Wacom Intuos Pro 2017 (PTH-x60) notes

Overview

The Wacom Intuos Pro 2017 (PTH-x60) series of tablets are still the best pen tablets ever made even in 2025. They are tied with the Intuos Pro 2025 series (PTK-x70) series. Both are at the top of their game but you might prefer one over the other.

I have used both the large and medium sizes extensively and the small size a little bit.

All three are highly recommended. I recommend the Medium size (PTH-660) size for most users. This reflects my standard guidance that medium-sized tablets are the best choice for the vast majority.

The Intuos Pro Small (PTH-460) was actually released in 2019 instead of 2017. It is still considered part of the Intuos Pro (2017) series.

Model ID

Year

Name

PTH-860

2017

Intuos Pro Large (2017)

PTH-660

2017

Intuos Pro Medium (2017)

PTH-460

2019

Intuos Pro Small (2019)

Included Pen

These tablets come with the Wacom Pro Pen 2 (KP-504E) which is a HUGE part of why the drawing experience is so good. My notes on this pen.

Drawing experience

In summary, the drawing experience is EXCELLENT. Only the Intuos Pro 2025 series matches this tablet.

Pressure handling

Quality of pressure handling due to the pen. And the KP-504E pen is EXCELLENT at pressure. See My notes on the Wacom Prop Pen 2 (KP-504E) pen.

Pointer lag

EXCELLENT. These tablets have very little pointer lag. You can see that demonstrated in this video: https://youtu.be/CRwzPJPA_5A.

Cables and connectivity

Included cables - These tablets come with a USB C cable.

Using 3rd party USB-C cables - You can use this cable or any USB C cable that supports data. In fact, I never use the USB C cables that Wacom provides for these tablets.

Wireless - All three tablets support Bluetooth connectivity for wireless operation.

Touch

In my opinion the touch support is not great. The touch pad on any laptop you use will be far better and more responsive. Also the touch support has poor palm rejection. Disabling touch is the first thing I do with an tablet that supports it.

Touch on Windows vs Mac - Touch works much better on Window systems than on Macs. This is not Wacom's fault, it is due to how well Windows supports touch compared to MacOS.

Surface texture

The Intuos Pro series has a slightly more textured surface than many other tablets.

Over an extended period of time (months?), you'll notice that the texture erodes a bit. The texture never goes completely away but it has a more typical amount of texture for a tablet. And the surface can end up looking a little "smooth" or "polished" in those areas. If you move the tip of your pen across the surface of the tablet you will even hear the difference as you move into these eroded areas. Below is an example of the texture erosion in Wacom Intuos Large (PTH-860).

Texture sheets

The Intuos Pro MEDIUM and LARGE models have a surface that is replaceable with a Texture Sheet.

Wacom has three kinds of texture sheets: Standard, Smooth, and Rough. These texture sheets are often sold out and the smooth one is EXTREMELY rare. Besides giving you the texture feeling you want, they are useful if you've scratched up the surface of your tablet and want to make it feel like new.

Nib wear

A result of surface texture texture is that - depending how you draw - you can wear down a nib very fast. If you are doing a lot of shading with many back and forth strokes you might even notice significant wear within a week or even a day.

In any case, I advise everyone to always pay attention to their nibs and replace them if they are getting very worn.

Diagonal wobble

Rating: VERY GOOD. Low amounts of wobble.

Wacom Intuos Pro Large (PTH-860)

Using a large tablet feels quite a bit different from using a medium tablet. It's important to understand this. So if you're interested in this tablet please watch the video below. In that video, I go into great detail about the practical issues of using a large tablet. And the video specifically covers the Wacom Intuos Pro large (PTH 860).

Buying Intuos Pro 2017 in 2025

Q: Is it worth buying the Intuos pro 2017 (PTH-x60) series in 2025?

A: It will be a struggle in the future to use the tablet. For most people I recommend buying the Intuos Pro 2025

Basics

The (PTH-x60) series is an absolutely excellent. It is just as good as the Intuos Pro 2025 (PTK-x70) series. Many people still prefer the Intuos pro 2017 series to the Intuos pro 2025 series. These tablets come with the industry's best pen that has superior pressure performance.

Challenges

Wacom professional pen tablets have a support lifetime of something like 10 to 12 years. When the support lifetime ends two things will happen:

Wacom will stop providing updated drivers for that tablet. Never drivers will simply refuse to work with it.
Wacom support will no longer help you with the tablet. They will suggest that you buy a newer one.

Based on previous data I believe support will end will be between 2027 to 2029. It could be longer because the truth is that the Intuos pro 2017 series is super popular. But ,ultimately I by 2030 the support lifetime will completely end.

Using this tablet in the future

After the end of the support lifetime, we can consider the Intuos pro 2017 series to be an “older tablet”. Using older tablets is totally fine but you have to be aware of the issues. See this document: Using older drawing tablets

The hardware will last forever but eventually not having updated drivers will pose a problem.

You can use older drivers for a while until some point in which they will not work. A new drivers will refuse to work with the older tablets. See: Using older drivers

Another option is to use something like open tablet driver which is challenging to set up for artistic use but it does work extremely well. This is an option for for advanced users and requires some technical expertise. For a normal user I would not advise it unless you have help. See: Install OpenTabletDriver on Windows

Last updated 12 days ago