Best Cheap Drawing Tablet in 2021

If you’re a professional that’s looking for a high quality drawing tablet, look no further than the Huion H610 Pro V2 Graphic Drawing Tablet. There are a lot of things to love about it, but above all else, it’s incredibly affordable!

The first thing worth noting is that the tablet has a pressure sensitivity of 8192 levels. This is incredibly good, and you will have a smooth and enjoyable drawing experience when you use it. The tablet will also work with pretty much any type of operating system, including Windows 7 or later editions and Mac 10.11 or higher. If this wasn’t enough, you will also be happy with the battery free pen. This means that you won’t need to replace the batteries all the time whenever you want to use the tablet.

The tablet even has impressive customization options. The penhas two different side buttons that you can program as you see fit. The tablet itself has 8 hard keys in addition to 16 soft keys. It’s super simple to set up and it’s incredibly portable. The only annoying thing is that it lacks a wireless connection.

Wacom is one of the biggest names out there when it comes to graphics tablets for digital art, and it’s not hard to see why. The Wacom CTL4100 Intuos Graphics Drawing Tablet is one of those hard to come by drawing tablets that’s both affordable and high quality. It certainly exceeds expectations in almost every possible way.

When you first look at this drawing tablet, it’s hard to ignore what it looks like. The tablet is very sleek and slim, so you could slot it into your laptop bag when you’re on the go without it weighing you down. It’s very ergonomic and can work well both for left and right handed individuals. It has a relatively small drawing area of 6.0 x 3.7 inches, though this isn’t necessarily a bad thing for every user.

The tablet provides the user with shortcut keys that are very handy when you want to access certain tools more easily. It has a pressure sensitivity of 4096 too. The battery free pen is particularly enjoyable to use. The smaller drawing area is possibly the only downside, since a small drawing area may not be suited to every artist.

With the XP-Pen tablet you will get a large host of features all packed into one tablet that’s available for a mind blowingly low price. With a great pressure sensitivity of 8192 levels, you really can’t go wrong with this tablet.

One of the best things about this tablet is that you can actually alter the pressure sensitivity in the settings. You will get tremendous accuracy with the pen, and it’s very enjoyable to use. It feels almost like you’re drawing on paper when you use it! You’ll also get a very large drawing area measuring 10 x 6.25 inches, so it’s ideal for individuals that like to do lifestyle drawing. 

The tablet can be used by right and left handed individuals alike, making it incredibly versatile. It’s very portable, and durable too. Some users have reported some challenges with installing the drivers, however, so that’s something worth keeping in mind.

Looking for an upgrade? You should certainly give the Wacom PTH660 Intuos ProDigital Graphic Drawing Tablet a try. This is a very enjoyable tablet to use, since it features a replaceable texture sheet. With this, it will feel like you’re drawing right onto paper!

The tablet also has 8 keys on it that you can customize in order to create shortcuts for yourself. They work well both for people that are right and left handed. You could actually use the tablet as a trackpad by using the multi touch feature.

The tablet comes with a battery free pen too – no more spending your time waiting for a pen to charge! You will have a pressure sensitivity of 8192 levels, which is pretty sensitive. It even works with most major operating systems, and it’s incredibly durable. It is worth noting that while this is an affordable tablet, it is still a little more expensive than many of the other options mentioned on this list, which is something to take into consideration.

Last but not least is the Veikk A30 V2 Graphic Drawing Tablet. This is one of the best options out there if you’re looking for something with a large drawing surface since the surface area measures a massive 10 x 6 inches!

Despite this large drawing area, you may be surprised to learn that this tablet is actually incredibly portable. This is thanks to its light weight – it only weighs 570g in total! It’s super comfortable to use too, thanks to the tablet’s texture resembling paper. The pen is battery free too, and you will get an 8192 pressure sensitivity level.

The tablet will work well with major operating systems, such as Windows, Max and Android. As a whole, this affordable option is ideal for people that want to create stunning digital art without breaking the bank. It isn’t great in terms of ergonomics, though.

