Unboxing My LCD Writing Tablet - Update

This post may look strange and professional artists may laugh as this LCD writing tablet may have no use for many, but I have a goal with it, so it is of great use to me, at least I hope it will be.

We live in the 21st century, where we have so many gadgets one can't even choose which one to buy. My dream is to have the most performant drawing tablet, pad or whatever you want to call it. Out of curiosity I had a peek at what vendors have to offer these days regarding this category. I said out of curiosity, because I know I'm not going to buy any of those anytime soon, so it was just virtual window shopping on my behalf. Why? Because my dream is to draw and create different artworks one day, but because I have no talent, it would be extremely foolish to spend a few thousands of $ on a tool I would never use at full capacity, or it will be just to draw childish stickmen on it. It would be a huge waste of funds, which I'm always trying to avoid.

Yesterday browsing one of the supermarket's offer, I came across this LCD writing tablet which was at around 8€. As it says on the box, it is "For paperless notes, drawing and writing". I know kids have 100 times more performant gadgets these days as they are not the ones paying for it 😂 So no worries, this will be prefect for me to fool around and find out if I have what it takes to make the next move and invest in something way better. So let's move on and see what I got.

This is how the box of my new toy looks like.

On the back of the box there is a detailed inventory and description in several languages.

When I opened the box I saw the tablet was wrapped in plain paper 😳, which was already a warning sign. For God's sake, this tablet has LCD display, it's not made of wood, so the least they could have done would have been a bubble nylon wrap.

There was a user manual included as well.

And this was where the surprises started. Sorry for the flash on the screen, disregard that. Looks at the rest of the screen. I was expecting a clean screen but instead I got a screen with spots on it, like it has already been used. I tried to turn it off and on, but no luck there either.

In the meantime I should mention that the screen is 8.5" and the tablet is 0.56cm thick or rather thin. They say it has a safety system, which means you can lock the screen to save the writing or drawing, which is smart. They also say the battery is included. The pen is on the top.

The back was fine. It comes with two magnets, in case you want it on the fridge as a messaging board. It's a good thing though.

So back to the screen. When I saw I can't turn it off, I started to read the instructions to see if I'm doing something wrong. Obviously I could not resist and already drew a few crazy things on it, hoping to be able to erase it after, but as the button does not react to touching, all the mess on the screen stays.

After reading the manual, I had to learn that most likely the battery is dead and needs to be changed.

That screw looks huge, but that's a macro photo, so I'm going to need a tiny screwdriver to change the battery and a battery as well.

At that point I put it aside with the intention to change the battery tomorrow, but after some thinking I decided to return it tomorrow. I'm hoping to get a functioning one, if not, then a refund as this is not fair.

From that little that I was able to do, I can say that I like the fact that the delete function is kind of "all or nothing". You can delete the whole writing or drawing, but can't delete parts, lines, letters. This makes my job harder as in drawing there's always deleting as well, especially if you're at the beginning and have no talent at all, like me. This will mean I have to redo my drawing entirely, but this does not scare me.

The other other thing I like that I will need to learn how hard or little to press the pencil to get a thin or thick line. I'm not saying the tablet is super cool, but for 8€ it's ok. I could get used to it.

Now let's see if there will be any left tomorrow or I'm going to return home with a refund.

So this is my first unboxing post and not the best one for sure. I was expecting something better, but you know how it is. You never know what you get. I hope one day I'm going to buy a professional tablet that an work miracles. Till then, this has to do 😏

Update

This morning I packed the tablet and headed back to the supermarket. While I was walking and enjoying the morning chill, I was thinking the best strategy is to return this and go look for another one, if they still have any.

Returning went smoothly, the lady filled out the paperwork, checked if what I'm saying it's true, then refunded the money. So I went in to look for another. To my surprise, there were still plenty on the shelf.

Opening sealed boxes in a shop is a very ugly thing, I never do it, but in this case I had no choice. So I opened a new one, of similar color and to my surprise, the screen was on, with some marks already, possibly from touching the box. I tried to turn it off, but without any luck. As I said, there were plenty on the shelf and I could have tried them out till I could find one that was working but what would have been the point? Who can guarantee me the it won't become faulty after a day or two?

I put the tablet back in the box and walked away. I wasn't happy, but it was the smartest choice.

What's The Lesson Learnt Today?

Don't fall for cheap 💩, buy a decent one. I'm going to look around to see how much I would need for a decent drawing tablet and start making plans of buying one.

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