Digital artists and graphic designers can really benefit from dynamic drawing displays and tablets that offer ergonomic ways of digitally drawing. XPPen drawing tablets, displays, and pads provide avenues to enhance your digital drawing and creation skills. The XPPen drawing display tablets come in many sizes, including 13.3, 16, 19, and 24 inches within the Artist Pro series.

The Artist Pro 24 (Gen 2) 4K Drawing Display is the most extensive drawing display, and comes with two styluses and a shortcut remote. It’s an impressive beast of a drawing display, and it’s affordable when compared to displays from its peers, Wacom and Xencelabs, but it’s not without its calibration issues.

About this review: XPPen provided us with an Artist Pro 24 (Gen2) 4K Drawing Display for this review. It had no input in this article and did not see its contents before publishing.

Pricing, specs, and availability

Pricey, but affordable compared to its peers

XPPen has a host of available product offerings similar to the Artist Pro 24 (Gen 2) 4K Drawing Display. The Artist Pro Drawing Display series ramps up quality and size options for consumers, but that comes at a cost.

The Artist Pro 24 (Gen 2) 4K Drawing Display is the most expensive drawing display XPPen sells — the standard price is $1300, with sale prices coming in around $1100. While initially it seems expensive, when compared to similar caliber drawing displays from the competition, XPPen’s is the best price. Wacom Cintiq Pro 24 is around $2700 and Xencelabs Pen Display 24 is $1900, for comparison.

You can purchase the XPPen Artist Pro 24 (Gen 2) 4K Drawing Display directly from XPPen on its website, but it is also available from Amazon. It’s hard to find from other retailers, as it’s often overshadowed by Wacom products in mainstream technology stores.

Accessories and resources

Artist Pro 24 (Gen 2) 4K Drawing Display comes with everything you need

While the drawing display itself is huge, the box the display arrived in was bigger and heavier than my imagination set me up for. Upon unboxing the Artist Pro 24, I was shocked to find how many accessories came packaged within the product.

Styluses

First, we get the standard and expected styluses. Since this is a drawing display rather than a drawing tablet, it doesn’t have a touchscreen feature you can use with your fingers; you need a stylus. XPPen provides two styluses: the Pro Slim Stylus and the Pro Smart Chip Stylus.

The styluses are provided in a beautifully designed product box for safe keeping. Along with the two pens, inside the box are multiple spare stylus nibs for both styluses, in many different styles. You’ll receive a total of 30 stylus nibs within your purchase.

XPPen's styluses do not require charging nor a wired connection to work. They work based on proximity to the display, which provides power.

Connections and cables

The XPPen Artist Pro 24 (Gen 2) 4K Drawing Display comes with all the cables and connection types you could think of. I’m based in the UK, but the adapter connections in the box had both UK and European standard plugs. There would also be an American power connection included in that configuration.

Although it isn’t required for all connection types, the product comes with an HDMI cable, as well as a USB-C to USB-C cable and a USB-C to USB-A cable — that way, you can pick whichever one suits your use case. I used only the USB-C to my MacBook Pro for full connectivity.

Shortcut remote

A shortcut remote is standard with these large drawing displays. XPPen’s shortcut remote has rubber feet on the bottom, but they don’t hold enough friction for you to place the controller on your screen if it sits at an angle. This makes it tricky to decide where to place the remote that isn’t in the way of your work, while also not too far away that it needs to be taken out of hiding with each use.

The XPPen driver lets you calibrate the controller. It can also be connected via Bluetooth or USB-C to USB-C cable to your computer or tablet device.

The remote has default keys set for certain tasks, such as command + Z for everyone’s favorite Undo hotkey. The zoom wheel works well, and the space bar helps you move your screen to the center for best focus. I would have liked some key names on the device itself, but I can add those on my own later.

