Review unit provided by Simbans

Simbans is a company that sells affordable Android tablets with pen support targeted at beginner artists.

The PicassoTab X11 is the 4th Simbans tablet I've reviewed. The earlier three were

• PicassoTab X14 (2023)
• PicassoTab XL (2022)
• PicassoTab (2019)

Currently, these are the four tablets that Simban sells and their differences:

The 11-inch X11 looks like the upgraded version of 11.6-inch XL released in 2022. Upgrades include

• Storage from 64GB to 128GB
• RAM from 4GB to 6GB
• Pen now supports 4096 instead of 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity
• Display is slightly smaller, has higher resolution, and is now laminated
• Android 13 is used instead of 11
• Has 8-core chip instead of 4-core

The incremental upgrades are welcome.

Since the X11 is just the smaller version of the 14.1-inch X14 released in 2023, I'll duplicate parts of that review here. The main difference is X11 has better touch sensitivity as I had numerous issues with X14 detecting my finger and pen, probably due to the thick screen protector.

Things included

• Tablet
• Picasso Pen 3 with AAAA battery
• SIM ejection tool
• Tablet case
• Artist glove
• 20W USB-C charger with interchangeable plugs
• USB-C to USB-C charging cable
• Safety info
• Concepts app promo code for Essentials Set upgrade
• One year warranty

Pen

The Picasso Pen 3 supports tilt, 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity and palm rejection. The pen uses USI 2 tech.

There is no side button and no eraser. The body is matte textured and is comfortable to hold. Build quality is solid.

The pen is powered by one AAAA battery, and there's an extra AAAA battery included. No replacement pen nibs are included.

Design

This tablet looks like it's designed for the younger audience with the plastic body, corner bumps, grippy sides and coloured matte textured back. This looks very different from the cleaner streamlined designs of more premium tablets from the bigger brands.

There is no biometric unlock so you'll have to rely on pin or swipe unlock.

The 11-inch display has a resolution of 2000 x 1200 pixels so visuals are quite sharp. Brightness is more than adequate for indoor use but not for bright outdoors. Refresh rate os 60Hz.

The tablet is thin enough and weight feels alright for an 11-inch tablet. Company did not list the weight and I have no weighing scale.

A thick matte screen protector is already applied on the display. The matte screen protector is actually still reflective and doesn't really have much texture so the pen is quite smooth on it. The smoother matte screen protector does not affect the display's image quality much.

The bottom has a USB 2 type C port for charging. There are four ways speakers with loud but unfortunately hollow sound.

The microSD card slot is useful for expanding storage since internal storage is limited to just 128GB.

The display looks laminated. There is minimal gap between the pen tip and the line. The pen tip has minimal movement when in contact with the drawing surface.

Performance and Android 13

The processor is the 8-core MediaTek MT8183 with Mali-G72 CPU. There's 6GB of RAM which is good enough for multitasking. Overall performance of the tablet is smooth and apps are able to launch fast. Web pages take a bit more time to load compared to other tablets but it's not too bad. Graphics intensive games will have slight lag occasionally and dropped frames.

This tablet runs on Android 13 and there's Google Play Store.

I have installed Nova Launcher (above) to customise the user interface because the default UI is ugly. All the photos you see of the home screen in this review are from NOVA launcher.

Drawing apps

There are many good drawing apps on Android from the Google Play Store.

Simbans has also pre-installed some drawing apps:

• Concepts - A popular vector-based drawing app. Use the promo code provided by Simbans to unlock more drawing tools.
• Flipaclip - A 2D animation app
• Artixo - This is an app with video tutorials on drawing.
• Infinite Painter - A popular raster-based drawing app. The free version only has limited tools.

The apps I use frequently for drawing are Concepts, Infinite Painter, Medibang Paint. There's also Clip Studio Paint but it's not very usable on an 11-inch tablet due to the cluttered UI unless you switch to the Simple Mode tablet UI.

Line tests

These line tests were created with Medibang Paint.

1. Even though the pen is said to support 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity, the pen has difficulty detecting small changes in pressure when drawing with minimal pressure. When using a thick brush, it is easier to draw a thicker than thinner line. In other words, you'll have to manual reduce brush size to make it easier to draw thinner lines.

