Ray Frenden reviews the too-cheap-to-be-true Monoprice graphics tablets. How do they stack up to industry standard Wacoms?
After spending a week with the 6.25“x10” Monoprice, my Yiynova and Cintiq remain unplugged and I gave my Intuos away to a friend. The Monoprice tracks subtle pressure variances and small movements with less lag and more crisp fidelity than any of the others. It is, put crudely, fucking awesome, in both OSX Lion and Windows 7 x64.
Duly fuckin’ noted.
I’ve had my $80, 3.5x5” gaphire 4 for 5 years now, and have been absolutely dreading the day it finally kicks the bucket. (Yes, every digital piece I’ve ever drawn has been on a live area the size of a postcard.)
I am so getting one of these when this thing dies. Or maybe when the stylus dies… thing’s hanging on by a thread. (Let’s just say it’s been without a grip or buttons for I don’t know how many years now.)
Yay for companies not having a veritable monopoly on the market.
I’ve done research on this too. The BIGGEST ISSUE and one I always had issues with cheap tablets are the freaking pens. Always, always the worst design flaw of any of the cheap tablets on the market. The battery-in-pen design makes the pen:
Heavy
It jitters (As in vibrates… in your hand. Hell no!)
and after minimal use, because your finger is always resting on the weakest point of the pen (Where it screws together) it can and frequently snaps/breaks/plastic cracks. Then your stylus pen is bloody useless.
After reading hundreds of user reviews it seems this tablet’s pen has the same bad design flaw issues like all the rest of the cheap ass tablets on the market.
I’ll stick with WACOM until these knock-offs learn their pen technology (To me pens are perhaps one of the most important parts of the tablet and it should be the most reliable and durable). Jittery, heavy & easily breakable pens, I don’t care how cheap you are I’ll pass. Because if you have to repeatedly replace your pens, you’re not saving any money anyway. (And I cannot find where monoprice sells pens separately. You have to buy whole new units? HELL TO THE FUCK NO.)
