The Parblo Mast 10 Review

DISCLAIMER: I totally begged Parblo to send me this graphic monitor and Milly, who is their marketing and PR person, obliged. Thanks Milly! The only request Milly made was that I first talk with Parblo should I experience any problems. 

Features and Install Setup

The Parblo Mast 10 is a 10.1 inch graphic monitor, a cintiq alternative. With 6 customizable express keys on the left side and a power button on the right. It features an ISP screen with a 178° visual angle on a 1280*800 resolution.

The stylus has 2048 pressure sensitivity and is free from any form of battery. It has 2 buttons that you can toggle for custom effects such as an eraser.

Setup 

1. Uninstall any previous drivers ( I uninstalled my Wacom drivers). It will recognize the pen regardless but I didn't get pen pressure to work until I did.
2. Install Parblo drivers (which are in Chinese :S). Took me 2 tries but I figured out the right buttons to use.
3. Once you've uninstalled the old drivers and installed the new ones. Restart the pc and voila!

But what does it feel like?

Graphic Monitor

The monitor has a dark plastic frame which is slightly rubbery. It's heavy enough to not move around lightly and light enough to simply raise with one hand if needed.

You can't bend it, it's robust and designed with heavy usage in mind. The mini-USB cable has extra support built in to counter any mechanical damage. The cables are fairly long about 1m. At a bare minimum you need the USB cable connected for the surface to accept the stylus and the HDMI cable for you to be able to see the screen.

So technically you can also use it as a graphic tablet without the screen function.

Stylus

Is... beautiful. A slight light golden ring around the middle. charcoal black, balance heavily in favor of the tip but that actually feels comfortable.

2 buttons that can enable the eraser should you wish it.

The only negative experience is trying to do a fine detail from a zoomed out view. Due to the parallax which is virtually non-existant but noticeable when trying to do something really small like the iris of an eye I'd have to zoom in which isn't a big problem.. considering how forgiving digital drawing is. But something to consider for anyone who can foresee that in his style of drawing he would need a lot of fine detail for a more realistic look.

In real life you don't have to zoom in.. your motor skills are fine enough but technical limitations force you to use the zoom in to get more out of the pixels you have available to you. A bigger resolution graphic monitor would help with that.

Wrapping it up

It's much more fun to draw on a screen then on a graphic tablet. Frankly, I had forgotten how much fun drawing could be. I was surprised.

The manufacturing is good quality, it looks beautiful. The driver although Chinese was easy to install.

I have nothing bad to say except that it has a small active area. If you dished out another 100~ dollars you could get more with Parblo Coast22 and should you get a device that works reliably,I don't see why anyone would need to pay more for a pricier Wacom model unless they really wanted the cutting edge.

Parblo will definitely enable you as an artist. The bigger difficulty will come from not having the skills to do your art justice.

Video review

• Artist: Fleshwerks
• Software: Photoshop CS6​
• Graphic Monitor: Parblo Mast10