Hi everyone and welcome to a new video! ♥
This is Rina and today I brought you a new tablet review!
I'll specifically be reviewing the Gaomon PD1560
This tablet is in fact a digitizer monitor, pen display, screen tablet...
Whatever you call it.
It is different to the usual graphic tablets because this one comes with a screen attached on it
so we can directly draw on the screen emulating the feeling of traditional drawing.
Lately Gaomon is gaining more audience due to its tablets being a nice alternative to Wacom
specially an alternative to the expensive Cintiqs.
I didn't doubt a minute when they offered me to test this model.
I'm so excited to see how this one works and I'm sure you do too ~
I hope what I'll explain today will be useful for you guys so let's go! ♥
Well well...
The tablet came inside of a pretty big box, it felt sturdy and everything came in well protected with lots of porexpan
Here's a small teaser of the content of the package
And yeah, I'm pretty dumb and when I recorded the unboxing the first time I messed up with the video quality
so I had to record it again, I'm hopeless x'D
Anyway let me show you in detail what's included in the package
Here's the tablet. It's pretty big but not enourmous
Here's Gaomon's name
On the opposite side we have 10 buttons we will be able to customize as shortcuts for our keyboard.
Next to Gaomon's name there's a couple of holes where we will connect some wires later
There you see the stand which I have already  assembled
There's no mystery, it's pretty easy to do it with a screwdriver
Back to where the buttons were
Here we also have the menu to adjust the screen colors, light, contrast...
Let's move onto the rest
There we have a small bag with the user's guide and a card that reminds us the link to Gaomon's page where we will download the drivers
A transport bag (which doesn't fit the frame xD)
By the way if the stand is attached to the tablet then it won't fit in the bag
It also came with a screen protector. I'll go over it later
A 2 fingers glove so the screen won't get dirty while we're drawing on it
The power adapter
A screwdriver so we can attach the stand right after opening the package. Of course it also comes with the screws.
The pen's stand
If we unscrew it we'll find 8 extra nibs for the pen.
The funny thing about this stand is that we can also use it to change the nibs
As you see on the drawings we just have to put the pen inside that little hole, twist it around and the nib eventually comes out
I found it very strange at first but it's also an interesting method. And that way we can forget about the usual rings that can be easily lost due to its small size.
Finally here's the rechargeable pen
It's very thin and light, I like its shape, it looks ergonomic
And yeah it came like this, encased on this plastic thing inside of a small box
At first I thought I was missing some parts or accessories but after talking with Gaomon they confirmed there was nothing wrong with that plastic case
so I guess they may be re-using another product's packaging and that's why it looks half empty.
Here's the USB cord to recharge the pen
And more cords! ~ Hahaha! Let's go bit by bit
This would be the power supply that allows the screen to turn on
And here's the 3 in 1 cable (more like a 3 in 2 but that's fine)
The round one connects to the previous cable
This is the HDMI that goes into your computer
and allows the tablet to be indentified as a screen.
And the USB one, necessary for the pen to be detected as well.
On the other side of this cables we'll find this two outputs
Those will go into the tiny holes we saw earlier on the tablet, next to Gaomon's name
Now that we have everything connected we can go to Gaomon's place to donwload the drivers
They're available for Mac and Windows
Tho I can only show you how they work on this last one
And sadly I gotta say that the installation drove me crazy >_<
I don't know if I did something wrong or maybe some cables weren't connected well enough
but I had to install them a couple of times because they didn't want to work as they should have had
So if you're in the same trouble be really patient and try several things until they work
and if nothing works contact Gaomon so they can assist you.
Anyway, now that we're finally here let's see what these drivers can do.
Here's the Shorcuts tab
We just have to place the mouse/pen over the button and then click on the displayed shortcut and a window will appear which contains all the options availables for the shortcut.
For example here I'll put the Space key
And here I'll put one that allows me to change from one screen to another. I think it's this one...
There we have the pen settings
With this bar we can change the pressure sensitivity
If we move it to the right it will turn higher so we'll have to press harder with the pen
And to the left it will be softer.
I will put it a bit to the left because I prefer tablets with soft pressure
That way the muscles of my arm and hand don't have to work as much.
We can also customize the shortcuts of the pen just as we did on the other tab.
On the Work Area tab it's important that you look where it says Select Current Display.
There you have to put the Gaomon display, which in my case is option 2
This way we're telling the pen in which screen do we want it to work.
After this we can move to Monitor Calibration
Here we just have to press with the pen over the red mark on the crosses
This is in order for the cursor to be on the same spot as the pen
In more technical words this is called "correcting the parallax effect"
I'll talk about this later too.
Oh, this tablet works also for left-handed people. You just have to change the orientation on the Work Area tab, at the bottom right corner
And you'll most likely have to play with the orientation and resolution of the screen but you'll do that through the Control Panel of your computer.
Okay so just as usual let's make some quick tests on different programs to see how they work.
