Test XP-Pen Deco Fun: A Budget friendly Drawing Tablet for budding artists

With a graphic tablet you can draw on your computer! Your screen will turn into your canvas.

If you do any type a graphic design, digital design, digital art and marketing graphics there will come a time that you will need some new equipment to take your skills and abilities up a notch. I highly recommend XP-Pen products.

Graphics Drawing Tablets for PC have come a long way in recent years. Gone are the days where the only game in town was a Wacom Intuos. Now, there are options to suit all budgets – from powerful, feature-packed pen displays with high-resolution touchscreens, to mid-range and cheap drawing tablets that balance price with power.

XP-Pen was founded in 2005 and in my opinion, whether you're interested in painting, drawing or photograph retouching, it is the company you should consider when looking for a graphics tablet.

Recently, XP-Pen introduced a new addition to its Deco family: the XP-Pen Deco Fun with XS, S, L three sizes and four different colors. Since I've been a XP-Pen tablet user for many years, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

The first thing I noticed was that XP-Pen now offers a bewildering selection of entry level and mid range tablets.

These “entry level” tablets are the XP-Pen Deco Fun Series. Prices vary because their sizes vary by tablet. They feature a smooth drawing surface and Android compatible with Android, Chrome OS.

For my tests, I bought the whole models of the Deco Fun range.

Unboxing the XP-Pen Deco Fun

When I first got it I was really excited because I'd seen on Youtube all the unboxings and the interior of the box is really nice!

It's a beautiful box for storing your tablet in! Underneath the tablet is a compartment for the cable, that connects it to your laptop, and the manual.

Once you buy it, you'll get:

– The actual Tablet .
– The pen with buttons .
– 1 Pen Clipper and 10 extra nibs
– A booklet containing information on the tablet
– a USB connecting cable

Models

There are three versions of the Deco Fun. The price depends on the size you get too, obviously the bigger, the more expensive.

Extra Small ($29.99) — This tablet works well for those looking for an ultra-portable design as it measures 182.4 x 134.7 x 10.5mm.

Small ($39.99 ) — This size is my personal preference at 210.5 x 159.8 x 12.9mm. This matches my laptop well and easily fits in the bag for on-location work. Its large enough to use comfortably at a desk.

Large ($49.99) —This size works best for illustrators or those with a large work area. It measures 315 x 222.9 x 12.5mm.

Info & Features:

Here is some information and features about the tablet:

– The tablet has no buttons on the side to customize .
– There are additional 2 buttons on the pen.
– you can connect the tablet with its USB-C to USB-A type cable.
– The XP-Pen Deco Fun has also great pen pressure sensitivity.
– It has about 3 sizes and four colors ( Classic Black, Space Blue, Apple Green, Carmine Red ) to choose from.
– The small and Large Size tablets do have tilt feature.
– tablets supports Window , Mac , linux , Android connection and is widely compatible with Chromebook devices.

The Deco Fun is a simple entry into pen and tablet-based photo editing and illustration on a budget. While not as large as pricier options, and serving only as a map of the screen and not an actual screen, the Deco Fun' pressure sensitivity simplifies and speeds up many types of brush-based work.

Here's the official website for the XP-PEN Deco Fun: https://www.xp-pen.com/product/905.html

Install the Driver

Getting used to the tablet also involved getting the hang of how the pen worked on the tablet's surface. Much of this was made flexible via the tablet driver.

Once you have your tablet, you need to install all the drivers so it all works properly, which is a very simple task to do and shouldn't take up a lot of time.

Just Go to the XP-Pen official site drivers page. Click Download next to the latest driver that corresponds to your computer's operating system. Follow the prompts to finish the driver installation.

The Driver will help you to make relevant modifications on pen pressure to helping it feel akin to an actual pencil.

Tech Review

The tablet surface corresponds to your computer monitor; moving the pen over the tablet is analogous to moving your finger on a track pad — the movement is in your hands, but your eyes remain forward, looking at the monitor. While it sounds less intuitive than drawing directly on the screen, in practice it feels natural.

Made from smooth black plastic similar in feel to the Touchpad on a Laptop, the XP-Pen Deco Fun should look right at home on most desks. The majority of the tablet is taken up by that work surface, which measures 6.3 by 4 inches on the small model .

Four rubber pads underneath provide grip to carry the tablet steady while you're working. While constructed from plastic, the Deco Fun feels well-built for the price. I did find that with enough use, the pen will leave tiny scratch marks in the surface of the tablet .

Use the Deco Fun feels like the you tried to type without looking at your hands. Watching the screen instead of your hand while drawing feels strange, at first, but that odd feeling slowly fades the more you use the tablet system until it feels just as easy as typing.

In fact, employing a separate tablet and monitor — versus drawing directly on a screen — may even be a plus, as your hand doesn't physically block your view of your digital canvas.

