Looking for a cheap, portable standalone drawing tablet for drawing and taking notes on the go? Enter the UGEE UT2 Android Tablet!
I have been reluctant to get a standalone drawing tablet in the past as I prefer to use a traditional drawing tablet with my laptop but this has changed my opinion.
After using it for a few months, I can say without a doubt it is one of the best budget standalone drawing tablets out there.
In this review, I will try to highlight a few pros and cons so you can decide for yourself.
About UGEE
Founded in 1998 in Shenzhen, China, UGEE has a reputation for being a budget label, with good quality drawing tablets and pen displays selling between $40 and $300.
The new Ugee UT2 and UT3 ‘Fun Drawing Pad’ are their most expensive Standalone Android drawing tablets.
Unboxing & Accessories
Along with the case-stand are the tablet itself, as well as everything you need to plug and play.
Including a stylus pen, a black drawing glove, USB-C cable, 18W power adapter, spare nib, nib extractor, instruction book and warranty card.
The sleeve-like case has built-in corner protectors, which means these are kept on the case and not the tablet itself.
This plastic frame also acts as the sleeve’s stand, it can be wedged into preset grooves to create four positions – one vertical and three slightly angled.
But there’s no there’s no slot in the casing for stowing the stylus. This is an important thing that needs improvement.
Design and Build Quality
The UGEE UT2 boasts a sleek and modern design. The sturdy metal frame and a glass screen gives it a premium feel without compromising on durability.
The corners including the LCD Screen are rounded off. Bezels are thin and uniform on four sides.
The metallic space-grey finish looks subtle and will not draw too much attention. On the back-middle section of the tab is the Ugee brand logo.
There are two speakers, one on each side, and three buttons along for the top of the frame for power, audio controls and to toggle between the three colour modes.
Portability
Thanks to the compact 10.36-inch screen size, and 7.5mm Thickness, the UGEE UT2 tablet is highly portable and easy to carry around. is .
The weight of 466g is considered lightweight for a tablet at this size. Even add a case and the weight is still manageable to draw with while you’re holding the tablet.
If you want an extra wide working space to create your art, the 14.25-inch variant – Ugee UT3 should do the trick. But it is less portable.
Screen Quality
This tablet is using a IPS LCD display with 2K (2000×1200 pixels) resolution and 72% NTSC/99% sRGB Color Gamut. While it is certainly not an OLED display, it is bright, vibrant, and certainly high resolution enough for mostly anybody.
If you want a high-quality OLED screen, buy a samsung galaxy tab S9 or S10+ plus. It certainly perfect for watching movies or TV, and unless you are directly comparing it with an OLED you won’t notice much difference.
The peak Brightness is 350 nits and the Refresh Rate is restricted to 60Hz so it is not the dynamic Display out there but I am sure consumers would not care about that, and for the price screen quality is reasonable.
Note that the display is fully laminated so there’s no gap between the glass and the LCD beneath. When drawing, there’s no gap between the line and the pen tip.
The screen is matte-finished and closer to a traditional pen display tablet than a consumer tablet like iPad 10th Gen or a Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite. It’s also smooth to the touch and has a little paper-like ‘tooth’ to it when using the stylus, something non-art tailored tablets don’t offer.
While the anti-glare finish can result in a small amount of noise it’s hardly visible. Given the coating, the Ugee UT2 works well in all lighting conditions I tested, from bright direct light to dim room lighting.
Three Color Modes
The screen can be set in 3 different color modes: Regular, Color Paper, and Ink Paper modes.
It’s a handy tech helps reduce eye strain with blue light filtering, sunlight, and darker display modes as well as improved color and contrast settings.
Regular mode is just that, full color all the time as seen on any tablet.
The color Paper mode makes the UT3 mimic a color e-ink display. I can’t decide if Color paper is worth using.
Ink Paper mode can be useful—especially for e-ink users writing notes or recreational reading that’s easy on the eyes.
These color modes can be quickly activated/changed with what Ugee calls the U-Key, a single function button on the top side of the UT2. Press it and it brings up the color choices.
Processor & Performance
Under the hood, The UGEE UT2 is running an MediaTek MT8781 (another name of MediaTek Helio G99) 6nm Octa-core processor with 6GB of Ram.
The MediaTek MT8781 isn’t a powerful chipset, but it’s fine if you’re not doing anything too demanding. 6GB RAM is also alright for running multiple apps and multi-tasking.
