Overview

The Wacom Pro Pen 2 is an INCREDIBLE pen. Despite the existence of the Pro Pen 3, I think the Pro Pen 2 is better. This is the standard against which I judge all other pens.

Pressure

• It supports 8192 levels of pressure

• Like other Wacom pro pens it has an very low IAF of <1gf.

• As of May 2024 it has the highest maximum pressure in the industry of almost 800gf.

Features

• Two buttons

• Eraser

Cost

It is an expensive pen at about $90. So it is more expensive than some pen tablets themselves.

Overview

Wacom introduced this pen in 2023. It is a terrible pen. Because of of how it handles pressure. I prefer using the Wacom One Pen 2019 GEN1 (CP-913) instead.

Officially the name of the CP-923 pen is "Wacom One Standard Pen" but that name is confusing so I will call it one of the two following names:

• Wacom One Pen (GEN2)

• CP-923

The Old Wacom One Pen (CP-913)

Below is the old Wacom One Pen (CP-913). It is better than the CP-913. It only has one button but the pressure handling is much better.

Pen support

• All the Wacom One (Gen 2) tablets are compatible with the new Wacom One Pen (Gen 2).

• This is good. It eliminates a huge source of confusion around pen compatibility.

Pen evolution

• One by Wacom (CTL-472, CTL-672) -> Wacom Pen 2K (LP-190K)

• Intuos (CTL-4100*, CTL-6100*) -> Wacom Pen 4K (LP-1100K)

• Wacom One Pen (Gen 1) -> CP91300B2Z

• Wacom One Pen (Gen 2) -> CP92303B2Z

Pressure levels

• One by Wacom (CTL-472, CTL-672) -> 2048

• Intuos (CTL-4100*, CTL-6100*) -> 4096

• Wacom One (Gen 1) -> 4096

• Wacom One (Gen 2) -> 4096

So no improvements to pen pressure levels. As a reminder, all you really need are 2048 pressure levels and it is the pressure range that is more important.

Number of pen buttons

• New pen (CP-923) -> 2 buttons

• Old pen (CP-913) -> 1 button

Tilt

• New pen (CP-923) -> supports tilt

• Old pen (CP-913) -> does not support tilt

Compatibility

Backwards compatibility

• New pen (CP-923) -> Does not work with Wacom One (Gen 1) (DTC-133) tablet

Forwards compatibility

• Old pen (CP-913) -> Does work with new new Wacom One 2023 GEN2 tablets

Samsung Galaxy S compatibility

• I confirmed both pens (CP-913, CP-923) work with the Samsung Galaxy S8 Ultra.

• I confirmed that the Samsung S Pen works with both the Wacom One 2019 GEN1 tablet and the Wacom One 2023 GEN2 tablets

Serious Pressure problems

• The CP-923 pen has issues with low pressure. See this video: https://youtu.be/415ngQOHiME

• The CP-913 does not have these issues

Max Pressure

Basics

• Low IAD + good max pressure

• Two buttons

• No eraser

Pressure response

Max pressure is good (>= 400gf). Ignore IAF in charts below - my testing was not designed for accurate IAF measurements.

The Wacom One Pen (CP-913) was design to work with the Wacom One 2019 GEN1 (DTC-33) which was one of Wacom's consumer pen display.

This pen is a very "consumer" pen, and it has a OK performance but is absolutely not as good as Wacom's Pro Pens such as the Wacom Pro Pen 2 (KP-504E).

Two things separate this pen from Wacom's Pro Pens:

• IAF

• Buttons

Pressure

It has a higher IAF and thus requires more force to register a stroke. If you've used other Wacom Pens you may be very disappointed in this pen. If you've never used a drawing tablet before It may not be as big an issue.

• A Pro Pen 2 has an IAF of <1gf. Which is EXCELLENT

• Apple Pencil GEN2 has an IAF of <1gf. Which is EXCELLENT

• A typical non-Wacom pen has an IAF of 3g which is GOOD

• The CP-913 has an IAF of ~5gf which is OK.

Its max pressure is about ~350gf. This is good.

Buttons

Unlike the vast majority of drawing tablet pens which have 2 buttons, this only has a single button.

Next Generation Wacom One GEN2 pen (CP-923)

This successor pen CP-923, is awful. See my notes: 7P notes: Wacom One Pen GEN2 (CP-923)

Overview

Here you can find a list of common Wacom pens and some compatibility notes.

List of common Wacom pens

Pen & tablet compatibility

Wacom tablets are highly specific about which pens they work with.

Notes on buying pens for Wacom tablets

Always check with Wacom support to verify that a specific pen model will work with your tablet BEFORE you purchase the pen.

Pro Pen 3

The Wacom Pro Pen 3 (ACP50000DZ) is a very normal EMR pen that lives up to previous models in terms of quality. And may be slightly better than the Wacom Pro Pen 2.

Pressure

Background

Pressure levels

• Pro Pen 3 supports 8192 pressure levels.

• Nothing special here. All modern tablets/pens say they support this number of pressure levels.

• I continue to maintain that 2048 levels is all you need for creative applications. Some say even fewer pressure levels are needed.

