Artist Review: Teclast ArtPad Pro (2025) 12.7-inch tablet with pen support

Review unit provided by Teclast

The Teclast ArtPad is a 12.7-inch Android tablet with pen support released in August 2025 and is marketed as a drawing tablet. Retail price is USD 279 but you can get this on Amazon at USD 209 with a coupon code W7BYWDIL.

The tablet hardware is decent and if you get this tablet at the discounted price, it can be a good deal. The main issue that I have with this tablet is for a tablet that's marketed for drawing, the pen tech used is USI 2.0. Those who know how USI pen performs already knows how the drawing experience is going to be. While the pen can be used for writing and drawing, that is not the main deciding factor to get this tablet.

Bottom line

Just scroll down to see the list of pros and cons

Specifications

• Display size: 12.7-inch LCD
• Resolution: 2176 x 1600
• Aspect ratio: 7:5
• Refresh rate: 60Hz
• Processor: MediaTek Helio G99
• Graphics: Mali G57 MC2
• RAM: 8GB + 12GB virtual
• Storage: 256GB
• Connectivity: Wifi, Bluetooth, LTE
• GPS: Yes
• MicroSD card slot: Yes
• Speakers: 4
• 8MP front camera
• 13MP rear camera with flash
• Pen support: Teclast T-Pen (USI 2.0)
• Pen pressure sensitivity: 4,096 levels
• OS: ArtOS on top of Android 15
• Google Widevine L1 certified
• Shortcut button: One customisable
• Battery capacity: 10,000 mAh, with 30W charging
• Dimensions: 279mm × 211mm × 7.2mm
• Weight: 674g

Things included

• Tablet
• Charger
• Charging cable
• SIM ejector

The Teclast T-Pen and case are both sold separately.

Design

Design of the tablet looks... just like the iPad Pro. Many tablets now look like the iPad Pro so it's not upside or downside. Bezels are quite thin. There's a landscape camera with auto-brightness which works quite well. There's face unlock which works fine, but it's not the secure type so it cannot be used to unlock secured apps, e.g. banking apps.

The back shows 2 cameras but only one is usable. Overall build quality is solid enough with the metal back.

The four speakers sound good which is important if you plan on using the tablet for watching videos or gaming. Audio is loud, clear and there's decent amount of surround. Bass is lacking which is not surprising. Audio quality is better than I expected.

USB-C port only has USB 2 transfer speed. I measured charging speed up to 27W which is fast enough.

The tablet isn't that heavy, but it's big so it's can be unwieldy to handle with one hand. I would consider this a tabletop tablet so when drawing I always set this down on my tablet stand.

Display

The display is a 12.7-inch LCD with 2176 x 1600 resolution. Aspect ratio is 7:5. Refresh rate is 60Hz.

The display is bright, vibrant and sharp. Pixelation is not really noticeable unless you look real close.

The display comes with a screen protector already applied, and the surface is glossy and very reflective.

One interesting thing about this tablet is you can choose different colour modes using an extra button provided. Shown above is the Standard mode with colourful visuals

This is Ink Mode with the grayscale monotone look and can be good for reading.

This is the Pastel Mode with desaturated colours.

The display is laminated so there's no almost no gap between the line and pen tip.

Performance

The MediaTek Helio G99 processor from 2022 is a midrange processor that's quite popular in budget tablets. It's the same processor found in the Huion Slate 11 and 13, XPPen Magic Note Pad and many other tablets I've reviewed.

Overall performance of this tablet is smooth enough and the 8GB RAM works well for multi-tasking. The tablet is not as responsive compared to other tablets I've tested but that's to be expected.

It is possible to game on this tablet, but don't expect to play games at the highest settings. With Genshin Impact, graphics settings by default is set to lowest, out of the five settings, so visual quality isn't that good.

So the main limitation with performance for this tablet is with gaming. I did not experience any issues with general usage. One thing I did notice is slow is actually with download speed. The download speed is fast enough for streaming videos and loading webpages, but if you have to download huge files or games, you'll definitely discover the lack of speed.

There's Widevine L1 that enables 1080P video streaming from video streaming services.

One noticeable downside is wifi download speed is just 50Mbps. That's considered slow when compared to other budget tablets which can usually reach 300 Mbps, and iPads can reach 600 Mbps or higher, but at least 50Mbps is still fast enough for 1080P streaming.

OS and software

Teclast has their own ArtPad OS on top on Android 15, and there's Google Play Store.

I did not like the theme of ArtPad OS as it redesigns all the Google icons and there's no way to change them back.

The OS has minimal features so you'll have to install apps for other features you may need. There's very limited customisation with the OS.

One thing that throws me off with the OS is you cannot drag apps from the app drawer to place apps on the home screen. There's no way to create multiple shortcuts to an app, eg putting the same app into different folders.

There's a side panel that can let you add 6 more shortcuts.

The additional side button called Smart Button can be customised with the following:

• Colour mode switch
• Launch an app
• Screenshot, silent, rotation lock
• Float ball switch which has back, homescreen, lock and screenshot features

There is no PC or desktop mode but it is possible to have apps open as floating windows which may be useful when using portrait-only apps, but even so those apps would often look weird, e.g. layout is off or images are too big.

Pen

This is the Teclast T-Pen that's supported by the tablet. It uses USI 2.0 pen tech which supports 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity.

The pen has a matte textured body and I'm not sure whether it's made with metal or plastic. It's considered lightweight and is comfortable to hold.

