#yiynova

Firstly, the model I have is the early model Yiynova MSP19U, which I got back in July 2013, making it around 5 years that I’ve had this tablet. I believe they don’t make this exact model anymore, they seem to have upgraded it to an MSP19U+. The one I have does not have the side buttons, the face of the tablet is completely blank (this is preferable to me though, as I’m left handed and having shortcut buttons on the left side would not be useful to me anyways!).

Here’s an old image of what it looked like on its sale page:

I’ll now mention some of my opinions in pros and cons that I’ve seen while using this product. Keep in mind this was my first monitor tablet, and it’s still the one I currently use! I have never used a Cintiq or seen another brand in use other than a Huion of similar size that my housemate owns, so I don’t have enough experience with other brands to compare them to this one.

PROS-

-cost, does its job well for much cheaper than many other competitive tablet brands

-viewing angles are great, I use this tablet both for art and also as my main viewing monitor for watching videos and browsing websites

-monitor settings/programming are very nice and have many options for customizing

-pen pressure is responsive, minimal lag, feels very natural to draw on

-size is large, can easily display art programs + open reference images and has lots of workspace to utilize

-colour quality is excellent. May require some adjustment through monitor settings to get to what you want. It also had no dead pixels on arrival, and 5 years later I only have one or two dead pixels on the entire thing that are barely noticeable.

CONS-

-pen it came with has a few annoying quirks: the buttons on it are easy to accidentally press (which causes it to interrupt lines) but are programmable and can be disabled, which I did. The pen also is not rechargeable and uses 1 AAA battery, which gives it a weight some people may dislike (I prefer it though, & I use rechargeable AAAs anyway). It has a screw-on cap which unfortunately can be easily over-tightened by accident, this has caused my pen’s cap plastic to split a bit, making it easy for the cap to fall off while drawing. Taping it shut has helped, although it’s annoying. Lastly, the pen’s thin rubber grip cover can slip off super easily, it can be annoying while drawing (I’ve since just removed it entirely). I have heard that they’ve updated the design of the pen to no longer be the one I have, and fix the many issues mine had. But I have not been able to try out the new pen design yet. Here’s what my pen looks like:

The new pen design shown in all of their pages now is this:

From the pictures I can see that this new pen is reinforced so it shouldn’t be able to be overtightened, and it seems to have a texture throughout instead of a removeable grip that slips. It still runs on battery, and the buttons are placed in a way it still looks like they might be easy to accidentally click during drawing, though.

-vesa stand plastic quality is a bit poor, mine recently had the hinge holding it together shatter, which made the tablet no longer able to be adjusted in height/angle. I had to do a DIY fix haha, so far it’s holding up okay but not as well as when it was in original working order. Here’s a small picture of my broken vesa stand hinge, pointing to the part on the tablet that I’m referring to:

-VGA cable is a bit outdated and also a very delicate, susceptible to bending. VGA is an old input that many newer computer graphics cards don’t support, so I had to purchase a VGA to DVI converter. Minor issue, as it works fine with the converter. The second problem is a bit more serious. The cables on the yiynova are very seemingly delicate. They worked fine for the first few years of use, but now if I so much as bump the cable, it distorts the display and makes it flash in RGB colours. This is due to my computer setup requiring me to bend the cable slightly in order to fit in the VGA converter + tablet cable between the wall my computer is against. Right now I’m at a point where I have to manually bend/straighten some parts of the cord using zip ties, for the display to show proper colours. Here’s a short video showing what I’m talking about, in it I am bumping the VGA cable to show how the screen goes to magenta by a simple touch (warning for people with epilepsy, flashing colours):

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3_B6Vsv6deA

-screen resolution is a bit weird to work with at times, 1440 is fine but 900 is on the lower side. Other reviewers have complained about fuzzy resolution, but it doesn’t bother me so much and/or I don’t notice it as much, but I would definitely prefer an HD version. However, for the cost this serves its job well.

-size is great workspace wise, but this tablet is far too big and heavy to easily take with during travel. For those who travel, this is definitely a home model not intended for that.

Ultimately, I truly believe this tablet is worth it. It is easy and fun to work with. You get what you pay for, as there are some mild quality issues BUT these may have been fixed or improved upon in the updated versions. I don’t have much money and can’t afford to replace higher-end purchases like this, so I tend to use things I have for as long as possible until they are entirely dead and irreparable, hence the DIY things I’ve done to repair the pen, vesa stand, and VGA cable. I’m not sure how long a tablet like this is supposed to last, but this one has survived 5 years of heavy use, including moving house multiple times as well as across country, and cats that like to play with cables and loose pens.