part that holds the metal USB-C connector will go into the hole to minimise cable movement. This looks like a durable design to prevent wear and tear. Anyway if the cable does break, you can always buy a replacement cable from the XPPen online store.

Shown above is the pen display connected to my Macbook Air with the included USB-C video cable (1.5m long). The laptop is able to power the pen display at maximum brightness through the USB-C port.

If you find the cable too short, you can use an extension cable but make sure it supports video transmission. Or just get a longer USB-C video cable.

If your laptop or computer is unable to power the pen display through the USB-C port, you will need to connect the pen display to additional power with the power adapter and cables provided. Even if the pen display is connected to power, there's no power pass-through so it's not possible to charge your laptop through the pen display. It's best to connect your laptop to its power source or the battery will drain much faster.

Display

The display is a 14-inch IPS LCD with 1920 x 1200 resolution and 60Hz refresh rate.

The display area measures 298.94 X 186.84 mm and is almost as big as A4-sized paper which is a comfortable size to work with.

That's how the anti-glare looks on the matte textured glass with reflection on it.

This display uses matte glass so you don't have to worry about scratches or replacing the screen protector. The matte textured surface provides a nice tactile drawing experience. The plastic nib can still feel quite smooth so I recommend using the felt nibs instead. And I highly recommend you buy the extra felt nibs for $15 a pack with 20 nibs.

This matte surface adds minimal film grain or colour noise to the image quality.

There is slight pixelation with the 1920 x 1200 resolution on a 14-inch display. There are pen displays around this size with higher resolution, but those are significantly more expensive.

The display is laminated with no gap between the glass and LCD, and hence there's no parallax. When drawing, there's no gap between the line and the pen tip.

Cursor tracking is accurate up to the extreme edge. The cursor is able to remain directly beneath the pen regardless of how you hold the pen.

One main selling feature of this pen display for me is the 16:10 aspect ratio which is more productive compared to 16:9. There's 11% more vertical surface area or pixels which gives you more space to show more content.

In the example above, I can use the extra vertical space to show the MacOS dock, or I can hide that and make the app window bigger so that I can see more.

The downside is when watching 16:9 videos, there are black bars at the top and bottom.

I hope XPPen can make more pen displays with 16:10 aspect ratio in the future.

Another downside, more of a limitation, of the display is the UI can look small with the 1920 x 1200 workspace without UI scaling. It is of course possible to increase the UI scaling. For MacOS users, you need to use the BetterDisplay app for UI scaling to achieve sharper visuals.

The pen display has good viewing angles. There's minimal colour shift when display is viewed from extreme angles. The slight drop in brightness is due to the glass.

I measured colour support for 95% sRGB, 84% AdobeRGB, 82% DCI-P3, 80% NTSC and a maximum brightness of 206 nits. Contrast ratio is 800:1. Colour accuracy is good but may not be good enough for those who need 100% AdobeRGB or 100% DCI-P3 coverage.

The 206 nits maximum brightness is still sufficient for use in a bright room environment. I don't even use the display at 100% brightness so it is certainly bright enough for me.

Colours on the pen display look good out of the box so colour calibration may not be needed. Note that there's no OSD button on the pen display so to calibrate the display you will have to do it though OS settings or use a colour calibrator.

Pen

The new X3 Pro Smart Chip Stylus is housed inside a solid matte textured metal pen case.

The pen supports tilt and 16,384 (16K) levels of pressure sensitivity. There's a big comfortable silicone grip area, two customisable side buttons and an eraser on the back. The pen is not powered by battery so no charging is required.

According to the XPPen, the pen has initial response rate reduced to 90ms, accuracy increased by 20% (cursor tracking), initial activation force of 3g and a 0.6mm retraction distance (how much the pen tip moves inside the pen).

The pen nib is not firm but has minimal movement. It's kinda like drawing with a ballpoint pen which has that sort of movement, but there's less movement here.

Driver

The pen display supports Windows 7 (or later), macOS 10.10 (or later), Android (USB3.1 DP1.2), Chrome OS 88 (or later), Linux. At the time of review, the Linux drivers are not available yet.

The drivers I've tested are Mac driver ver 3.4.6_230607 and Windows driver ver 3.4.7.230608.

The display settings can be left as default unless you have issues with mapping the drawing area.

If you experience cursor misalignment, you can calibrate the pen and display with the Calibration button.

The pressure curve can be adjusted with 3 control points.

I usually set one side button to Switch Display/Switch Monitor. There are three modes: cursor on display #1, cursor on display #2 and cursor across both displays (like a mouse).

To customise the XPPen ACK05 wireless shortcut remote, pair it first with the computer with either Bluetooth, USB wireless (through Bluetooth) or cable. Once the remote is paired, the same driver can be used to customise the hotkeys.

The dial can be configured with up to four shortcuts. Rotation only works with Photoshop. To get rotation to work with other drawing apps, those apps must have keyboard shortcuts for rotation.