The main issue performance-wise is with navigation speed, as there’s a slight delay when swiping between menus, tapping on the screen to type, or opening a new app, which isn’t as instantaneous as premium Android tablets.
Anyone who’s used lower-end tablets or phones will be used to this, as it’s just a symptom of middling specs.
Storage
By default this tablet comes with 128 GB of storage, with around 20 GB of it being reserved for the system.
It has plenty of space for all your apps, and a decent amount of downloaded content.
Not to mention it also has MicroSD expansion, which allows you to expand the storage up to 1TB.
Speakers
The UGEE UT2 has two speakers. Their quality is good, though Bass is a bit weak, but vocals are clear enough, especially when watching TV or movies.
The device has a 3.5-mm audio jack for audio output via cable and supports Bluetooth 5.0 for wireless audio output.
Cameras
The camera on this tablet is perfectly fine. The rear camera is 8 megapixels, and front facing camera is 8 megapixels.
While it’s no Flagship smartphone camera, it’s certainly good enough for scanning documents or video calling, since I doubt you’re going to be hauling your tablet around taking pictures with it.
Android 14 OS & Drawing Apps
Ugee UT2 tablet is running Android 14 OS, with UGEE UI, which is very simple and clean. So you can download and use drawing apps from google play store.
Ugee pre-installs a couple of popular free drawing apps: Ibis Paint X and Medibang Paint. Both are capable apps, perfect for beginners, But Keep in mind that the free versions usually include ads.
But the android drawing apps that got my attention were Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and Infinite Painter.
Infinite Painter offers closest drawing experience to Procreate if you are looking for something like that on Android. It’s rich in features and tools but has a really clean interface that lets even a complete beginner jump in and paint without getting overwhelmed.
Sketchbook Pro is more than capable for beginners who are making the transition to digital. It is one of the few free apps that offer so much variety. The basic tools that you will end up using a lot are pens, brushes, erasers, and layers.
Other notable mentions are Adobe Sketch, Art Flow, Concepts, Clip Studio Paint, and Krita. I recommend trying out a few of these to see which one fits your needs the best.
Stylus Pen
The included U-Pencil take the tablet experience to another level. It features 4,096 levels of pressure, Tilt recognition, Palm rejection, and 20ms low latency.
The stylus is nicely designed and features a curved cylindrical body with a flat edge to lay it flat on a desk. It has an eraser at the back end but not side buttons.
Even though the U-Pencil is made of plastic, It Is by no means cheap plastic and feels very quality in the hand, is well-balanced and not too heavy.
This is an Active Capacitive pen, which is battery-powered and has to be charged through the USB-C port. Pen has to be powered on before each use by pressing the eraser button at the back.
Drawing Experience
Just like a standard pen, you can scribble ideas on a blank canvas, draw, take notes, and much more. The nib is replaceable, which is very good as it rubs off a little bit on the matte screen surface.
I did not experience any big issues when drawing with the U-Pencil. It has predictable and consistent performance. All the lines are able to come out the way I expect them to. Drawing performance is fantastic and so is the drawing experience.
There is latency with drawing. There will be a gap between the line and the pen tip as the line is trying to catch up with the pen tip. But it’s mostly a non-issue unless you’re always drawing long sweeping lines.
The latency is due primarily to the drawing apps and hardware is secondary, sometimes high-end samsung galaxy tab Tab S9 and S10 tablets with 120Hz refresh rate still have latency while drawing.
Palm rejection does not work well so wearing an artist glove is highly recommended. The Apple iPads does the best in this regard than android tablets.
Battery Life
This tablet is using a robust 7000mAh lithiumion battery. Furthermore, since this tablet has a lower power consumption it’s battery life is slightly better, I went through almost an entire day and still had 30% battery left.
As for the battery health, it’s still perfectly fine now, but this tablet is less than a year old, so have yet to see how much it will degrade over time.
In Conclusion
At $229.99, The Ugee UT2 offers excellent value for its price.
So far it has met my expectations, and does a pretty solid job as an entry-level standalone drawing tablet.
The 10.36-inch display is clear and vibrant, ideal for watching videos and browsing. The included U-Pencil is responsive and perfect for note-taking, annotating pdf, and sketching.
Battery life is impressive, lasting up to 8-9 hours on a single charge. While the performance is adequate for everyday tasks, it may struggle with more demanding applications.
Overall, UGEE UT2 is a solid choice for students and casual users seeking a portable, reliable standalone drawing tablet without breaking the bank.