Pressure response for drawing

RATING: EXCELLENT

Pressure response is how changes in pressure translates to drawing strokes in creative application

I tried it in these scenarios

• Small pressure produces for light strokes

• It is easy to create many small slight strokes quickly (example: hatch lines)

• Varying pressure as you draw changes stroke width very smoothly

• It is easy to maintain even pressure and line width.

• Nice tapering at beginning and end of strokes

  • How the beginning and ends of strokes look is highly depending on the app and the brush settings.

    • For example, sudden flicks to end a line in Clip Studio Paint look a little different than the same motion in Photoshop. But this seems normal.

  • For the Pro Pen 3 with the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 the begging and ends of strokes felt as good as they always have.

Pressure range

Rating: EXCELLENT

The Pro Pen 3 has the typical wide pressure range from Wacom. Unfortunately there are no clear published specs from Wacom on other manufacturers on these pressure range values. So we have to evaluate it subjectively for now. To me it seems similar to that of the Wacom Pro Pen 2 which has a very wide pressure range.

Initial activation force

Rating: EXCELLENT

The Pro Pen 3 has a typical low IAF for Wacom Pro pen.NOTE: I am not skilled enough to measure it, but to me the Pro Pen 3 IAF feels like the Pro Pen 2 which has an IAF of <1gf.

Comparing Initial Activation Force

• Wacom does not publish IAF numbers

• I don't know of any clear way to measure it.

• One benchmark used to evaluate IAF is whether the weight of the pen itself will trigger a pressure reading.

• I tried using this benchmark to get a feel for the IAF the Pro Pen 3 versus the Huion PW517

  • I dangled the pen on the surface from a piece of tape. This was to avoid my hand adding pressure.

  • I looked at the impact on the "pressure test region" of their respective driver apps

  • Result for Wacom Pro Pen 3: The weight of the Wacom pen itself consistently draws a stroke

  • Result for Huion PW517: The weight Huion pen itself the will inconsistently draw a stroke. Sometimes it draws. Sometimes it doesn't.

Customizability

• Unlike previous Wacom pens, the Pro Pen 3 is very modular and customizable

• Grip options

  • No grip

  • flared grip - gives it same basic shape as the pro pen 2

  • non-flared grip

My pen configuration

• 1 pen body with tip - the front

• 2 pen body rear

• 3 button strip with three buttons

• 4 metal weight. I placed the heavier end inside part 1

• 5 flared grip

When my pen is fully assembled it looks like this:

3 button strip

• I like buttons on my pens so I installed the 3 button strip

• Wacom expects you'll map the topmost button to erase

• Personally I have difficult distinguishing three buttons from two and so I often press the third button when I meant to press the second.

• So, in Wacom driver, I simply disable the third button.

• I was afraid the button strip would easily come out of the pen. It is securely in there and hasn't popped out even when I have dropped the pen to the floor accidentally.

Drawing experience

• NOTE: This relates to the physical feeling of holding, moving, pressing the pen against the glass. This has nothing to do with how pressure works or how it works with apps.

• SUMMARY: The feeling is EXCELLENT

• I think it is an improvement over the Wacom Pro Pen

• However I think there is a lots of subjectivity to this. For example, I accidentally picked up the Pro Pen 2 and started drawing with it. And I thought I was using the Pro Pen 3 and remarked how good it felt. Only when I looked at the pen did I realize I was using the old pen.

• To me the differences between the Pro Pen 3 and the Pro Pen 2 are slight and subtle.

• Other people feel that the difference is more obvious.

Solidity

RATING: EXCELLENT

Because the pen is very modular, I was afraid that it would feel unstable. Actually, it's incredibly solid feeling.

Grip feeling

• The grip is made of two pieces. Inside it a shell of plastic which is surrounded by the rubber grip material.

• Overall it the grip is much more firm than the grip of the pro pen 2

• The grip doesn't feel rubbery

• Very difficult to bend when the Grip is installed.

• The grip can be damaged with sufficient force. If you squeeze the grip when it is not on the pen, you will initially find it hard to bend however much if the rigidity is due to the plastic shell inside. If you keep exerting pressure you will break the plastic and it won't fit as well when you place it on the pen.

Compatibility with older Wacom tablets

Currently, the Pro Pen 3 can only be used with the Cintiq Pro 27.

Possibility of future compatibility. Wacom mentioned on twitter and during their demo event they would release an update that would make the Pro Pen 3 work on select older tablets.

• After their pre-launch demo event on October 5, 2022, they published the Q&A. This was the first time they were clear that they were working on some form of compatibility.

• On 2024/03/09 I asked Wacom again on twitter
• Wacom has not published that update

• Wacom has not identified which older tablets will be updated to be compatible with the Pro Pen 3

What happens when you try using the Pro Pen 3 with an older tablet

• With Wacom's latest drivers

  • Nothing happens

  • The drivers don't reveal that the pen even exists.

• With OpenTabletDriver

  • The tablet does sense the pens position - but the cursor is "bouncing around" many times a second- it is unusable for drawing

Barrel rotation

Eraser

The pen DOES NOT include an eraser at the other end. Instead, use one of the 3 buttons as the eraser.