There is slight wobble or jitter with slow diagonal lines.

2. Lines are able to taper smoothly and sharply.

3. Line transition from thin to thick and back to thin is smooth enough, but it's not easy to draw really thin lines due to point #1.

4. It's easy to maintain consistent line width when maintaining consistent pressure. Note the line wobble even though it's not a diagonal line.

5. Dots can be drawn easily.

6. I had no issues joining the lines without gaps and lines overshooting. I wanted to create thin hatching lines but was not able to do so as the brush deviates to drawing thicker lines more easily.

The pen has good specs but in reality it is difficult to draw thin lines with a thick brush selected. This means you may have to constantly adjust brush size settings manually and that is inconvenient compared to just using the pen's pressure alone.

There is latency when drawing as the line is trying to catch up with the pen tip, and more noticeable when you're drawing really fast (shown above). Latency is more noticeable compared to other more expensive tablets I have reviewed. When drawing with normal speed, I can still see the latency but it doesn't affect my drawing much.

Latency will also depend on the app you use. Some drawing apps will have more latency. And if you apply smoothening to lines, e.g. to reduce line jitter, more latency is added.

This tablet is not good for quick sketching and writing due to the latency.

The thing that really affects drawing performance

Palm rejection is the other issue that affects drawing performance other than the jitter/wobble.

When resting my palm on the display, I found that unintentional gesture shortcuts are activated too often. When drawing, there is the double tap undo that causes my strokes to undo and I have to draw the same line again. Sometimes unintentional gestures may cause the canvas to move, e.g. pan, zoom, rotate. Using the included artist glove is almost a must to prevent these unintentional finger gesture shortcuts.

When I tested the Simbans X14, there was also the problem with touch display not being sensitive enough possibly because of the thick screen protector. The X11 tablet does not have this problem.

This is tilt sensitivity test with Infinite Painter app.

It seems like tilt is sometimes activated even when I hold the pen vertically. This can be see clearly with the 6B Pencil where the start of the line should be thin, but it is not. It is also difficult to draw broad strokes properly with the Dry Inker brush.

Here's the proper performance from the Samsung S Pen.

Note the clear transition from thin to broad strokes with the Dry Inker brush and 6B Pencil.

Tilt sensitivity does not work consistently or predictably. This will be an issue for those who use tilt brushes often, and I do use tilt brushes quite often.

Drawing Experience

Here's a sketch I drew on location with Medibang Paint app.

I didn't have any issues with line quality. While the pen is not as sensitive compared to the pens from tablets of other brands, I was still able to draw thin and thick lines. But I wish the pen could be more sensitive to allow me to draw even thinner lines, to achieve a wider variation of line width.

With my normal drawing speed, I wasn't affected by diagonal line wobble or jitter.

The main thing that affected drawing experience is palm rejection, more specifically activating of unintentional finger gesture shortcuts.

Battery life

Battery life is about 6-7 hours.

Conclusion

This tablet can be used for drawing. The main issue that affects drawing experience is palm rejection does not work that well, so wearing the included artist glove is almost a must.

Pen performance is alright, but not as good as the pens made by other companies for drawing purposes. This tablet feels like and Android tablet that comes with a pen rather than a tablet made specifically with artists in mind.

This tablet is definitely made for beginners, for casual drawing. If you're buying for kids, well, children will just be happy with any tablet.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Okay looking design
+ Good build quality
+ Display has good colours and viewing angles
+ Laminated display
+ Matte textured screen protector already applied
+ Comes with pen and flip case
+ Pen supports tilt, pressure and palm rejection (but has issues)
+ Micro SD card slot
+ Free upgrade to Pro account for Concepts app
+ 6GB RAM
+ Android 13
+ Google Play Store included
- Matte textured screen protector does not have texture
- 4-way speakers have low volume and sound hollow
- UI and launcher have bare minimal features
- No biometric unlock
- Pen has difficulty drawing thin lines with a thick brush selected
- Palm rejection doesn't work well. Unintentional finger gestures are often activated
- Diagonal lines drawn slowly are affected by jitter and wobble
- Noticeable latency when drawing
- Tilt sensitivity performance is not consistent

Availability

You can find the Simbans PicassoTab X11 on Simbans online store and Amazon USA.