This makes it less of a drawing-only tablet and more of a full-featured control surface for your design programs. In addition, the Artist12 gives you a full-high touch bar you can program to fulfill certain commands on your computer (XP-Pen recommends mapping it to the zoom-in/zoom-out feature), and you can harness six different assignable shortcut keys. And because the pen is passive it's not another device that needs to charge. The passive hexagonal pen (which feels very pencil-like) allows for 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity so that you can really get the hand-sketched feel in your work. This makes it feel like you're really creating art in the real world.

What's great about having an 11.6-inch display inside your drawing tablet is that you don't need to look at your other screen while drawing on a separate surface-you're drawing on the device where your lines and colors appear. The touchscreen display-a 1920 x 1080 HD IPS display-isn't the highest resolution available, but with 72% NTSC Color Gamut accuracy, its focus is on reproducing your work with as much precision as possible.

The XP-Pen Artist12 earns our top spot because of its compatibility, customization, and reasonably affordable price point.

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