The pen can attach magnetically to the side of the tablet but it's not for charging or Bluetooth pairing. The pen has to be charged with the USB-C port. Bluetooth pairing with the tablet is not needed.

There are two side buttons which may be customisable depending on the app you use. I am not sure if replacement pen tips are available for purchase.

Tilt sensitivity works with Sketchbook, does not work consistently with Infinite Painter, and does not work with Concepts.

Line tests

Line tests below were created with Medibang Paint.

1. Pen has difficulty drawing thin lines when a thick brush is selected. Pen has difficulty detecting minimal changes with pressure when drawing with minimal pressure. Diagonal line wobble or jitter is noticeable.

2. Lines can taper but not as sharply as I would prefer. A sensitive pen can taper with a much sharper point

3. Line transition from thin to thick is smooth enough but it's difficult to transition back to thin lines after thick lines. You can also see the problems mentioned in #1 here.

4. Consistent line width can be maintained by applying consistent pressure, but it's difficult to draw thin lines. There's diagonal line wobble again.

5. Dots can be drawn by tapping the pen tip on the display, but the dots don't usually react with pressure.

6. There aren't major issues with joining lines without gaps or with lines overshooting. Diagonal lines have noticeable wobble and jitter. From a simple sketch like this, I can see the lines are mostly uniform because the pen isn't sensitive enough to create lines with varied thickness.

Tilt sensitivity works better with Sketchbook but works inconsistently with other apps, such as Infinite Painter, Concepts.

The amount of latency varies depend on the app used. For drawing purposes, I find there is slightly more noticeable latency compared to other tablets.

The pen can be used for writing but I can't say it's good for serious writing mostly because handwriting is affected by the latency.

Drawing experience

Drawing experience can't be good if the pen performance isn't good.

Drawing experience is affected by the inaccuracy of the pen (diagonal line wobble), pressure sensitivity and palm rejection not working well.

This was drawn with Medibang Paint.

When I draw, I like to use thick brush and just vary my pressure to draw thin lines. Because this pen isn't that sensitive, to draw thin lines, I will have to manually adjust the line width thinner. People who like to use varied line widths can expect to manually adjust the brush size often instead of relying on pressure changes.

Diagonal line wobble is quite noticeable.

Palm rejection does not work well. There's a tendency to activate undo and canvas zoom with my resting palm, and I have to disable the double tap undo finger gesture to prevent unintentional undos, but there will still be the occasional unintentional canvas zoom.

I've chose a thick brush and was not able to draw thin lines. Diagonal line wobble is noticeable.

One nice thing about this tablet is the display is big, so you can place a reference photo on the canvas or use split screen mode and still have good amount of space for drawing.

This was drawn with Infinite Painter. I guess it looks ok but when you remove the colours...

You can see the same issue with uniform line width that lacks interest, lines that have difficulty tapering (see the hair), and the wobbly diagonal lines.

This was also drawn with Infinite Painter. There were occasions while drawing that I would be brought back to the gallery page. You probably have to disable the Back button inside Infinite Painter settings to prevent that. There were also occasional unintentional undos due to palm rejection not working that well.

For these sketches, I have to increase the stablisation to 15 out of 100 to get the lines to look straighter, smoother. But even so when drawing slowly, there will still be diagonal line wobble. If you want the lines to look good, you really have to draw faster for the lines to look smoother.

I had also adjusted the pressure curve to help me draw thinner lines more easily. The pen has difficulty detecting pressure changes accurately. Whenever I want to join a line, it is difficult for me to create the same line width even though I'm applying the same pressure. Look at the big and small eyelids on the face at the bottom right.

This was drawn with Concepts. I have the same problems with palm rejection, unintentional undos, line width appearing too uniform throughout and wobbly diagonal lines.

Drawing is technically possible with this tablet, but you'll need workarounds such as to increase brush stabilisation and disable certain finger gestures.

The large display is good for drawing apps with many UI elements, such as Medibang Paint and Clip Studio. Krita does not work well because certain settings box can be too big.

Battery life

The 10,000 mAh battery capacity is big.

Battery life is around 8 - 10 hours, or more with auto brightness.

Conclusion

If Teclast markets this as a multimedia tablet, it's difficult to stand out among the countless other similar tablets out there. So it's marketed as a tablet for art and creative purposes and it doesn't stand out because the pen performance is not good. At most the pen is just suitable for casual sketching and some simple marking up of documents, some writing, but certainly not for creating professional art where accuracy is needed.

The tablet works better as a general purpose tablet for some light computing work, watching videos, checking social media and listening to music. The display looks good and audio sounds good which are two things necessary for an enjoyable tablet user experience.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Design looks good
+ Build quality is solid enough
+ LCD is big, bright, vibrant, sharp
+ Screen protector already applied
+ Three display modes are available
+ 7:5 aspect ratio is good for productivity, not as good for watching videos
+ Face unlock and auto-brightness works well
+ Audio quality is good
+ There's Google Play Store
+ Battery life is long
+ Overall performance is smooth
+ There's wifi, Bluetooth and LTE
+ Supports microSD card
- Display is too glossy and reflective
- Not sure if Android OS will be updated in the future
- USI pen performance is not good for drawing
- Handwriting performance is not ideal due to latency
- Palm rejection does not work well
- OS has minimal features
- Wifi download speed is just 50Mbps

Availability

The Teclast ArtPad Pro can be purchased from Amazon.

Retail price is USD 279 and the discounted price is USD 209 with coupon code W7BYWDIL