I am pursuing a career in digital art and concept design. I recently took up some classes on Photoshop and digital painting.
I have never owned a graphics pad before, but I have always wanted one. Well, when my friend showed me this XPPen Star G430s I seriously started considering purchasing one.
For the price of about $19.98, this product is excellent. I must say that the cost was a huge factor up until now.
I was hesitant to buy this at first, and wanted to jump right in and purchase the more expensive One by Wacom. But in the end, I opted for this XPPen Star G430s instead–if I didn’t like it, I’ll just return it.
So is this worth a purchase? As someone who is, and has, been using this to draw and paint digitally for a year now, I would I would say buy it! Let’s take a look.
Unboxing
The package itself comes with the G430s tablet, P01 stylus, 10 extra nibs for the stylus, a pen clipper, and a quick guide.
The metal ring or pen clipper is used to change the nib tips, you click them inside the little dent in the ring and use it to either pull the old nib out or snap the new nib in.
The one thing that XPPen G430S tablet has that is missing here is a carrying case. Not a big deal in my opinion but potentially important for some people (most probably students who would need to carry this in a backpack).
Design and Build Quality
The design is nothing to write home about. Compared to other tablets, this one is fairly simple.
The build quality is meant to be light, thin and portable, but it does seem like it could bend or break easily if not packed correctly for travel.
Tablet Size
The XPPen Star G430S tablet is quite small, thin (2mm thick), lightweight and very compact in size, with an active drawing area of 4.0 x 3 inches.
Unless you are a child or a very tiny women, this tablet would be difficult to use for long periods of time, especially if you are using it to draw for art.
This is most noticeable on higher resolution screens. If you have a high resolution screen it is quite difficult to avoid having a shaking hand because of how small the tablet drawing space is.
On the other hand, The small size of the tablet makes it easy to take with you and transport around in your laptop bag because it is so small and lightweight.
Stylus Pen
What I really love about this is that the P01 pen is wireless and doesn’t need batteries, which is awesome.
There are two buttons on the pen near where your thumb and index fingers go, those buttons can be customized to almost anything you want.
At 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity, this is objectively a digital pen for professional work.
Install Driver
The XPPen Star G430S tablet installed really easy on my Windows 11 laptop.
Just Plug in the USB Cable, going to the xppen official site directly and install the latest drivers for your system.
You can then adjust the settings to your liking so that it will perform the way you need it to using the software that comes with it.
Try not to plug and play as the tablet will not work without the installation and drivers first.
Drawing Experience
As for drawing, a mouse is very hard to handle, but the XPPen G430S was pretty manageable. Because the rotational angle of the hand is in a more natural position, the amount of strain on the wrist is substantially reduced.
It was only slightly difficult to get used to at first, but once I got the hang of Photoshop, creating paintings in Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop has been a wonderful experience (the jump from traditional medium to digital took some getting used to).
I really like the pressure sensitivity, it draws light lines and thick lines perfectly the way I want it to.
The tablet’s surface is smooth enough to make you feel like you’re writing with a pen and paper, though with somewhat scratchier feedback than a graphite pencil on paper.
But I feel that due to the small drawing area, it takes me longer to to accurately draw what I want with precision.
If I was doing simple sketches and doodles I had no problems, but anything that required precision drawing didn’t turn out very well and looked nothing like my hand drawn pictures.
If you are well in the budget for it, I would also recommend the XPPen Star G640 tablet over the G430S just for it’s bigger 6×4 Inches of active drawing area.
This tablet is also works great with Osu, so it will work for all you Osu fans out there. I have played Osu and I had no problems using the XPPen G430S tablet for the game.
Cheap Price
This G430S tablet is unbelievably cheap, I’m not exaggerating, the first time I saw its price, I thought it was wrong.
The price is so low that even those who don’t actually need a drawing tablet would be better off by getting this one just in case.
As a comparison, the One by Wacom tablet Small version would cost you $39.95.
In Conclusion
The XPPen Star G430S is a good entry level graphics tablet that works perfect as a mouse replacement with a responsive, battery-free stylus.
When we take into consideration price and features, this graphics tablet offers the best deal currently available.
However, the tiny active area leaves a lot to be desired, drawing detailed projects a bit of a pain as it didn’t have enough room to work with.
However, if you are not a serious artist and just want to do a casual drawing or you only need it for digital signatures, writing, online teaching, taking notes, playing osu games, or editing photos then it will be a great product for you.
