Ask HN: Best drawing tablet for online whiteboarding? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best drawing tablet for online whiteboarding?

2 pointstimvdalen5 comments

Now that everyone is fully remote, I'm starting to miss the availability of whiteboards in meeting rooms to quickly sketch out something.

Mouse-based freehand tools don't really seem to work for me, so I usually end up opening something like Inkscape and drawing a diagram using its tools. However, that's a lot slower than just drawing stuff out.

Does anyone have a good recommendation for pens/tablets that work well for this use case?

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For quick whiteboard diagrams, you can probably make do with any <$100 drawing tablet off Amazon. I personally use Wacom Intuos which is a bit pricer but have features for my digital art hobby (pen pressure and onboard buttons). Disclaimer: to make effective use of these tablets, you need to have good hand-eye coordination i.e. your eyes will be on the screen and won't be able to see where your pen is moving. It took me awhile to get used to using my tablet so YMMV.

If you have a compatible tablet, Apple/Android/Surface pens are $100-200. You'll have the advantage of being able to see where you are moving your pen.

If you don't have a compatible tablet, you can get a drawing tablet for ~$300 with onboard screen such as HUION KAMVAS.

You can read more about drawing tablets here: https://www.reddit.com/r/stylus/wiki/index

Thanks for the link and in-depth explanation. I hadn't thought about it from that angle yet. Maybe I'll borrow a colleague's drawing tablet to fire out if I need one with a screen.

Does it have to be online? Meaning they have to be able to see your sketching as it progresses?

Also, you'll get better answers if you mention which tools you use for online collaboration.

That would be my main use case, yes. For offline drawing, I'm content with pen and paper.

I'm open to suggestions but mostly use the G-Suite, so this would be for use in for instance Jamboard.

A whiteboard, camera, lav microphone, some lights. Or stream yourself working at a whiteboard.

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