Wacom One 13 Touch Review: A Digitizing Tablet That Aims to Make Display-Based Digital Drawing More Accessible

Wacom One 13 Touch Review

Many devices ship with a stylus or offer one as an auxiliary piece of hardware. In many situations, from sketching to commenting on a PDF, pens make drawing, editing and annotating much easier than a keyboard and a mouse. But not all computers include a pen, pencil or stylus. Higher-end devices used for video editing and massive graphics often aren’t laptops at all.

That is where Wacom and other digitizing tablet companies come in. Their tablets connect to a desktop computer, a Mac, a PC, or even a Chromebook. They transform a standard keyboard, mouse/trackpad interface into a touch or pen-aware input device, depending on their capabilities.

With Wacom One 13 Touch, the company scaled down and consumerized the technology in its Cintiq line with a creative and display-based digitizer that falls into the affordable range at $600 ($400 for the smaller, non-touch version).

What we like

Pros

• Easy to set-up and use
• Descent battery-free stylus
• Great drawing experience
• Touch screen
• Sustainability recognized throughout the buying process

For users of modern computers, those with a USB-C port, the Wacom One 13 Touch powers up and connects with a single USB-C cable. No power cord and no HDMI to connect; the USB-C cable delivers power and video. So, for most users, Wacom has simple covered.

The stylus employs electromagnetic resonance, which transmits position, pressure and angle. It requires no batteries and no charging, which is a plus. Unfortunately, the stylus that ships with the Wacom One 13 is the only stylus that works with this tablet. None of the fancier styli, like those designed for the Wacom Intuos Pro, works with this tablet. The stylus isn’t bad; it just isn’t as sophisticated or well-designed for long drawing sessions as the better Wacom offerings. Keeping with its lower-end target audience, Wacom does offer pens in different colors.

Keep in mind that this is a $600 video-based drawing tablet. A few years ago, that would have been unimaginable. Now, it almost seems overpriced (and will likely be discounted regularly as all technology is). As would be expected from Wacom, the drawing experience is near magic.

Unlike many laptops with pens, the Wacom One 13 offers a matt surface with some texture, making drawing feel more paper-like. An aftermarket has grown around the iPad to make it feel like the Wacom One 13 already feels. Wacom has been developing tablets for a long time, and it shows. Those buying the Wacom tablet are not just buying hardware; they are buying Wacom’s experience in tablet-as-input devices.

A nylon loop at the top of the One 13 Touch holds the pen in place during travel and storage. Trust me, a stylus is easy to misplace if it isn’t connected to a device.

The Wacom One 13 Touch doesn’t stop with the stylus. A flip of a switch (yes, an actual switch) converts it into a touch device as well, extending touch experiences to devices without it, like Apple’s MacBooks, along with many Chromebooks and Windows devices that ship without touch capabilities.

The Wacom Center and associated drivers handle both pen and touch in concert with any native features in the operating systems. Again, Microsoft Windows does a much better job than Apple’s macOS because macOS does not include touch as a foundational feature. But once installed, both experiences work well, with the Wacom software allowing for adjustments to gestures and what the pen buttons do.

One of the cool things about the Wacom One 13 Touch is the nod to sustainability throughout the buying process. Rather than come with all the cables, it comes with only the cables the buyer needs. All of the plastic is gone from the packaging. The box is printed with soy ink. Unfortunately, the device itself is still plastic on the back, which makes it, well, still plastic, and makes the tablet feel like a second-tier device when compared to other tablets, even basic iPads, which can act as input devices and cost less and offer higher resolution displays. (For those interested in an iPad approach see Astropad and Duet as options.)

Although the Wacom One 13 Touch aims at an “entry” level market, it offers enough features that professionals will be able to create with it. Compared to more sophisticated Wacom tablets, the One 13 Touch doesn’t support workflow features, like physical buttons and knobs, but it does include virtual versions of those, like Photoshop drawing and Brush tools, contextually in the “grid panels” feature. Pen gestures support pan, zoom, and scroll.

For students or professionals focused on notetaking and mobile annotation, this is not the right technology. A tablet or pen-enabled smartphone remains a superior solution primarily because of size and integration. Turn those devices on, and the notetaking can commence. With the One 13 Touch, the USB-C cable to the laptop just requires too much setup and too much room to be effective in a classroom. It would, however, work in situations where the owner would use it for longer durations and where plenty of surface area is available to work.

