Zbrush iPad air. Alogic Clarity Pro Touch and Clarity Pro monitor review

Alogic Clarity Pro Touch and Clarity Pro monitor review

The Alogic Clarity Pro Touch adds touchscreen functionality for Mac. It’s a premium-looking 27in 4K touchscreen display with a built-in USB hub and a fantastic height-adjustable tilt and pivot stand. Artists and video pros will appreciate its touchscreen and the fact that it operates as a quality display with a retractable webcam in normal use. With the webcam, the non-touch Clarity Pro is a worthy upgrade on the entry-level Clarity.

One of our favorite third-party displays is Alogic’s Clarity, a great-looking premium 27-inch 4K monitor that can pivot from landscape to portrait orientations and boasts a back-mounted USB-C hub. Read our full Alogic Clarity Monitor review.

Alogic has now added two new monitors to its Clarity range: the Clarity Pro and Clarity Pro Touch.

The Clarity Pro adds an all-important webcam to the display. The Clarity Pro Touch also has a webcam, but adds a touchscreen display that you can use much like an iPad with on-screen tap, swipe, slide and pinch.

Screen pixels and colors

Of course, the most important consideration when buying a display is the picture quality.

As with the original Clarity, the Alogic Clarity Pro and Pro Touch offer a 4K (3840-x-2160 pixels) screen, capable of displaying over a billion colors at a 60Hz refresh rate.

Apple’s own monitors offer 5K or 6K resolutions, but at a cost—the Apple Studio Display (5120‑by‑2880 resolution) costs a third more than the top-end Clarity Pro Touch and lacks the touchscreen functionality. The Studio Display is twice the price of the entry-level Clarity.

Apple’s Studio Display can go brighter (600 nits vs 400) but Alogic’s display supports HDR (High Dynamic Range) 600 content, which means that the whites of the display are very bright and clear, and the blacks much deeper, giving the same effect as 600 nits.

The Clarity uses QLED (Quantum Dot LED) screen technology that helps produce brighter and more vibrant colors than usual.

While the Studio Display offers a higher-end screen, the Alogic Clarity screens will be bright and impressive enough for most users.

The Clarity Pro (999) and Clarity Pro Touch (1,199) are both cheaper than the Apple Studio, so if 4K is good enough for you, you get a lot of screen for your money with the Clarity range.

Touchscreen controls

The most obvious advantage the Clarity Pro Touch has over the Apple Studio Display and other premium screens is its precision, 10-point multitouch, One Glass Solution (OGS) touchscreen.

We are all experts on a touchscreen, which we know from our phones and tablets—but few of us, especially Mac users, are used to interacting with our computers via a touchscreen.

There are real benefits to computer touchscreens, especially for professionals such as creatives and scientists.

Many popular creative programs—Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, SketchUp, ZBrush, Autodesk Maya, Blender and Inkscape, for example—allow for freehand input, such as drawing or sculpting.

Alogic has an optional accessory, the 199 Clarity Fold Stand, to better facilitate comfortable drawing or interacting onscreen—the articulating stand securely holds the monitor raised at an angle like a drafting board. It can rotate 360° so that you can share work with colleagues.

It’s a more intuitive way to fine-tune levels and effects in photo-editing or music mixing, in applications such as Adobe Lightroom and Audition, and Apple Pro Logic.

It can also substitute for a variety of analog input devices, such as MIDI synth controllers or live streaming control decks, in apps such as Ableton Live, OBS and XSplit.

Getting hands-on or stylus-on with the screen in front of you encourages spontaneity and experimentation.

For non-creatives, it’s fun to move folders around, open tabs, and double- and triple-tap text with a finger. Suddenly, the desktop mouse seems rather old-fashioned.

You can use your fingers or any capacitive stylus to interact with the onscreen content. Alogic sells its own Active Surface Stylus Pen for 49.99.