My experience with it

Digital Painting experience

After installing the XP-Pen Deco Fun, I began exploring the digital medium landscape by trying out the paid software offer of Photoshop CC , alongside various other different free software including Medibang Paint, Gimp ,Krita, etc.

The bundled software ( ArtRage Lite ) doesn't do much for me . I think it's better to buy a Deco Fun and then buy whatever software you want to use with it.

The drawing surface is awesome: slick and smooth with no skips or lag. XP-Pen has always made quality tablets so there's no surprise that the pen responsiveness is spot-on.

The product does have its downfalls, The real difference between this tablet and its predecessors (and other tablets in XP-Pen's lineup) are the customizable hot buttons down the side of the tablet.

you can using it replaces drawing paper, pencils, watercolors, and just any other art tool you could think of!

A lot drawing programs are free, so once you get a tablet, you are essentially ready to go.

Since tablet stylus acts just like a pen, paintbrush, or whatever you want it to be, the table itself senses pressure. The biggest edge the Deco Fun has over a mouse is the pressure sensitivity.

More pressure creates smaller, darker strokes, while less pressure creates a line as large as the selected brush with more edge gradient. The pen doesn't mean you never need to choose a brush size, shape, or edge again, but the pressure sensitivity allows you to urge that maximum brush size or just a fraction of that selected brush with light pressure.

This makes it so that when you press hard, the lines made are thicker and darker, just like in real life. You can easily draw and color like you would on regular paper, except with more tools that you couldn't use in real life.

Use Deco Fun Graphic Tablet to Edit Photos

The main benefit to a tablet when photograph retouching is not as obvious as you might think. The precise movements compared to a mouse are nice but actually being able to change pressure on the pen is equally as useful, especially if you are dodging and burning.

While the Deco Fun is the most time-efficient when using the pressure sensitivity, the tablet-based editing feels more natural for a number of other uses. Using the pen to tap out blemishes with the healing tool was slightly faster than using the mouse, but it also felt more natural and, frankly, helped me in making a tedious task a bit more enjoyable.

If you think you'd be better/faster with a tablet, you should seriously consider getting one. Illustrators, cartoonists, animators, photographers doing retouching/editing by mouse would all benefit from a tablet.

I use the pen stylus even for video editing. Period point blank, holding a pen is going to be more accurate and efficient rhan holding a mouse for any computer task you can think of, at least for me.

Works with Chromebooks

This entry level tablet connects to any Chromebook with a USB cable and then you use the included stylus to draw like you'd normally draw! I've used a similar product from XP-Pen before to draw out math equations and it worked really well.

Supported on Chrome OS 88 and later, and Kernel version 4 and later(including 4.4, 4.14 and 4.19).

If your Chromebook has a touchscreen, the lag on some of those can make drawing accurately nearly impossible.

There are plenty of drawing apps for Chromebooks . You could use this for art (obviously) but also for students who want to show their math work.

This most likely has very little lag and the price makes it very affordable to boot.

Also when you buy the deco fun tablet you will get the three-month trail of Explain Everything whiteboard app （ just like Google Jamboard , Openboard and MS Whiteboard ） license .

Just download the app on your device to use to draw and open the board in a browser to screen share (or just send them the share link to view) and they can see what you draw.

I've been using the xp-pen with OneNote and PowwrPoint and it's worked great. You get used to coordinating the pen with the screen pretty quickly. it's great for online courses .

Support connect to your Android phone or tablet!

you need to download a driver to your pc and connect the tablet to update the tablet's firmware . after that its suppoused to work as intended.

It doesnt work with bluetooth it has to be connected using usb otg ( not come with , you have to buy one by yourself ) .

I connected my XP-Pen Deco Fun to my Samsung Galaxy (my phone came with a special adapter) and it technically works. However, you can't see where the pen is but you can still click and draw.

inixPint X this one support pen pressure and Sketchbook are my favorite apps . also with also medibang paint and adobe sketch ( idk why those 2 dont support pen pressure , But you can still draw. ).

Conclusion

The XP-Pen Deco Fun is the perfect tablet for anyone to start their journey in the digital medium. The added bonus of the free software, and relatively cheap prize makes it a perfect comic for the budget artist.

If you're looking at buying a Drawing Tablet, I definitely recommend getting a XP-Pen Deco Fun. For a beginner, it's perfect, not difficult to use and great results.

I'm thrilled with it and happily using it to sketch and paint in Photoshop.

If you do a lot of retouching, photography editing or even drawing, you should buy one, in my opinion. It's a solid product with minimal problems.

If you draw a lot, I would consider a XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro Drawing Tablet With Screen . I do not think you'd benefit from a screen with photograph retouching, so I do not recommend getting the more expensive model if you're only interested in photography.