Digital Artists: Have you changed your tablet?

My first tablet, which I got for Christmas 2004 I think, was a Wacom 4x5" Graphire3 (these were replaced by the Bamboo line or I guess the Intuos Small or w/e they are called now). I had a couple of those because the pen in the first one died after a couple of years and it was cheaper just to find another one on eBay. It worked ok but it was super tiny and not very sensitive (512 levels).

In 2012 I replaced it with a Monoprice 9x12" tablet, which was much more comfortable to use and more sensitive (1024 levels, comparable to the Intuos tablets of the time). It was great and still is really (I still have it in storage; it didn't break), but I replaced a year ago with a Monoprice 22" display tablet (like a Cintiq but way cheaper), and the driver is a little quirky, but I love it. This one has 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity.

By quirky I mean that I have to plug in the USB cable after the computer is already on, and sometimes it'll kind of "pause" for a moment, but I just have to wait it out. I don't have any serious problems with it, nor did I have any really with my older Monoprice. They make good tablets. Both have been far more durable than Wacom in my experience.

Edit: I also have an original Surface Pro from 2014 that I have used for art. It's nice but quite small, but it was my only computer (and only art machine) for a number of months when my computer had died, and it's good for sketching or w/e.

I always used my little Wacom Intuos draw since I got it for my birthday last year, and the only this that 'broke' is the end of the pen that i've been chewing on. i've been wanting to get a stylus for my laptop screen though

Right now I use a Wacom intuos pen and touch, and i've had it for almost 4 years now (got it for Christmas in 2014). It does what I need it to + I use it all the time instead of a mouse (hard to switch back after using it for so long lol). I'm thinking about upgrading to a monitor tablet because I feel like it's time to upgrade and I'm thinking about taking art seriously/do it as a job, but because I can't afford a cintiq and I still want to keep my current tablet (drivers for other brands don't cooperate w/other tablet drivers installed so yeah). I think the main bug I run into is this "ghost clicking" where it'll register my pen hovering over the tablet as a click but it goes away after a while. Outside of that there's not much

I have a Wacom tablet, not sure what exactly, but it’s wacom? I’ve had it since Christmas last year, and I haven’t run into any problems apart from one of the buttons on the pen not responding properly after getting a bit bashed when I put in my bag to take it somewhere. I have not changed tablets yet, since I haven’t had it for very long.

I recently got my first tablet: a Huion 1060! I got it for Christmas but was unable to use it until about a month ago and lemme just tell you right now, this thing was hecking hell to set up but was totally worth it. 100% worth it. I love the wireless pens, the large workspace, and the hotkey buttons like YES. Biggest issue with the tablet had to be setting it up, it just didn't work at first and took some trial and error until I understood what I had to do?? Mine has to be connected to the computer though, so while I can't answer the tablet charge question I CAN say the pens have either a hecka long battery life before they have to be recharged or I keep accidentally switching between the two I own. Haven't needed to change a pen nib yet but it did come with some :)

I'm still using my first tablet tbh, 8 years and counting with Genius g-pen f509. This junk is so old not even the official genius site has the drives for download anymore lmao. Once I use up my pen nib I'm actually fucked because they are not selling them anymore and I can't afford a new tablet or smth rip.

Honestly as much as I shit about it, it's actually still working p well and I never had an issue with broken drivers or pressure and stuff. Maybe because this thing barely has any pressure to begin with lmao. It's just scratched to hell and back from all these years and at this point I feel like I'm drawing on sandpaper

just gonna go bullet by bullet i think lol
sorry for length

• What kind of tablet do you currently have?
  i have a wacom bamboo pen (the newer one), but as of two years? ago i started using a cintix 20wsx.
• How long do you have your current tablet?
  ive had the bamboo for i think six years now, and the cintiq for about two.
• Are you happy with what it currently is or are you troubleshooting with it?
  the bamboo works great! ive always found them reliable, although now with wacom tossing the bamboo
  and calling it an intuos (and not a good one either), its hard to find a replacement. im glad i dont need one.
  as for the cintiq, it turned 11 years old this month :') im very happy with it but it has its problems,
  especially since i work on a linux computer.
• What are your common problems with your tablet? (aside from losing pen pressure time by time)
  on the cintiq, i have to calibrate it every time i turn it on, but thats just annoying. i think because i cant
  download all the drivers or something, i cant use it at its intended screen ratio, so theres like a 2 inch strip of unused space
  on either side of the screen--the active area in total is 17x10in, approximately, so its not a huge deal, but...i want it lol.
  aside from that i dont really have any problems. its doing surprisingly well for a piece of equipment this old. it does weigh like 30lbs when
  all boxed up though, and i move a lot, so thats a pain >->o i went on a plane once with it. never again.
  
