Drawing tablets are heavily used for creating educational content. For example you've probably seen the Khan Academy videos and those are created with a drawing tablet.
For this you want high reliability and durability and you DO NOT need to spend a lot of money buying a fancy tablet. And for those reasons I'll keep the recommendations short:
Pressure support - Will help you strokes look more natural. All drawing tablets have this pressure support.
Tilt - not needed for education use. More of an artist thing.
Tablet buttons (aka. ExpressKeys) - I think they can come in very useful for people. For some people these are critical. No harm in getting them, you can always disable them.
Size - Medium or Small. I always recommend medium. Even though some people are OK with small tablets, I do see a far number of people say the small size makes their hand feel cramped.
Pen tablets (no screen)
One by Wacom Medium (CTL-672)
Pressure: YES
Tilt: NO
Tablet Buttons: NO
Wireless: NO
Wacom Intuos Medium (CTL-6100 or CTL-6100WL)
Pressure: YES
Tilt: NO
Tablet buttons: YES
Wireless: Only the CTL-6100WL supports wireless
Pen displays (have a screen)
XP-Pen Artist 12 GEN2 (CD120FH)
Pressure: YES
Tilt: YES
Tablet buttons: YES
Wireless: NO
XP-Pen Artist 13 GEN2 (CD130FH)
Pressure: YES
Tilt: YES
Tablet buttons: YES
Wireless: NO
Wacom One GEN1 (DTC-133)
Pressure: YES
Tilt: YES
Tablet buttons: NO
Wireless: NO
Sal Khan uses a Wacom Intuos Pro Medium for his videos. That is an AMAZING tablet, but honestly overkill. You can get by with a much less expensive tablet.
Which specific model of Intuos Pro he is using?
It does NOT look to be the latest model of Intuos Pro Medium (PTH-660). You can tell this because in one of his videos he shows the tablet and I can see some things that clearly mark it as an older tablet.
The pen does not look like the Wacom Pro Pen 2 that comes with the PTH-660
The USB-cable connects with a thicker end and is not the L-shaped connector that comes PTH-660
The back of the tablet has the older Wacom branding.
Note that the Khan Academy has this document What software program/equipment is used to make Khan Academy videos? In that doc, they say he uses a Wacom Bamboo tablet. I suspect this probably was true at some point, but he clearly no longer uses it.
Teach with Khan - Sal's Tips for Creating Blackboard Videos for Remote Learning - this is the video where he shows that he uses Wacom Intuos Pro Medium tablet.
ClassPoint - Best Way to Use Wacom Tablet for Online Teaching with PowerPoint [One by Wacom] Dec 2, 2020
GRUMO - Teach with a Tablet (Full Tutorial + Demo) May 26, 2020
If your are a creative, then it's pretty obvious why there's a benefit to using a drawing tablet instead of a mouse when you are drawing.
Some people simply want to use the drawing tablet as a mouse replacement. They can definitely serve this purpose.
I did this for about 10 years. Although I always had a mouse connected, 99.9% of the time I used a drawing tablet.
I used a MEDIUM sized tablet - something the size of a Wacom Intuos Pro Medium.
For a few years I a SMALL sized tablet - something the size of a Wacom Intuos Pro small. When I was using the small tablet, I was in a non-artistic phase so I was not drawing with it much.
I generally recommend MEDIUM sized tablets as a mouse replacement, but SMALL can work also.
One of the reasons I avoided using the mouse was that it was causing wrist pain. The pen was helpful in reducing the pain. However, if I do draw a lot over a month or so, I can develop wrist pain. So a drawing tablet might help, but it will not eliminate these kinds of problems.
To make it easier to switch between typing and using the pen I ALWAYS held the pen in my hand even when typing.
When drawing I held it like you would normally hold a pen, but when I switched to typing, as I extended out my fingers the pen I would rotate the pen so the tip is pointing up and to the side.
The vast majority of drawing tablets support pressure sensitivity. For a mouse replacement, tilt is not important.
The vast majority of drawing tablets support tilt. This is useful for art. Even then not all artists use the tilt feature. For a mouse replacement, tilt is not relevant.
Modern mice are incredibly sturdy devices. They don't even have moving parts except for the buttons. You could drop them from your desk and they will still work.
Drawing tablet pens are much more sensitive. They have more delicate and sensitive parts. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you DO NOT DROP THEM. Sometimes they work perfectly after that. But they can malfunction in all sorts of ways after a drop. And keep in mind that the pens are not cheap. If you need to buy a replacement it will be anywhere from $35 USD to $90 USD.
In a a mouse, you can independently move and click. This means you can move the pointer without accidentally clicking.
The same thing works with drawing tablet pen. But you should realize how it works.
To click - you tap down on the tablet with the pen
To move AND click at the same time - you press down on the tablet and move the pen. The click lasts as long as you are touching the tablet.
With a mouse this is SUPER EASY you can jsut not move the mouse. And it is EASY to keep a mouse still. You can even let go of the mouse from your hand the pointer won't move.
With a drawing tablet, this is actually very hard. Because you have to HOVER the pen at the exact same spot above the tablet. That is very hard to do, because any motion of your hand will often move the pointer.
It's easy to avoid accidental clicks with a mouse.
With a pen you have to HOVER. And if you accidentally touch the surface it will count as a click.
For the vast majority of mice, you can just plug them into a computer and they will "just work". This is because the computer has drivers for mice already installed.
That isn't quite the case for drawing tablets. You will need to install the tablet driver.
Once you install the tablet driver, the tablet is compatible with all applications.
Mice can be:
Wired only
Wireless only
Wired + Wireless
Drawing tablets can be
Wired only
Wired + Wireless
There are no drawing tablets that are wireless only.