The simplicity of the Wacom One 13 Touch proves deceiving. The more time with the device, the more features reveal themselves. But people buy a graphics tablet for drawing, and this one excels at that. The other features are there, like any set of tools, to support people along their learning journey. For most, drawing starts with a pencil and paper. In its basic form, when the Wacom One powers up, that’s what it offers. Open a drawing program, select the pencil and draw. That’s what artists do. After some satisfying sketching, then it’s time to dig into the other features if those are even needed.

What could be improved

Cons

• Bulky and overly plastic
• Large bezel
• “Bonus” software feels like downloadable bloatware
• Not wireless
• Windows management
• Some accessories should be included, like the stand.

I don’t know how else to say this. As much as I like the Wacom One 13 Touch, I want a $600 device to feel more iPad and less Amazon Fire for Kids. My ViewSonic TD1655 Monitor isn’t much bigger than the One 13 Touch. It runs off a single USB-C connection, includes touch, is made of all metal, and includes a carrying case. It retailed for around $300. Sure, there are digitizing electronics to deal with on a digitizing tablet, but in the power of Wacom is the display, not the body. I think they could make a slimmer, sleeker device and keep the price point.

Comparisons to portable monitors and Apple iPads also call into question the need for wide bezels. Apple regularly reduces the bezel on new iPad models. By contrast, the One 13 Touch has a huge bezel surrounding its HD display. The Cintiq Pro line also has wide bezels. These bezels may come down to some Wacom design philosophy, but I think they just add surface that would be better served by pixels than plastic. While it could be about a place to place the side of a hand, hours of using an Apple iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil tell me that the bezel doesn’t play a significant role in digital artistry.

In a world where manufacturers tout their bezel-to-screen ratios, the Wacom One 13 Touch looks out of touch.

I’m not a fan of the “Bonus” software. It feels like a once-removed version of bloatware. None of the applications are free. They are trials and demos that expect a subscription to keep working. It would be great for Wacom to cut a deal with at least one company to provide a good, basic drawing program that you don’t have to pay for after plunking down for the case for the tablet. Fortunately, there are free drawing apps like Krita and Gimp. It would be nice to have Wacom point to those as well, though I’m sure the commercial vendors pay Wacom for the exposure.

That said, those who already own drawing, PDF, or video editing software do not even need to look at the “bonus” software. The tablet will work with all existing software.

Now for the USB-C cable. I get the latency issue. But Wacom makes wireless input devices, and this tablet would be much better as a wireless device. The lack of a tether would make for a more fluid user experience, as with any other device that eliminates wires that get in the way and clutter workspaces.

Wired or not, the One 13 Touch lives in the Microsoft Windows, Chrome, or Apple macOS windowing world. Windows management is just part of the experience. It isn’t a Wacom’s issue, though purchasing a Cintiq Pro 27 likely solves the problem by making the tablet’s screen THE screen. When working with a device like the Wacom One, it will likely be part of an ecosystem of displays. In most cases, at least two, in my case, three ecosystems. Not only do artists and editors need to position the Wacom One logically among the displays, but they also need to manage where tools and images live.

While 1080p at max resolution, the 13 Touch may not be large enough to manage all of the tools with an image as its central focus. That means taking some time to configure the workspace before getting to work—or to evolve a workspace as the need arises. Both approaches take away from creative time.

Wacom created a personalized experience for the Wacom One line. Wacom One also ships as a 12-inch display without touch. They also sell displayless versions called the One M or One S (medium and small). The backs of the tablets can be customized. They also offer different pens and pen colors that can be purchased separately.

Of all the accessories, I would like to see the stand come standard, as drawing flat on a surface doesn’t work as well as drawing at an angle. Look at any Disney documentary, and all of the artists are drafting at a pitch. The stand (called the Wacom One Stand) should be in the box (though yes, given their configuration scheme and sustainability focus, buyers can configure their order to include the stand, which I suggest; those who have other inclinations or already tilted desks need not order it, thus cutting down on waste).

Wacom One 13 Touch: The bottom line

Wacom’s One 13 Touch brings the immediacy of direct drawing to a new set of consumers. There is an appreciable difference between a digitizing tablet that maps to a screen and one that is a screen. Though not the most elegant of designs, the One 13 Touch offers all the features needed for digital artists and makes an effective tool for other content creators who offer edits and commentary on PDFs and other content. It even turns an Apple Macintosh into a pen-based system where tools like Microsoft OneNote and Fluid Touch’s Noteshelf become pen-based tools in Apple’s non-pen experience.

Wacom provided the One 13 Touch for review. Images courtesy of Wacom unless otherwise noted.

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