Accessories

Note that this drawing display doesn’t come with any type of screen protection. When I bought my iPad Pro, the first accessory I bought after the Apple Pencil was a screen protector and a case. The Artist Pro display is much too big to be portable, so I wouldn’t worry about any type of case, but not having a screen protector with the product makes me a little nervous. The screen is made from full-laminated AG nano-etched glass, which does give enough protection, but I do worry about scratching the surface with the stylus tips (or any other abrasion) over time.

As mentioned, you’ll receive extra style nibs and tips in your box. I like that XPPen is future-proofing their users’ needs by supplying these already, whereas Apple Pencil users must buy all their spare tips separately.

There’s a dust cloth for wiping your screen. Due to the screen’s size, it is likely to collect dust quickly. Furthermore, there's a drawing glove included. Even though the drawing display cannot be affected by touchscreen via the skin, a drawing glove is advantageous for smoothly gliding over the screen and preventing sweat, dirt, or oils from your hand dirtying or sticking to the screen.

Performance and software

It works well, when it works well

As someone who hasn’t used a drawing display connected to my laptop before, learning how to use the Artist Pro 24 was a learning curve for me. The instructions in the manual were vague and therefore a little difficult to follow or troubleshoot. Even though the manual stated multiple times that there was more detailed information on XPPen’s website, I also found it difficult to navigate the website to find it.

The stylus calibration was hit-and-miss; unfortunately, to be honest, more miss than hit. I could only get the Pro Smart Stylus to calibrate well enough to use — the Pro Slim Stylus would not cooperate, and I was unable to test it out for a true review of both.

The connection didn’t hold very well. Once I’d calibrated the stylus, it didn’t stay calibrated if I put it down and used my laptop manually before going back to the drawing display. This was most frustrating, as I had to recalibrate it multiple times, and with varying success rates each attempt.

When I did get the stylus calibrated, the display correctly mirrored, and the shortcut remote connected, I really enjoyed using the Artist Pro 24 (Gen 2) 4K Drawing Display. I did find it a little difficult to be precise with the pen due to the hover distance and a small brush icon that sits on the software I was using — but I think that’s an issue I could easily iron out in the future with additional use.

XPPen provides access to multiple graphics and drawing software for consumers who buy its drawing tablets and displays. Once purchased, type in your product serial numbers, and you can receive access to the following tools:

• Toon Boom — 45 days of use, for all pen tablets and pen displays
• ArtRage 6 — for Deco Pro Series, Artist Series, Artist Pro Series, and Innovator 16
• openCanvas — for Deco Pro Series, Artist Series, Artist Pro Series, and Innovator 16
• Cartoon Animator 14 — 12 months of use, for Artist 12 Pro, Artist 13.3 Pro, Artist 15.6 Pro, Artist Pro 16TP, Artist Pro 16, Artist 22R Pro, Artist 22E Pro, Artist 22 Pro, Artist 24 Pro, Artist 10 (2nd Gen), Artist 12 (2nd Gen), Artist 16 (2nd Gen), Artist 22 (2nd Generation), Artist 24, and Innovator 16

You can use your XPPen Artist Pro 24 (Gen 2) 4K Drawing Display for any software you can access from your compatible machine. I tried to connect it to my iPad to use Procreate, but although the screen mirroring works from iPad to the XPPen display, it is impossible to calibrate the XPPen’s display to an iPad for use.

Should you buy the XPPen Artist Pro 24 (Gen 2) 4K Drawing Display?

After using an iPad Pro for digital drawing for the last five years, this certainly opens up a world of better quality, more space, and a level of profession that I haven’t felt before. If you’re looking for a powerful, high-quality visual display for your drawing display, then Artist Pro 24 is a great option. It’s more affordable than its major competitors, and the technology is just as good, provided you have the right connectivity with your hardware. Stylus connectivity quirks aside, I would recommend the Artist Pro 24 (Gen 2) 4K Drawing Display to new and upcoming digital artists, as well as professional artists looking to transform their digital workflow at home.