Alogic’s use of One Glass Solution technology that combines the monitor’s protective layer with its input layer via a conductive medium keeps the Clarity Pro Touch’s screen as thin as the other Clarity monitors, while maintaining the monitor’s bright picture. This is a major advantage over lower-cost, capacitive touchscreen monitors that often appear darker because of the extra layer of glass required by a touchscreen.

The Clarity Pro Touch supports capacitive styluses on Windows, macOS and ChromeOS—as well as Microsoft Pen Protocol (MPP) compatible active styluses on Windows.

While it’s a quality touchscreen, the Clarity Pro Touch doesn’t support pressure-sensitive touch.

Touchscreen Mac setup

Setting up the touchscreen was not as simple as we expected.

As the macOS offers much less support for touch functionality than Windows, Alogic requires the Clarity Pro Touch users to download drivers and a UPDD configuration app to provide more functionality on Mac.

On our first basic monitor-to-computer setup (we used an M2 Pro Mac mini) we had basic touchscreen controls working fine. We could move folders about, switch between tabs, close Windows, and so on.

However, to get full pinch-and-zoom touchscreen you need to download special drivers and a text file you’ll need in the setup.

Alogic includes a QR scan code in the user manual so you can quickly get to Clarity touchscreen drivers. The drivers can also be found on the Clarity Pro Touch product page.

It’s quite a fiddly experience—not difficult but with plenty of aspects and settings to configure.

The downloaded UPDD Commander app lets you customize a long list of touch gestures involving one, two, three, or five fingers with taps, presses, drags and swipes. A one-finger tap substitute for a mouse click. A two-finger tap can be set as a double-click.

Webcam and audio

The original Clarity lacked a webcam. Of course, you can add your own separate webcam to dangle from the top of the monitor, which would give you more flexibility and choice than having a fixed in-screen cam.

The Clarity Pro and Pro Touch earn their “Pro” title with the addition of a webcam. This one is clever as it automatically raises itself from within the monitor when an app—such as FaceTime, Zoom, Google Meet, Slack or Teams—requires it, and then auto-retracts when it’s no longer needed.

This keeps the straight-line looks of the monitor when not in use, and also gives you privacy protection as it ensures that the camera has no chance of spying on you if malware has somehow got into your system.

It’s an 8-megapixel webcam that offers a decent-quality image, and audio is fine, too. (The Apple Studio Display features a fixed 12-megapixel webcam).

While it’s clever, the retractable webcam feels a little flimsy, and the adjusting scroll wheel at the back doesn’t give a lot of camera maneuverability—although more than you get with the Apple Studio Display’s static camera and lack of any adjustability to the monitor. With the Clarity Pro and Pro Touch you will mainly use the monitor’s own super stand to center yourself onscreen.

Alogic’s Clarity display features two 5W speakers. It’s ok for video calls but you wouldn’t want to listen to music on it—you’d be better off with a separate quality speaker. The built-in 3.5mm audio jack can be used to connect external speakers.

Built-in multi-port hub and power

To have full use of the touchscreen and webcam, you must connect your Mac to the monitor via either the USB-C or USB-B port at the back of the display.

All Alogic Clarity monitors boast the back-mounted hub that includes a USB-C upstream port that supports DisplayPort 1.4, plus an upstream USB-B port, and two USB-A downstream ports, as well as a DisplayPort 1.4 and two HDMI 2.1 ports, and a 3.5mm audio port.

You connect from your Mac to the screen for Extended or Mirrored display modes via either the USB-C, DisplayPort 1.4 or one of the HDMI 2.1 ports. But connecting via the video ports will not allow for the webcam or touchscreen to work. As such the extra video ports at the back of the Clarity Pro and Pro Touch are rather redundant if you want to have full control of all the features as you can’t daisy-chain the video ports.

Using USB-C or USB-B, it can connect to your computer for not just the display but also charge a laptop at up to 65W at the same time.

The original Clarity monitor offered 90W charging for the laptop but the Pro and Pro Touch require around 25W for the webcam.