  
• What was your first tablet?
  my first was a geniustablet, idk which one. it was very thin and felt as cheap as it was haha.
• Why did you change your tablet?
  it suuuuucked!! and it should have, because as far as i know it was a cheap little thing, just my
  mother indulging me after years of drawing with a mouse as a kid. changed my life forever once
  i could make digital art more easily, but once i got my first bamboo i never looked back.
  
  
• Do you use android charger wires for your tablet?
  the micro usb is not android exclusive, but yeah, im pretty sure at this point ive mixed the cables up so much i dont know which one
  belongs to my tablet ^^' not all microusb cables are equipped to send enough data to work with a tablet, but i have plenty that are,
  so it's not really an issue.
• Do you change pen nibs?
  yknow i never have, now that i think about it, even on my first bamboo which i had for eight years and used daily. i draw pretty lightly,
  and this was when they werent making the drawing surface so rough (to make you buy new nibs) so i guess it was just never
  an issue. that being said, i think i will replace the nib on my cintiq pen soon because its getting...quite stubby.

My first tablet was a very cheap Aiptek tablet, if I remember right. It served me well between 2009-2012 but then they stopped making drivers for it or something and I had to buy a new one, and ended up going for Wacom Bamboo since it was affordable (less than 100 euros) and I knew I would draw daily so it would be worth the money. I used that one between 2012-November 2017 until it no longer had drivers anymore either and it was malfunctioning on my computer as a result. 

I decided to upgrade my tablet once and for all and got family and relatives help me get Wacom Cintiq 13HD (I also paid most of it myself). It was technically something I couldn't afford, but it's been definitely worth the money since I can work 3 times faster and thus do more commissions and slowly get the money back. I'm incredibly happy with it as it also lets me do smaller details more easily!! 

I occasionally changed pen nibs for my first wacom, whenever I saw them getting short and dull. For cintiq I didn't do that for almost a year and although I can't SEE the difference I have ended up scratching the screen with the old one because I was an idiot ;;; So it's better to be safe than sorry with it and change it every few months even if it doesn't "look" bad, because at least in my case I could totally feel the difference despite this.

• What kind of tablet do you currently have?: One by Wacom CTL-471... it's very small
• How long do you have your current tablet?: About... A year and 3 months :O
• Are you happy with what it currently is or are you troubleshooting with it?: I'm quite happy with it! It's smaller than I expected when I bought it, but it hasn't given me grief so far.
• What are your common problems with your tablet? (aside from losing pen pressure time by time): The cable may be very short and it's not the most reliable of all... But aside from that it's fine
• What was your first tablet?: It was a Genius one... I can't find the model online, but it was a cheaper one that wasn't very good.
• Why did you change your tablet?: I've gone through like... 3 tablets in my life HAHA... I changed them all cuz the pen stopped working. For my very first one, I didn't even use it for a long time because the pen gave me too much trouble, until I picked up drawing digitally again and it was acceptable. After that if I'm not mistaken, I bought myself another Genius tablet, and while it was okay for a while it gave me the same problem after some use. After that... I had a Huion, which was super good!! But my dad broke the pen the first day, so it was never the same. I had to get a replacement after a year or so, since the battery life ended. I changed this last one because I got to use a wacom at work and found it much better to do the things I wanted to do; the pressure was better and it didn't give me any trouble with programs like FireAlpaca! So I bought this tiny wacom haha
• Do you use android charger wires for your tablet?: Nope! but I had to buy wires at least once to replace them haha
• Do you change pen nibs?: When I notice they need change, yes!! It makes me feel good, like taking a shower :D

What was your first tablet? A Wacom Bamboo Fun! I had that thing for about 10 years, I think. Worked great! Very reliable and easy to use.

Why did you change your tablet? I uh... I stepped on the pen accidentally... and broke it beyond repair. Since I'd had the tablet for so long, it was easier to just get a new tablet/pen set than try to replace the broken pen. I actually got another Bamboo Fun, just in a smaller size, since I got lucky and found an online listing for a cheap used one that came with its pen. It was in great condition! The only reason I stopped using that one was because the USB wire that connected it to my laptop became frayed, and it was too hard to track down that exact type of USB cord. It used a mini USB (which they don't really make anymore) rather than micro USB (which is now the standard).

What kind of tablet do you currently have? A small Wacom Intuos of some sort, I think. Just a basic one with nothing fancy about it, haha. I'm pretty simple with my drawing tools.

How long do you have your current tablet? I've had this one for about as long as I've had my current laptop, so about 3-4 years, I think.

Are you happy with what it currently is or are you troubleshooting with it? I have no complaints, other than it took me a while to get used to not having an eraser on my pen, since my first tablet's pen had one.

What are your common problems with your tablet? None, really, but I'm pretty easy to please. I lose pen pressure if my computer goes to sleep with my tablet still plugged in/my drawing program still open, but I think that's a software issue with the computer rather than a tablet one.