Best Cheap Drawing Tablet: A Buyer’s Guide

Of course, while you want to have a great drawing tablet without spending a fortune, you also want something that’s going to work well. You need something that’s still high quality, no matter what kind of a budget you’re on. With that in mind, here are a few of the things that you should consider when you’re buying the best cheap drawing tablets.

Shortcut Keys

Graphics programs can be a little overwhelming. Many of them have a huge amount of different options from brush strokes to filters and more. If you have a tablet that has good shortcut keys, you don’t need to spend countless hours trawling through your graphics program to find the tools that you need.

Ideally you should be looking for hotkeys that you can customize to your liking. This will give you the ability to access your favorite tools, rather than a few generic tools that you may not personally use. Some tablets will even automatically set shortcuts for you based on how often you use a particular tool. This may not always be useful to you, but it’s worth noting that some tablets have that functionality.

Connectivity

Once you’re finished with your drawing, you are going to want to connect it to your laptop or computer. In fact, in order to use some graphics tablets you may even require the use of a laptop or computer during the drawing process. For this reason, having good connectivity is essential.

When it comes to drawing tablets, you usually have two main types of connectivity options – USB or Bluetooth. More often than not, it will be a USB connection. This means that in order to use the tablet you will need to make sure that it’s physically connected to your laptop or PC. This is a little inconvenient in many respects since it means that you can’t use it unless you have your laptop or PC handy – it’s not exactly a portable option. It’s pretty rare to see a poor connection with USB connectivity though, which is always a plus side.

On the other hand, you can also have wireless or Bluetooth connectivity. This is a connectivity option that’s free of wires, and it means that you don’t need to be glued to your computer or laptop in order to use it. You can even rotate your tablet around as needed, so there’s a lot of versatility. Sometimes the connection can suffer though, which is worth noting.

You can even get tablets that use both of these types of connection. Ultimately though, what you choose depends on your personal preference.

Pressure Sensitivity

Pressure sensitivity is a pretty important aspect to consider when it comes to choosing a drawing tablet. This can have a big impact on the results of your drawing endeavors. This is because the pen pressure on the tablet can determine how thick the pen stroke will be. You will generally find pressure sensitivity ranging from 512 to 8192 levels. You can get much more detailed and subtle strokes with a higher pressure sensitivity level.

The pressure sensitivity that you opt for can vary depending on your kind of art style. For instance, if you prefer to work primarily with heavy strokes then there are tablets that can work with that. In general though, a good middle ground is 2048 pressure if you want a mix of both light and heavy strokes for your artwork.

Scrollers

There will come a time when you need to scroll on your tablet. Annoyingly though, this is a bit of a challenge, especially if you aren’t used to it. It can take a while to get used to scrolling on a tablet when you’re accustomed to scrolling on a mouse.

Different tablets allow you to scroll in different ways. For instance, you can swipe your finger or you can swipe using a stylus. The main thing to clarify though is whether the stylus has been designed to work with scrolling. The last thing you want is to try and scroll with a pen when all of a sudden you have a huge brush stroke across your drawing because the pen doesn’t work for scrolling.

Portability

There’s nothing quite like getting to go traveling, and whipping out your drawing tablet when you see something that inspires you to draw. Unfortunately, you may not get to do this with a cheap drawing tablet. It’s rather difficult to find cheap drawing tablets that have screens, which means that if you want to draw while out on the go you will also need to bring your laptop with you. You could use something like an iPad or another kind of device that will allow you to draw though. Ultimately, you’ll likely need to spend a little more money if you want something truly portable.

Drawing Surface Area

The size of a drawing tablet is pretty important when it comes to making your decision, as it can determine the kinds of things that you can draw.

While a tablet may look relatively large, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it has a large drawing surface. You need to look at the area that has sensors as this is the part of the tablet that you can draw on. You don’t need to have a large drawing area in order to do great work, though. There are other things such as the pressure sensitivity that are more important than the drawing surface. Ultimately, you just need something big enough that you can draw on comfortably.