However, Alogic has reduced the power supply from 180W to just 150W, so a higher level of laptop charging could maybe have remained if the original power supply had been retained.

The bonus of charging your laptop from the monitors means you don’t need a separate power supply for your laptop. You can just connect with one cable to get an external display and keep even a medium-sized (13-14-inch) laptop fully charged.

The Apple Studio Display connectivity hub has one upstream 96W PD Thunderbolt 3 port to connect to the computer and three 10Gbps USB-C ports for connecting peripherals and storage devices.

If the computer is connected to the USB-C port on the display, the USB-A ports will operate at a rather lame USB 2.0 (480MBps) speed because the video traffic shares the USB-C cable with the USB data. This is where the Studio Display’s higher-bandwidth 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3 connection and fast USB-C ports are superior. USB 2.0 is fine for most peripherals (keyboards, mic, for example) but not for high-speed storage devices such as external hard drives and USB flash drives.

However, if the computer is connected to the display’s USB-B port, the USB-A ports operate at 5Gbps USB 3.0 speed. This makes the USB-B connection the most sensible, and both USB-C and USB-B connections are acceptable for touchscreen use.

To connect your Mac to the display via USB-B you will need an extra USB-C to USB-B cable, which strangely isn’t included. The Clarity monitors come with three cables: USB-C to USB-C (10Gbps), HDMI to HDMI and, curiously, USB-A to USB-B.

Despite the multiple display connections you cannot, for now at least, daisy chain other displays to the Clarity’s hub so the two HDMI ports are rather redundant.

Design and looks

All the silvery Clarity monitors looks great next to a Mac. This is no uninspiring black-plastic monitor.

It’s a little deeper than the slim Apple Studio Display, but its curved back means you won’t notice from the front. Unlike with the static Apple display, you can easily adjust the height of the Clarity monitors. The excellent stand is height-adjustable up to 150mm.

The screen can tilt and swivel and rotate in portrait and landscape orientations. A gravity sensor detects the rotation and adjusts the picture to match the orientation.

The Clarity displays measure 56.5cm tall (22.2in), 62.4cm (24.5in) wide and 22cm (8.7in) deep. The Clarity Pro and Pro Touch are slightly heavier than the webcam-less Clarity—weighing 7.6kg vs 7.5kg.

The Studio Display measures 47.8cm tall (18.8in), 62.3cm (24.5in) wide and 16.8cm (6.6in) deep. It weighs 6.3kg.

Price

For a quality 27-inch display, Alogic’s entry-level Clarity is competitively priced at 799.99 or £700.

Adding a retractable webcam, the Clarity Pro costs 999 / £849.

With touchscreen the Clarity Pro Touch is priced at 1,199 / £999. For a large 4K touchscreen display, this is attractively priced.

Compare those to Apple’s 1,599/£1,499 price tags for its Studio Display, which has a 5K screen but lacks an adjustable stand or touchscreen.

Read our full roundup of the best monitors for Mac.

Verdict

The Alogic Clarity Pro Touch adds touchscreen functionality for Mac. It’s a premium-looking 27in 4K touchscreen display with built-in USB hub and a fantastic height-adjustable, tilt and pivot stand. Artists and video pros will appreciate its touchscreen and the fact that it operates as a quality display with a retractable webcam in normal use.

With the webcam, the non-touch Clarity Pro is a worthy upgrade on the entry-level Clarity, but if you prefer a more flexible separate webcam, the original Clarity is still an excellent option—maybe as a second display next to either the Pro or Pro Touch.

Here Are the Best Drawing Tablets for ZBrush

Have you been sculpting on a PC and would like to try a hand with a tablet? If so, this article is for you. Read on for recommendations of the best tablets for ZBrush.

Sculpting on a tablet is fun, once you get the hang of things. However, not all tablets will be suitable for this creative task.

There are a number of features you want to consider when looking for a tablet for sculpting, whether with ZBrush, Blender, or any other 3D modeling software.

Size

Generally, with drawing tablets, the bigger the device, the larger the drawing area. However, as the surface area increases so does the price of the tablet.

Select a tablet depending on what you want to achieve. For example, if you want to FOCUS on details rather than large creations, get a tablet with a compact surface area.

On the other hand, if you need to make large stroker and use ZBrush selection features, you’ll want a tablet with a medium to large active work area. Ideally, the screen should be at least 8 inches.

Pressure Sensitivity

Check the pressure sensitivity level of the tablet you want to buy. For ZBrush, a decent tablet should have a pressure sensitivity level of over 1000. This level is sufficient for creating nice strokes.

If you have to choose a tablet for ZBrush, I recommend you go for either those from Wacom or Huion. The tablets from these two brands come with at least 2048 pressure sensitivity levels.

Lines Per Inch

Lines per inch (LPI) refers to the resolution of a drawing tablet. The LPI determine how well a tablet can pick accurate strokes and tiny details.

For ZBrush, you want a tablet with at least 1270 LPI. This LPI is sufficient to provide enough detail for your sculptures and illustrations. Depending on what you want, you can go for tablets with higher LPI, even reaching 5080 LPI.

Pens

Another thing you want is a tablet with a ballet-free pen. The drawing tablet pens are powered by an inductive current from the surface of the tablet. Therefore, you won’t have to worry about replacing or recharging the pen.

The pens of the best tablets are quite durable.

Wacom’s range of tablets all come with a pen. For Huion, the only tablets that come with a pen are from the KAMVAS line.

If you can get a tablet whose pen has tilt support, this is even better.

Battery

Decide on how you’d like the drawing tablet to be powered. You can go for either wireless tablets that use a rechargeable battery or wired option that have to be plugged into a computer to be charged.

Generally, if your work is desk or office-based, go for a wired model. On the other hand, if you are looking for a portable device, a wireless tablet would be ideal.

The most important features are support for hotkeys, tilt support on the pen, and ability to map the buttons for different programs.

With that said, here are the best tablets for ZBrush.

Best Tablets for ZBrush

Wacom Cintiq 22

The Wacom Cintiq 22 has an active drawing area measuring 19.5 x 11 inches. This tablet boasts of wide screen size, ergonomics, and provides an incredibly smooth drawing experience.

The sculpting tablet comes with the Pen Pro 2, which has an incredible 8,192 pen pressure sensitivity level. This sensitivity makes it easy to have accurate and precise animation or illustration with any program.

The tablet’s screen features an anti-glare surface that adds to the amount of drawing drag.

XP Pen Artist 15.6 Pro

With 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity, it is easy to see why the XP Pen Artist is also one of the best tablets for Zbrush. This 3D modeling tablet has an active drawing surface areas of 13.54 x 7.62 inches, and a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.

While the tablet does not boast of the preciseness and additional functionalities that Huion and Wacom tablets come with, it is still enough to get most basic tasks done. over, it is on the cheaper side when compared to other tablets for Zbrush.

This is a great entry-level drawing tablet for sculpting.

Wacom One (2020)

Wacom has some of the best tablets on the market. However, the tablets are quite pricey. If you are a sucker for Wacom and are looking for an affordable option for Zbrush sculpting, get the Wacom One.

The Wacom One has a resolution of 1920 x 1080, and pen pressure sensitivity levels of up to 4096. This tablet also has Full HD display offering 72% NTSC color. You will love how vivid and crisp your illustrations will turn out.

The Wacom One is just 13 inches, which makes it very portable. However, the small size also means that its drawing area is quite small. With this tablet, you only get 11,6 x 6.5 inches of drawing area. This small drawing area can be an issue when you want to create more elaborate creations in Zbrush.

Save for the limited drawing area, the Wacom One is an economical and reliable tablet for Zbrush.

Simbans PT

If you are looking for a budget tablet for 3D modeling, the Simbans PT is for you. This Zbrush tablet has a great active stylus and its pen pressure sensitivity levels reach 8,192. The high-end tablet offers an LPI of 5080 and has an in-built microSD card where you can store your Zbrush creations.

However, the tablet has an active drawing area of just 10 x 6.25 inches. Therefore, this is not the tablet you want if you will be drawing large illustrations.

Huion Kamvas Pro 13

The Huion 1060 Plus is no match for Wacom’s finest. However, if you cannot afford the high price tag of Wacom tablets, the Huion Kamvas 16 is a great budget alternative.

This tablet for 3D sculpting offers 11.56 x 6.5 inches of active anti-glare drawing area. The tablet has a resolution of 5080 pixels and its pen pressure sensitivity level reaches 8192.

The Kamvas Pro13 screen offers 120% sRGB color gamut, which makes creations made using ZBrush turn out richer and more vibrant.

Which is the Best Tablet for ZBrush?

Ultimately, you’ll have to decide which tablet to go for. Here, you should consider your usage patterns as well as budget.

From my experience, here are the top 3 tablets for sculpting:

High-end Model: Wacom Cintiq 22

Budget Option: Huion 1060 Plus

The above are the best tablets for ZBrush

How to turn your iPad into a second screen using Sidecar on Mac

One of the most impressive new features with macOS Catalina and iPadOS 13 is Sidecar. The new feature allows you to extend your Mac display to your iPad. In doing so, you can use Apple Pencil with your Mac for the first time and perform everyday tasks like drawing and sketching or marking up screenshots and PDFs.

With Sidecar, you can use native and third-party macOS apps on your iPad, including Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Photo, ZBrush, and many more.

Macs that support Sidecar

To use Sidecar, you must have one of the following Macs:

• iMac 27-inch (Late 2015 or newer)
• MacPro (2016 or newer)
• Mac mini (2018)
• Mac Pro (2019)
• MacBook Air (2018)
• MacBook (Early 2016 or newer)

Apple never officially announced an official list; instead this comes from Steve Troughton-Smith who did some sleuthing.

iPads that support Sidecar

To use Sidecar with your iPad, your tablet must support either the first- or second-generation Apple Pencil. These include:

• iPad Air (3rd generation)
• iPad mini (5th generation)
• iPad (7th generation)
• iPad (6th generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2nd generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (1st generation)
• iPad Pro 10.5-inch
• iPad Pro 9.7-inch

Apple Pencil (2nd generation):

Requirements to using Sidecar

In addition to having a Mac and iPad that support Sidecar, you must also be signed into the same iCloud account on each machine.

For Wi-Fi use, the following additional requirements apply:

• Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Handoff turned on.
• Both devices are within 10 meters (30 feet) of each other.
• The iPad isn’t sharing its cellular connection.
• The Mac isn’t sharing its internet connection.

How to set up Sidecar on Mac

You must first activate Sidecar on Mac and iPad to use the new tool:

• On Mac, click on System Preferences in the Dock.
• Click on Sidecar.

• Click on Devices under Connect to.
• Select your iPad from the dropdown menu.

If you don’t see your iPad in the list of devices to connect to, try plugging your iPad into your Mac.

How to set up Sidecar on iPad

At this time, it appears the only requirements for using Sidecar on iPad are that both devices must be using the same iCloud account, and connected directly or through Bluetooth. There are no additional Sidecar settings on your iPad.

Customize Sidecar on Mac

There are different ways you can use Sidecar on Mac. These include deciding whether to use the Sidebar on the left or right and whether to show your Mac Touch Bar on the top or bottom of your Mac, when applicable.

• On Mac, click on System Preferences in the Dock.
• Click on Sidecar.

• Use the checkbox to turn Show Sidebar on or off.
• If Show Sidebar is on, use the toggle to select Left or Right.

• Use the check box to turn Show Touch Bar on or off, where applicable.
• If Show Touch Bar is on, use the toggle to select Top or Bottom.

How to customize Apple Pencil options

There are two settings you can customize for Apple Pencil on Mac:

• On Mac, click on System Preferences in the Dock.
• Click on Sidecar.

• Use the checkbox to turn Enable double tap on Apple Pencil on or off.
• Use the checkbox to turn Show pointer when using Apple Pencil on or off.

Any questions?

Let us know if you have any questions about the new Sidecar feature below.

Updated October 2019: Includes newly released requirements for Sidecar.

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Turn Your iPad Into a Drawing Tablet: Sidecar vs Astropad vs Duet vs Luna

If you own an iPad and an Apple Pencil, there are several ways to pair them with your computer and transform them into a high-quality drawing tablet for photo editing. There’s Apple’s own Sidecar feature, the popular app Astropad, the hardware-assisted option Luna Display, and the “made by ex-Apple engineers” Duet Pro. I wanted to see which of these options offers the most features and the best experience for the photographer on the go.

Not that long ago, editing your photos with a pressure-sensitive pen on a high-resolution display meant shelling out thousands of dollars for one of Wacom’s Cintiq Pro products. Even now, with more affordable, lower-resolution options available from Wacom and several of its competitors, you’re still coughing up a significant amount of cash for a unitasker of a product that is often too bulky and inconvenient to take with you to a coffee shop or set up on the tray table in an airplane.

From that perspective, an iPad feels like the perfect alternative. It’s small, it’s lightweight, it boasts a high-resolution screen with good color accuracy, and it offers a great pen experience thanks to the Apple Pencil.

The question is: how do you do it? If you’re a Mac user, is Apple’s built-in Sidecar feature good enough? What about PC users, what can they use? And is Luna Display—the only option that uses a hardware dongle to “trick” your computer into thinking the iPad is a true blue second screen—miles better than the competition? We got our hands on all four options to find out.

Apple Sidecar

When Apple introduced Sidecar in June of 2019, a lot of people watching thought it was the end of third-party options like Astropad and Luna Display. Why would you pay someone else for a feature Apple was now including free of charge? As it turns out, there are a few good reasons why you might want to do just that.

Firstly, if you’re a Windows user, Sidecar is out by default — the feature is only available on Mac.

Secondly, you need a relatively new iPad and a relatively new Mac in order to make it work… something I found out the hard way when I wanted to try Sidecar on my mid-2015 Retina MacBook Pro. You need a MacBook Pro released in 2016 or newer, a MacBook Air released in 2018 or newer, or an iMac released in late 2015 or newer. You also need an iPad Pro, a third-generation iPad Air, a fifth-generation iPad Mini, or a regular iPad that’s six-generation or later. You can find a full breakdown of compatible hardware here.

Finally, while Apple did nail the basics with Sidecar, as you might expect, they locked it down pretty tightly after that. The shortcut keys on the sidebar can’t be modified, there is no control over pen pressure curves, you can’t program your own shortcuts, and there are only a few basic gestures for pinch, swipe, and zoom. True, the iPadOS text editing gestures for undo and redo aren’t limited to text, but they’re not well suited for photo editing: both are three-finger swiping gestures, so when I tried to use them in Photoshop, I ended up sending my canvas off-screen by accident at least 50 percent of the time.

If these things aren’t deal-breakers, Sidecar is admittedly a pretty sweet deal. After all, it is free, and since it’s a part of Apple’s walled garden it performs flawlessly whether you’re plugged in or connecting over Wi-Fi. In fact, of the options I tested, it’s the most stable over wireless. It’s just limited by Apple, for Apple, and that’s going to be a pain if you really want to customize your photo editing experience with additional shortcuts, advanced multi-touch gestures, or other useful features like pen pressure curves.

• No setup required: included in MacOS and iPadOS
• Best wireless connection of the bunch
• Full Apple Pencil support
• Pinch, zoom, and swipe support
• