Pro tip: Don't buy a $200 drawing tablet off a random site.

I grabbed a cheap XP-Pen knockoff from some sketchy ad and the driver software gave my laptop a virus. Has anyone else gotten burned buying budget gear from weird places?

3 comments

3 Comments

samk771mo ago

Made that mistake once with a cheap Huion clone from a site called "tabletzone.net" or something. The driver exe gave my Windows install a nasty adware that kept popping up sketchy gambling sites every time I opened Photoshop. Ended up having to nuke my whole C drive and reinstall everything. What I learned is to just buy direct from the actual brand's website or Amazon and pay the extra $50 for peace of mind. Did you manage to clean off whatever that driver did to your laptop?

evan_cooper731mo ago

Man I gotta disagree here, buying direct from the brand is usually way more expensive for the same hardware. Those sketchy sites can suck but I've grabbed perfectly fine drawing tablets from random places like AliExpress for half the price and they worked fine with generic Windows drivers. Most of those driver issues come from people not having basic antivirus running or just clicking through installers too fast.

emmam891mo ago

Wait until you try to update the driver six months later and the sketchy site is just GONE, taking any hope of a non-virus driver with it. I swear half these knockoff tablets come with built in spyware disguised as a "calibration tool." Had a friend who bought a $40 tablet from some random store and the pressure sensitivity was just a web slider that adjusted your brush opacity like a dimmer switch. At least buying from the actual brand means you get the real drivers and not a crypto miner wearing a trenchcoat.