The shortcut remote has 10 customisable hotkeys. You can create up to four groups of shortcuts (total 36) and use a hotkey to switch between the groups.

Shortcuts and groups of shortcuts can be created for specific apps. Those shortcuts will then load automatically when the app is active. E.g. You can have one set of shortcuts for Photoshop, another set for Clip Studio Paint.

Key combination works. E.g. Ctrl + Shift + A.

Press and hold will not activate repeated keys. E.g. Press and hold [ or ] will not increase brush size repeatedly.

Line tests

The line tests above (click for a larger view) were created with Medibang Paint Pro.

1. The red diagonal lines were drawn slowly and there's minimal jitter and wobble, probably due to my hand. The black lines drawn with a ruler are straight. The initial activation force is very low (advertised 3g) and that allows me to draw those thin blue lines even with when a thick brush is selected.

Is this pen with 16K pressure more sensitive than one with 8K pressure? That is difficult for me to test. All I can say is this X3 Pro pen is extremely sensitive. Actually it is so sensitive that it's easier to draw the extremely thin lines by holding the pen from the back near the eraser than holding it normally at the grip. Or you can adjust the pressure curve with the driver.

2. Lines are able to taper smoothly and sharply. The strokes will start thin, thick and taper.

3. The true test of how sensitive a pen is whether it can draw thin lines after drawing thick lines and the X3 Pro pen is able to do that. Line transition from thin to thick to thin is smooth.

4. Lines with consistent width can be drawn easily by maintaining consistent pressure. Test #3 and #4 are diagonal lines too and there's no noticeable wobble and jitter.

5. Dots sometimes do not appear when tapping the pen. CSP, Photoshop and Affinity Photo do not have this problem.

6. I was able to join the lines without overshooting and gaps.

Tilt works right up to the extreme edge of the display. Brush shape is able to follow the direction of the pen.

Overall drawing performance of the pen is terrific, consistent and predictable except for the dots with Medibang Paint.

Drawing experience

This was drawn with Medibang Paint Pro.

I did not experience any issues while drawing. I was just surprised at how I was able to draw those really thin and faint lines for the outline of the tree leaves.

This was also drawn with Medibang Paint. I just love how easy it is to control the line thickness.

The tree sketch was drawn with a really thick brush and I was able to draw the thin branches in the background easily with the same thick brush by using minimal pressure.

The ACK05 wireless shortcut remote works fine but I don't actually use that since I prefer using my actual keyboard to access all shortcuts.

This was also drawn with Medibang Paint Pro. The drawing performance is great with other drawing apps too, and the ones I've tested are Clip Studio Paint, Photoshop and Affinity Photo.

My overall drawing experience is very positive and enjoyable.

Conclusion

The XPPen Artist Pro 14 is a beautiful well designed pen display with fantastic drawing performance. The drawing experience with the matte glass surface is nice. The 16:10 aspect ratio is a huge selling point for me. The included ACK05 wireless shortcut remote is a nice bonus and is quite useful.

95% sRGB colour support should be enough for most people but those who need critical colour accuracy may find 84% AdobeRGB and the 800:1 contrast ratio to be insufficient.

The other downside is you will probably need to buy another stand since the foldable feet can only deploy the pen display at a low angle for drawing.

Is this worth the money? I would say yes. This pen display looks good and works well, and comes with 2 years warranty. There are no major dealbreakers except if you need 100% AdobeRGB.

If you're interested to buy this, do buy it with extra felt nibs for that extra tactile drawing experience.

Pros and cons at a glance:

+ Beautiful design
+ Solid build quality
+ 16:10 aspect ratio display
+ Laminated display
+ Display has foldable feet
+ Display has good colours, 95% sRGB colour support (*see con)
+ Matte glass drawing surface
+ Matte drawing surface has minimal grain and colour noise
+ X3 Pro pen is accurate and sensitive
+ Accurate cursor tracking
+ Pen has tilt and 16K levels of pressure sensitivity
+ Pen case included
+ 8 replacement pen nibs included, and 4 are felt nibs
+ USB-C to USB-C video connection
+ Cables connection seems secure and durable
+ Fantastic drawing performance
+ Supports Mac, Windows, Android, Chomebook and Linux (driver upcoming)
+ Two years warranty
- Metal edges are not beveled
- Another stand is needed to prop up the display for non-drawing work
- No OSD menu for manual colour adjustments
- 84% AdobeRGB and 800:1 contrast ratio may not be sufficient for colour critical work
- No 3-to-1 cable included (sold separately for USD 19).

Availability

The XPPen Artist Pro 14 (gen 2) pen display is available from XPPen online store.

If you have intention to buy one, consider supporting me and my work by using the affiliate links above. I earn some commission for each sale at no extra cost to you.

And if my review is inaccurate in any way, let me know in the comments section below.