Artisul SP1603 screen tablet review - (6.5/10)

Artisul sent me their SP1603 screen tablet to review, so here are some of my thoughts about this tablet after using it in my daily workflow as my main tablet for 4 weeks.

You can find the technical details of this tablet here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09D3JDDD7

But to give you a short version, the tablet is a 15.6-inch screen tablet, with 1920x1080 HD resolution. The colour accuracy of the screen is 90% NTSC (128% sRGB). Laminated screen with tempered glass, which reduces parallax. IMPORTANT TO NOTE: The tablet requires a PC or a laptop as it a drawing screen and not a stand-alone device.

The package was simple and functional, though I noticed that the pen had gotten loose from its place during shipping. The packaging could also be more environmentally friendly, since many of the smaller contents were packed in separate plastic bags.

The tablet comes with a drawing glove, a small plastic stand, a battery-free pen, a lot of spare nibs and needed power cords and adapters if you need those, plus a user manual. The tablet itself looks nice and it is rather thin (9mm).

Design: the screen itself feels and looks nice, but personally I am not a fan of the button panel design – it looks rather old-fashioned and reminds me of the panels you see on cars or old CD players. I like my working tools to have timeless designs. It is functional yes, but not very timeless or aesthetically pleasing design in my opinion.

The tablet was easy to set up. I was also rather impressed with the quality of the screen and how it reproduced colors. The color calibration was close to my main screen straight from the package.

The screen resolution is standard HD, which works just fine for a tablet of this size and the pixels aren’t very noticeable. In comparison, I have a Wacom 22HD tablet from the year 2019, which also has HD resolution, and for a 22-inch tablet, that resolution is a bit too small in my opinion since the screen gets a bit blurry and you can see the pixels rather clearly. But for a tablet of this size of 15.6 inches, an HD resolution is okay and looks rather nice still.

- To be completely honest, the built quality of the tablet doesn’t feel as sturdy as a Wacom tablet. Even if the screen looks and feels nice, the overall built quality of the shortcut keys and scrolling wheel especially feel rather flimsy and somewhat plasticky.

- The scrolling wheel is a nice addition for functions such as quickly zooming in and out, but it is REALLY sensitive and basically has no touch resistance whatsoever – I kept accidentally touching it when I used the shortcut keys, so my drawing program would zoom in and out without intending to do so, which was also rather annoying at times.

The tablet disconnected from my PC a LOT. This happened especially when I used it as a screen tablet in a more upward-tilted position using the stand that came with it.

- The constant disconnecting was annoying though since it forced me to stop drawing and wait for the tablet to find the connection again - which it usually managed to do after a few seconds or sometimes a minute or two. But this still always broke my concentration and flow. I am not sure if this is a hardware or software issue, but this kept happening on a regular basis especially when I used the shortcut keys or pressed my hand against the device while I drew.

Interestingly, the disconnection didn’t occur nearly as much anymore after I started to use the tablet like a screenless graphic tablet after the first week of using it, just resting flat on my desk. When used like this, the tablet disconnected only about once or twice every few days. But if you buy a screen tablet especially, I assume you want to use it as a screen tablet, so the device should work without issues when it is used like that in my opinion.

But yeah especially as a freelancer with deadlines, I don’t want to spend my days doing troubleshooting trying to get my gear to work as it should - it needs to work straight out of the box.

- This leads us to another flaw of this tablet: the placement of the power cables. the cables attach to the same side where they also placed the shortcut keys. In my case, this led to a scenario where I kept accidentally touching the power cables while I worked. Not sure if this was one of the reasons causing the disconnection, since the cable connection isn’t protected or very sturdy either. In comparison, any of my Wacom tablets ever had these kinds of issues or disconnected all the time, and their cable connections were either protected or the cables were placed on the opposite side from the shortcut keys.

+ The pen is nice - not as nice as a Wacom pro pen, but rather near that feeling. It is a bit lighter than a Wacom pen but otherwise feels rather similar in my hand, which is plus. I always use my pen buttons to color pick with just one click, but with Artisul pen, it wasn’t possible to change the pen express key settings to do the same. So that was I minus as it required me to change my workflow.

