This video covers how to install and set up an XP-Pen Deco 02 drawing tablet, reviews
how well this tablet works in various drawing and animation programs, and compares the tablet
to similar ones I’ve used.
Open up the box and you’ll find the tablet.
Parts and accessories are underneath it.
My pen escaped into the box and I found it under the insert.
The tablet has two packaging films on it: one to cover the surface, and one to cover
the roller wheel.
Peel both off.
You only get six shortcut buttons on this tablet, but you get a roller wheel you can
set to do something like zoom or resize brushes.
The wheel is completely silent when it rotates, so it looks like I’m doing nothing but it
is spinning.
There’s a green cap inside the accessories packet.
It goes inside the wheel like this.
The wheel still turns with the green cap on.
I like the feeling of this more so I’ll leave it on.
Something unique about the XP-Pen Deco 02 is you can take the cap off and hang it up.
The pen is inside this hefty all-in-one storage container.
Both ends have a non-scratch, non-slip pad for setting down.
On one end you’ll find eight extra pen tips.
The other end is the pen stand and pen.
Remove the packaging film on the pen.
The pen is wireless, which is sooo nice.
For some tablets you have to charge the pen with a USB cable.
Here you never have to think about charging the pen.
The pen has a digital eraser on the end and one shortcut button.
The button is even with the pen surface, which is the only thing about the tablet I don’t
like.
I kept losing track of where the button was and had to look at my pen and roll it around
to find it again.
Unlike most tablet pens, the Deco 02 pen is hexagonal, not round.
It’s like a pencil.
Does this make drawing any easier or harder?
Does it feel unusual?
No.
It’s just different.
The other parts you get are the USB cable, an Anti-Fouling Artist Glove, oh, that name.
It’s a smudge glove, useful for hot days when your hand is sweaty and sticking to the
tablet surface.
A manual and a warranty card.
Now let’s install the tablet.
First, uninstall any other tablet software and restart your computer.
Go to xp-pen.com/download.
Click the tabs for Windows, Mac, or Linux.
Download the driver.
Right click, unzip.
Install.
Restart your computer for good measure and now we can plug in the tablet.
Plug the small end of the cable into your tablet.
You’ll hear it click.
Plug the USB end into your computer or laptop.
The tablet configured, and now it’s ready to go.
To change your tablet’s settings, you have to use the icon in the system tray here.
In the panel, you can adjust the pressure sensitivity with this curve.
Curve up for thick lines even when you are barely pressing down, curve down for thin
lines even when you are pushing hard.
I found the default setting to be best.
If you have multiple monitors, choose which monitor the tablet is for up here.
You can also custom map the part of the screen the tablet covers.
Below that, if you are left handed choose this option and then flip your tablet around.
If you use Windows and have any problems with the way the tablet draws, trying turning Windows
Ink on or off here.
I left it off and everything worked perfectly.
Set up your shortcut buttons by clicking Express Keys.
Make your shortcuts - they can be key combinations or mouse clicks or switch which monitor the
tablet is on, that sort of thing.
Click the Dial tab to change what the wheel does.
The top option is what gets used.
The reason there are multiple options is because you can program one of the tablet buttons
to switch between these modes with KL KR Switch.
Now you can press that button and the wheel will switch from resizing the brush to scrolling
or zooming, for example.
Extremely useful.
Finally, if you change between programs that use totally different shortcuts and want to
switch your tablet settings for each program, you can export settings down here and import
them with the button next to it.
As for programs, there was nothing I could give the Deco 02 that it couldn’t do: Adobe,
SAI, Toon Boom, MS Paint.
No problems in anything at all, really great pressure sensitivity, and nice clean lines.
There was not a single time that I accidentally hit the roller wheel - a problem that I have
on Wacom express key remotes where you try to press top buttons and end up zooming in.
Wow, it was so nice to resize the brush, zoom, and scroll with the Deco 02’s wheel.
It does make getting to the buttons a little awkward, but you’ll get used to it quickly.
You can try removing the green cap if you find it too bulky while drawing.
Now if you mess up and, say, have two different tablet pens in front of you and grab the wrong
one, you will notice not only does it not work, it scratches the surface of the Deco
02.
Yeah.
Oops.
The surface is only made for these softer tipped pens.
But don’t worry if you scratch it on accident or if it gets scratched after years of use.
It doesn’t affect the tablet at all.
My 14-year-old Bamboo will attest to that.
Still works fine even though it looks like a cat’s scratching post.
How does it compare to other USB tablets?
I put it on par with the Gaomon and the Huion.
To choose between these three it’s a matter of personal preference of how many buttons
you want, if you want the scroll wheel, and what size drawing area.
The other two have 2,000 levels of pressure sensitivity while the XP-Pen Deco has 8,000.
It sounds like a huge difference and you do notice the difference but it’s not massive.
Maybe the deciding factor for you is being able to hang your tablet up.
Who knows?
That concludes this review.
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