The tablet maker is challenging Wacom’s Cintiq Pro line with its new 120Hz refresh rate and high color accuracy.
XP-Pen has introduced a 27-inch display drawing tablet that rivals the visual capabilities of Wacom’s Cintiq Pro series, at a significantly lower price. The Artist Pro 27 is now available for $1,899.99, featuring a 4K resolution display with a 120Hz refresh rate and exceptional color accuracy, as stated on XP-Pen’s website.
These features are comparable to Wacom’s more expensive Cintiq Pro 27, which was released four years ago for $3,499. Wacom has been the industry leader for creative professional tablets, but more budget-friendly competitors like XP-Pen and Huion have closed the gap in recent years, making Wacom’s high prices harder to justify for some buyers.
Both 27-inch display tablets offer ten-point multi-touch capabilities. Their color accuracy is also closely matched, with the Artist Pro 27 covering 99 percent of Adobe RGB, 99 percent of sRGB, and 97 percent of DCI-P3, although each has unique strengths in other specifications.
The XP-Pen Artist Pro 27 boasts a 5ms latency, surpassing the Cintiq Pro’s 10ms response time and offering 16,384 levels of pressure sensitivity compared to Wacom’s 8,192, though many users might not notice the difference. Furthermore, the Artist Pro 27 is compatible with more operating systems — Windows, macOS, Android, Chrome, and Linux — while Wacom only supports Windows and macOS.
However, the Artist Pro 27 does not support HDR, unlike the Cintiq Pro 27, and has a dimmer 350-nit display compared to Wacom’s 400 nits. The styluses also differ. Wacom’s Cintiq Pro 27 comes with a Pro Pen 3 that allows customizable grip thickness, weight, and buttons, while the Artist Pro 27 includes two different pens — the X3 Pro Slim and the versatile X3 Pro Smart Chip stylus.
With a price tag near $2,000, the Artist Pro 27 is not cheap, but it offers a high-end drawing display at nearly half the price of Wacom’s closest alternative. Creative professionals now have to weigh their brand loyalty against potential savings.