Let's start with SAI
I had to open again the drivers because despite that I had softened the pressure earlier
it felt hard again, as if I never changed it before.
so I messed with it again until it was like I wanted.
But anway let's go to the point
Some straight lines here...
A bit faster here
Curves...
Changing pressure on the same stroke...
Soft brushes such as watercolor...
Now I'd like to talk about something important and it's about the parallax effect I mentioned earlier
On this kind of displays, screen tablets, whatever you want to call them
It's very normal to find that kind of effect on them
Which means the cursor you see on the screen and the tip of the pen aren't 100% aligned.
This deviation is barely noticeable on the center of the screen, and becomes bigger the more we move away from the center
This can seem like a big problem but it isn't in fact
Keep in mind we will barely draw on the corners and edges of the tablet
The Gaomon PD1560 isn't an exception
There's barely no parallax on the center of the screen, and it becomes more noticeable around the edges
But anyway let's keep seeing the rest of the programs and I'll give you more details about the tablet later
Clip Studio now! Let's try some straight lines...
Crossed...
Curves... Changing pressure...
Soft brushes...
Everything seems to work fine.
Now with Photoshop ~ Same tests as usual
Chu chu chu ~ ♫
Okay, it also seems to work fine
Photoshop shows us that this pen doesn't have tilt recognition
So if you like to use brushes that change depending on the inclination of the pen, then this tablet isn't for you.
And not let's move onto the speedpaint!
Seems like it's becoming a tradition now so I'll do another quick doodle this time too
Today I chose to draw I character I designed for an adoptable event hosted by Yamio
It's a girlie blessed by the spirit of an 88 butterfly ~
It's a real butterfly with a very unique pattern if you'd like to search on Google ^w^
While you're watching the process I'll tell you the pros and cons I've found on this tablet
Size
The screen zone is 15 inches big
it's around 38 cm aproximately on its diagonal
I think it's a very nice size to be honest
I find the the Cintiq 13 good enough already
and I thought a couple more inches wouldn't make a difference but now I apreciate them a lot
You have more space to rest your hand, more space to put reference pictures or other things you may need to be on the screen
And the resolution is also great. Everything looks clear and big
About the colors I may not be much helpful because I don't have much to compare with and I'm also no expert at this
But I don't think the colors were bad at all.
It's an IPS panel and those are usually great at displaying colors, a wide viewing angle...
I think the quality of the colors was almost the same as my Cintiq
It did came a bit blueish for my taste
but since the monitor has a menu where you can change the colors, you can easily adjust it to your necessities
Overall I think the colors were pretty good.
Don't let the video fool you! The colors looked way better in real life than they looks here xD
The parallax as I mentioned earlier is barely noticeable unless you tilt the pen a lot.
It's more noticeable around the edges but that's to be expected, this happens on all this kind of tablets, even on Cintiq
Overall I think the parallax of this one is very subtle. Not as subtle as on a Cintiq but let's be realistic
If you want the same exact quality as a Cintiq then you'll have to save up for a Cintiq xD
Yeah, Gaomon is a very good alternative but they won't do miracles neither xD
Let's talk about the pressure now
I liked it a lot! It has like four times the sensitivity of a Cintiq
It has 8192 pressure levels if I'm not wrong.
It may seem like an enourmous difference but in fact I didn't notice it while drawing
I mean yeah, it's very sensitive
but I didn't notice they were a whole lot more levels than on my Cintiq
And the initial activation force really surprised me! Cause it is very low
Maybe not as low as on a Cintiq, but it's very similar
Small reminder! The activation force is how much pressure you have to put on the pen for it to start drawing a line
Just in case you're not familiar with the term
For example on my Cintiq I can do lines with barely no pressure. Just passing the pen over the screen will create a super thin line
On this Gaomon I just to press a tiny little bit more for it to start drawing any lines
I'm highly impressed about this cause I thought the pen was going to work a lot harder
Now let's talk about the drivers
I think they're decent, but...
Not sure how to describe them. They're not bad
but they don't seem to work 100% well neither.
Like I said earlier, sometimes the pressure went stronger without reason
and everytime I checked the drivers everything looked "fine" but in reality
the pressure had changed and the tablet had gone hard again.
So I had to put it back to normal and change it again to fit my needs
it was the only way I found to make the drivers react to that problem.
There's also another detail about the drivers that makes me think they're not the best
There was a certain shortcut I couldn't set up
I'm not sure if it's because I did something wrong or a problem of the drivers
The thing is I like to have a button I can use to switch the cursor from one screen to another, this helps me speeding up my working process
That way I don't have to leave the pen to go use the mouse
And as much as I tried I couldn't find a way to properly set that shortcut
Everytime I pressed the button with that shortcut
it was impossible to bring it back to the Gaomon screen later
Even more, the cursor went kinda crazy and did double-clicks and right-clicks without me doing anything
There was also a couple of times where I took a break and when I went back to using the tablet
the pressure didn't work. And the only way I found to "fix" that was to unplug and plug the tablet again
Which is not a big problem but all these little details make me think these aren't the best drivers in the world
Let's talk about more external aspects like the stand, the cords, the touch and overall feeling of the screen
If you dislike wires then this tablet is not for you.
