Expand your creativity with this big new drawing display

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Now that's a canvas fit for an artist.
Now that's a canvas fit for an artist.
Photo: Xencelabs

We’ve all heard of tablets you can draw on — looking at you, iPad lineup — but how about a 24-inch drawing display?

Xencelabs Technologies unveiled its new Pen Display 24 Studio Series at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, which ends Friday.

If you’re serious about your art, it could be for you.

Xencelabs Pen Display 24 Studio Series

With a 24-inch digital drawing display, Xencelabs Pen Display 24 Studio Series expands the company’s lineup of professional design tools. They include its small and medium Pen Tablets. While iPads are no slouches when it comes to drawing, Xencelabs products are tailored to it.

“Since we launched our first product, we’ve constantly looked for new ways to improve the creative workflow,” said Xencelabs Head of Product Michael Thompson.

“We listened to artists and their input is reflected in the Pen Display’s design: stunning display fidelity, an excellent drawing experience, superior ergonomics and more. This device is designed for maximum productivity, adapting to the user’s preferences, not the other way around,” he continued.

Cool array of features

Pen Display 24 features include an edge-to-edge, tempered-glass drawing surface with a “natural drawing experience.” It also packs enhanced glare reduction, fingerprint resistance, Pantone Color and SkinTone validation, a Tilt Stand, VESA mount flexibility, silent operation and a security slot for the Kensington MicroSaver 2.0 lock, the company said.

Here’s how it describes the pens and drawing experience:

Two pen sizes are provided to fit different sized hands and preferences. One pen comes with three buttons, while the other has two buttons, and each has an eraser. The three-button pen is particularly useful for 3D work or for artists who prefer more pen buttons. Pens can match users’ preferred sensitivity and initial activation pressure is adjustable to as low as 3g.

The display’s pressure curve has been meticulously tuned for optimal responsiveness and stroke-to-stroke accuracy, with the pen response adjustable to each user’s drawing style.

The display is 4K, with up to 3840 x 2160 pixel resolution and 1.07 billion colors.

The adjustable Tilt Stand helps users start working right after they download their preferred driver — Mac, PC or Linux — and plug in the display. The Linux driver works similarly to the Windows and Mac drivers, the company said.

Xencelabs Quick Keys

The QuickKeys device can be attached anywhere on the side of the display or used separately.
The Quick Keys device can be attached anywhere on the side of the display or used separately.
Photo: Xencelabs

The company includes Xencelabs Quick Keys device with the display. Attach it anywhere on the side of the display to incorporate shortcut keys through a simple interface.

Here’s more on that:

The integrated OLED display lets users see button assignments at a glance. There can be up to 40 shortcuts per application using the set button. [It] allows users to group eight keys into five different sets. The physical dial offers four function modes for zoom, rotation, brush size, and other functions. Button settings switch automatically when a new application is activated with the pen.

Manual color control and Virtual Tablet Mode

You also get three programmable LED buttons on top of the Pen Display. By changing color, these buttons can remind you the pen buttons or Quick Key button assignments may have changed when a different application is in use, the company said.

And a Virtual Tablet Mode allows pen control of multiple displays. You can drag or manipulate objects from one display to the other using just the pen.

The Pen Display 24 will be available in the second quarter of 2023 for $1,899, Xencelabs said. You can preorder one now, however.

Where to preorder: Xencelabs

 

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