Latency - There is a little extra latency when using wireless. Some people don't use wireless for this reason.
Interference - Usually tablets use Bluetooth. You may find that devices liek phones when they are close to your tablet may interfere. Usually this takes the form of an unresponsive pen or stuttering of pointer position as you move.
Lots of them would work. The easy choices are:
One by Wacom Small (CTL-472)
One by Wacom Medium (CTL-672)
Wacom Intuos Small (CTL-4100)
Wacom Intuos Medium (CTL-6100)
Other brands also have tablets that work as mouse replacements, but the safe choice is Wacom because of their track record of reliability.
Mice move the pointer through relative positioning while drawing tablets use absolute positioining: .
However, you can configure the tablet driver to use mouse mode to provide relative positioning which will make it feel more like a mouse. more here: .
If you are using a pen tablet (a tablet without a screen) you ABSOLUTELY SHOULD also configure the tablet to match its active area to that of your monitor. More here:
To move without clicking - you have to hold the pen above the tablet (within a range of about 10mm). This is called hover. more here: .
If these, my strong recommendation is the CTL-672. . You could get the CTL-6100 but all it gives you for the extra cost is some buttons on the tablet.
Feb 24, 2020
(2023/05/03)
Taking notes is a popular scenario for drawing tablets.
Generally I believe you will get the most natural experience taking notes if you use a standalone tablet or dedicated note taking devices. Because both these kinds of devices have screens, are portable, and don't require a computer to use. And this makes them very convenient for taking notes.
On the other hand some people enjoy taking notes with pen tablets (screenless tablets) or pen displays (screen tablets).
Besides locating the position of the pen there are two pen features to discuss.
pen pressure - this is somewhat useful for taking notes because it will make your notes look a bit more natural.
pen tilt - for taking notes, I don't think this is very important at all. And many note taking apps ignore this feature entirely.
Some people can work very well with using a pen tablet for taking notes. Though I'm not one of these people. The chief difficulty in taking notes with the pen tablet is that you cannot see what you are writing and instead you have to look at the screen of your computer. Some find this difficult for taking notes . But for others it works very well.
Considerations:
Size. Small pen tablets don't offer much space for writing and it can feel cramped. A medium pen tablet is better, but then it takes up much more space.
Wireless. You might prefer to get a pen tablet that supports a wireless connection. Because it can be a little irritating to have the tablet always physically connected to the computer.
Recommended pen tablets
If you do want to use a pen tablet for taking notes here are some devices that will work well and don’t cost too much. You can even find them for less cost on eBay.
Wacom One Medium (CTL-672)
Wacom One Small (CTL-472)
Pen displays, because they do have a screen, generally feel more natural for note taking than a pen tablet. However the chief problem with the pen display is that it requires connection with the computer.
Considerations:
Size - a 13" or smaller pen display should work fine. In fact 13" may even be a bit large for this purpose.
Wireless. A pen display will always have at least one wire that needs to be connected to the computer.
Power. The pen display will draw a significant amount of power from your laptop. And this will really reduce the battery life of your laptop.
Complex connection. Ideally you would use a single cable to connect a pen display to a computer. But for various reasons this is not always possible. As an alternative you may be required to have a more complex cabling arrangement - often using a 3-in-1 cable. More here about using one USB-C cable with a pen display.
Pointer lag. Pen displays have a lot of pointer lag - this can be very difficult to deal with when taking notes - especially if you write fast. More here: lag
Dropping the tablet. If you are note taking in a location where you might drop your pen display, in many cases you will either experience a cracked screen or simply break the tablet entirely.
See the note taking section here: Applications
My hobby concerning drawing tablets is centered largely around creatives - people who are drawing, sketching, etc. Despite using tablets for well over a decade, only in 2022 did I discover people were using drawing tablets for games. And some of these games are quite popular.
osu! is a popular rhythm game and many of its players use drawing tablets instead of a mouse. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osu!)
Example of someone playing osu! with a tablet <- this video is relatively well known in the osu! community.
They have about 1.7M monthly active users who play osu!
You can get the live stats from here: https://stats.circleclickers.com/
While creatives tend to use their drawing tablets in standard ways, osu! players do a number of quite surprising things:
Players use tablets of various sizes: Small, Medium, and Large. Small is the most popular based on the videos I've seen.
Players often customize the active area to be surprisingly small - much smaller than even the default active area. In the video above, notice how the player moved the pen only in a tiny region of that tablet.
Players often do not use manufacturer drivers, but instead they use OpenTabletDriver because:
OTD has less lag than manufacturer drivers
OTD is highly customizable through it's plug-in system
OTD works across many tablet models
OTD works on Windows, Mac, and Linux
Drag players play with the pen touching the surface of the tablet.
Hover players don't let the pen touch the tablet surface.
There are various clicking styles used by osu! players.
click by tapping the pen on the tablet
click by using the keyboard
click by alternating between the pen tapping and keyboard presses
Some osu! players - at least the ones I communicate with regularly - are remarkably knowledgeable about drawing tablets.
They know a tremendous amount about the hardware, drivers, etc. Some conduct original research and testing of tablets. Some write code for OpenTabletDriver.
I would consider them absolute experts - far beyond any drawing tablet reviewer out there and myself.
They are also incredibly sensitive to microscopic behaviors, latencies, etc. in drawing tablets - far more than someone who has typically has used tablets only for creative tasks.
Players do advanced customization of osu! through OpenTabletDriver plug-ins. Some examples:
Circular/Elliptical tablet areas
Rotated tablet areas
Live active area randomization
More here: Buying a drawing tablet for osu!
Players using drawing tablets for FPS games is less common than for Rhythm games, but this is the preferred input device for some people.
example: (video)