+ The screen has a very small parallax thanks to the laminated screen. In terms of parallax, the experience felt a bit like drawing on my iPad pro. The tablet has some parallax when you move the pen near the corners of the screen, but it was still very small. No jiggly straight lines either, even with the ruler test. So, the screen is nice, once again.

+ The screen looks nice: the HD resolution works for this size and doesn’t look too blurry, and the color accuracy of the screen is nice. A very nice screen considering the price tag and how some Wacom models with a 1k price tag have just an HD resolution as well.

On their product site, Artisul says the tablet has a paper-like anti-glare film applied to the screen. I was excited about this personally since I really like the feeling of traditional pen on paper. When I first tried the tablet, it indeed had a textured feeling, but I soon noticed that wore off really quickly, in the span of the first hour. This could also be because there was some residue left from the protective film, I’m not sure.

+ Personally, the tablet has a similar drawing feeling/texture to a Wacom screen, but no it does not feel like drawing on paper. It still feels like you’re drawing on a semi-matte screen - a very nice laminated screen but it’s still a screen. I think the overall screen quality and very small screen parallax are one of the strongest suits of this tablet.

+ The price: this is a relatively big screen tablet with a rather nice quality screen, and you get that for 259$. The tablet isn’t perfect and I’m not sure if this manufacturer’s devices will last as long as some Wacom models do, but for this price, I think the screen itself is very nice if you like screen tablets.

+ The 15.6-inch size is still more compact but pleasant to use – definitely not too small but not too big and clunky either. I felt like I had enough space to work even when I had all my program brush panels showing etc. Size-wise, the drawing space of the screen is almost the same height as a regular A4 paper, and width wise it’s noticeably bigger that an A4 paper. I like to sketch on A4 sketching pads, so this size was very suitable for me.

That being said, I do think it's important to underline the fact that screen tablets - especially when they are of this size and not big tablets - require you to look down when you work, which often isn’t the optimal or most ergonomic working position, especially in the long term. The cable connection stops you from moving the tablet too much, and the smaller size means that the screen is positioned even lower.

Working in a position like this can cause neck muscle pains and poor posture. And if your screen tablet is in a very upward position, then your drawing hand and wrist will be in a more angled position as well, which can cause wrist pain and issues. This is the reason why I personally use just regular, screenless graphic tablets (excluding my iPad, which is more ergonomic hugely due to being completely wireless and small, it’s like a digital sketchbook). But I still do the majority of my work on my desktop PC and draw on a graphic tablet, and I don’t have any neck or wrist pains or problems even if I draw a lot. But of course, everyone is different, and this is just my personal experience.

While the tablet does come with a stand, it isn't anything special or very sturdy either. It is plasticky and doesn't support the tablet all the way as it is smaller in width than the tablet.

For the first weeks or so, I used the tablet as a screen tablet where I worked looking down at the screen when I drew. But during this week, I quickly noticed that if I continued to work like this, I would risk getting neck and wrist pains.

Because of this, I'm using screenless graphic tablets most of the time because those tablets allow me to work in a more ergonomic body position, where I don't have to look down and I can keep my head and neck straight.

In conclusion, I tried drawing while looking at the screen but I quickly had to reverse into using the tablet like a basic graphic tablet.

A decent tablet and the screen quality and color reproduction are nice, especially for a tablet of this price point.

The tablet also has very little parallax thanks to its fully laminated screen, and clearly wins the round against all the Wacom screen tablets that I’ve used. Because of this, drawing on the screen felt much more natural and enjoyable. The only major thing that broke this enjoyable experience was the disconnection problem, which was a shame tbh.

The pen works and feels good, and after a month of daily use, the pen nib wasn’t worn off only slightly. I even dropped the pen a few times and it still works fine. The 15.6-inch screen size is not too big and bulky but not too small either.

The tablet could be sturdier and more functionally/user-friendly designed in some areas, e.g., the cable placement and unnecessary highly sensitive shortcut wheel. The plastic stand isn’t very sturdy either and it doesn’t support the tablet 100%.

The constant disconnection problem was very annoying though, and without it, I would have liked this tablet a lot more, and maybe given it an 8 instead of 6.5 out of ten.