But neither this one, nor Cintiqs or whatever other brands because they're all like this
There's very few wireless models on the market at the moment and they're still pretty expensive
Anyway as you saw at the beggining this tablet has 3 wires
The power supply, the HDMI and the USB
All of them gather at a certain point and then split into the 2 wires that we connect to the tablet, next to the Gaomon name
It's highly apreciated that they're unified, but even with that it's a lot more wires than a normal  graphic tablet
Keep that in mind so you can think about the space you'd need and how to place everything
The stand is good, it feels pretty sturdy
Tho sometimes when I rested my hand on the edges of the tablet it seemed to woble a little bit
But it's not bad, it does keep its position a lot better than the ridiculous Cintiq 13 stand xD
The stand of the Cintiq 13 is easier to move around tho because it's simplier. You can take it out and put it back in a moment
That's impossible on the Gaomon because it is attached on it with the screws
So we could still consider this tablet kinda portable due to the size not being enormous
But it is not much portable in fact. At least I doubt anyone would like to unscrew and screw the stand often
And yeah you can store the tablet on the transport bag
But the stand is an extra object you have to keep in mind, along with all the wires, the small pen's box
So overall I don't think it's a portable tablet
It's more like a tablet to be put on your desk and don't move it much from there
The screen feels like glass and has a glossy finish
Cintiqs usually have a matte finish and a textured feel that reminds of a real paper
(I mean when you're using the pen over it)
But the Cintiq doesn't do miracles neither
Keep in mind I have a light source on my back and sometimes when I'm drawing on my Cintiq I see reflections on the screen
Relections that are a bit annoying but still acceptable
I think the reflections I got on the Gaomon's screen were similar to the ones I usually have on my Cintiq.
So when I say it has a glossy finish don't think it will make you blind xD
I personally didn't dislike the glossy and glass feeling of the screen
and that surprised me because I'm so used to the texture of the Cintiq that I thought I wouldn't like the glass feeling
I did this picture without the screen protector. I applied the protector later and tested it again a bit more to see if anything had changed.
With the protector on the surface then becomes more matte like a Cintiq
and it also gains some texture similar to a real paper.
That's not noticeable with your bare fingers, I'm talking about when using the pen over the screen.
The parallax, activation force and sensitivity doesn't seem to change when the protector is applied.
Everything seems to work the same.
And by the way! Applying the protector requires a lot of patience and a bit of skill
So I'd recommend you to search for info first
and also watch a lot of videos so you can understand the process
and avoid getting bubbles or dust trapped in it.
The instructions that comes with the protector aren't bad but they're very basic.
I think before applying it on this tablet or any other one
you should search for some videos that teach you how to apply it correctly.
To those who are worried about the pen being rechargeable
Don't worry about it!
The pen works fine and doesn't run out of battery that easily
With a 15 minutes charge it already lasts for several hours
And if you ever run out of battery in the middle of a drawing session you can still use it while it's charging
So... let's proceed to the verdict! But let me explain myself a little bit
Overall I think it's a very nice tablet
if we think about it as a good and cheap alternative to Cintiq.
And what do I mean with this? I mean it's a good tablet
But it has some small flaws like the parallax effect when you tilt the pen a lot, the drivers acting weird all of a sudden sometimes
All of this makes it not reach the quality of a Cintiq, in my humble opinion.
I'd recommend it to people who have a small budget, begginers, professionals
People who has still not tried a Cintiq,
people who DID try a Cintiq but they didn't like the texture of the screen or other things I mentioned in the video.
I'd even recommend it to people who are Cintiq users
Because... the flaws are tiny details and I'm sure you can get used to them with time.
Keep in mind the Cintiq 13 HD costs around 1000 dollars
and the Cintiq 16 Pro costs around 1500 dollars at the moment.
The Gaomon PD1560 costs around 500 dollars aproximately
And they go on sale sometimes so you can get it for less than 400 dollars then.
So, it's half the price of a Cintiq 13, and it's 2 inches bigger.
And just a 30% of what  a Cintiq 16 Pro costs, and they're almost the same size.
As I said earlier, if you want the same quality as a Cintiq
maybe because you're fussy about the parallax, the colors, the activation force...
Then go for the Cintiq.
At least I'm pretty happy with mine and my only complaint about it is the ridiculous stand xD
Maybe I should review it someday too ~ xD
But if you don't mind some small flaws you can get used to, then I think this tablet is a very nice choice.
Uff! Today's review was pretty long xD
Feel free to leave your questions on the comments section
if you're worried about something I haven't talked here today
And I'll try to reply you as soon as I can.
And I think it's time to say goodbye for today
Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any of my content
and like the video if you think the review was useful!
Bye everyone! See you soon ♥
