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Graphics tablets have become ubiquitous because, simply put, they make drawing, painting, or editing with a computer feel natural. Tablets are an alternative to the mouse, and to some degree the keyboard, and as such, they may relieve the repetitive stresses of working with a computer. No CG studio is complete without one.
So which tablet should you purchase? In this review, well take a look at Monoprices budget-friendly Graphic Drawing Tablet (MP1060-HA60) as a choice for new artists looking to dip their toes into computer illustration. Note that the Monoprice Graphic Drawing Tablet does not have a specific name, so for the purposes of this review, well simply call the MP1060-HA60 tablet the Monoprice.
Meeting the Monoprice
The drawing area of the Monoprice is 10 x 6.25 inches, which makes it a medium-sized tableta popular size range. The tablets relevant specs weigh in as follows: 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity, 4000 lines-per-inch (LPI) resolution, and a refresh rate of 200 pictures per second (PPS). There is no tilt sensitivity, and the pen stylus has no eraser.
Pressure sensitivity specifies how much pressure the tablet can pick up. Typically, pressure sensitivity comes into play when drawing variable-width lines or strokes, working with opacity and color, and now when sculpting digitally. In general, professional-grade tablets start at 2048 levels. Resolution, measured in lines per inch (lpi), measures the amount of data the tablet can send to the computer, and the refresh rate is how fast the tablet updates the data sent to the computer. With HD displays becoming the norm, higher-resolution and faster tablets are better.
Thus, at 1024...