Do you use android charger wires for your tablet? Nope. My tablet connects via USB and doesn't need to be charged.

Do you change pen nibs? Yes, I press really hard when I draw and grind them up like nobody's business. XD I actually tried a tutorial that said how to use weed whacker threading as nibs to avoid having to buy more since they're so expensive... but it was too cumbersome to get the material down to a useable point.

What kind of tablet do you currently have?
-Wacom Bamboo Fun Medium (CTE-650, that's one of the REALLY old white ones with the blue glowy circle)
-XP-Pen Deco 02

How long do you have your current tablet?
About 12 years for the Bamboo, I think; a week for the Deco 02

Are you happy with what it currently is or are you troubleshooting with it?
The Bamboo still works very well, but it's incredibly outdated by now.
The Deco 02 has its up- and downsides and we'll have to see how it holds up over time, but the actual drawing experience is amazing. So, so good.
(Upsides: passive pen (wacom-style, including the eraser), great design, great pen stand, amazing pressure sensitivity and report rate, cheap as heck, really good size. Downsides: New model and thus no long-term user experiences yet, only one button on the pen, smallish and pencil-inspired pen design probably isn't right for everyone even though I like it, finger print magnet like WOAH, bad surface wear which may or may not cause issues in the long term)

What are your common problems with your tablet? (aside from losing pen pressure time by time)
People apparently take offense to only having one button on the pen of the Deco 02, and the surface wears down very quickly.
Mine also arrived with a USB chord with connectivity issues, which I've also heard of from at least one other artist. It's a chord issue, not a tablet issue, though, and thus very easily fixed because it uses a standard USB-C chord. I could just grab one out of our familial chord bin, which was way nicer than the one it came with anyway.
I haven't lost pen pressure with either tablet since I switched to Clip Studio Paint by the way; for me, the pressure issues were a SAI-only problem.

What was your first tablet?
The aforementioned Wacom Bamboo Fun.

Why did you change your tablet?
512 pressure sensitivity steps (lol), pretty meh report rate, bad button and USB chord placement, drawing surface isn't 16:9, the surface is worn-down enough that I could use it as a mirror, I just really felt stuck with that thing and sorely needed a change. The tablet is literally over half my age, it's done its duty several times over, and there are simply better options available today. Besides, I'd like to keep the thing as backup before I've drawn it to death entirely, especially because both the tablet and the drivers have proven to be incredibly resilient, surviving several tea spills, a billion drops from my table, three different PCs and five generations of Windows without issue. I was using XP when I got the thing, and the drivers still work perfectly under Windows 10.

Do you use android charger wires for your tablet?
Not android specifically, but I do change USB chords every now and then; the way my PC is set up, most USB chords end up awkwardly bent in one place or another, so they tend to break every few years.

Do you change pen nibs?
If necessary, yeah. Didn't happen too often with the Bamboo - it was very smooth in the first place and became mirror-smooth over years of constant use, so it didn't really wear down nibs at all. I always keep a watchful eye on things, though.

What kind of tablet do you currently have?
My newest is one of those Yiynova tablet monitors, but because of my current setup and the fact that it's kinda dangerous to move it around (I already wrecked the display cord once) I can't use it, so I'm back on my Intuos Pro 4 Large.

How long do you have your current tablet?
Five or six years?

Are you happy with what it currently is or are you troubleshooting with it?
I hate Wacom, let's be real. My first wacom fried the cord, my so's wacom fried the touchscreen. This is my second Intuos4, the first one (within warranty, thank god) stopped being able to read cords in both of its input spots. This second one lost one of the usb inputs three months into owning it. I don't know how the second one has lasted so many years ; ____; also the drivers are so finicky

What are your common problems with your tablet? (aside from losing pen pressure time by time)
See above. Also it likes forgetting it exists, prompting a restart of my computer.

What was your first tablet?
Some offbrand I don't remember. It stopped working on my computer, randomly, but it worked for a friend so i just gave it to them.

Why did you change your tablet?
The first kept "leaking ink". Every time I lifted the pen off the surface it dropped full pressure dots. It was... interesting.
I got a medium Intuos 3, the cord stopped working.
I got a large Intuos 4, see the third question.
I replaced it with another, it ... works. I'm still using it.
I got the Yiynova screen and it's great and I love it and then the cord stopped working. I sent it out for repairs, it's fine, but I can't safely have it set up for fear of the cord breaking again. If / when I have a permanent space to draw, I will definitely use it again. I love it so much o|-(

Do you use android charger wires for your tablet?
.... don't call it that. :,D But yes, mini-b USB cord for the Intuos4. Not the rest, however.

Do you change pen nibs?
I have pen nibs that are from before Wacom wanted to milk all your money. They're tough and other than the "pencil" texture nibs, they last a really long time. (not often). I don't think I changed my Yiynova ones, they were really good and going against non-textured glass so they didn't wear out much.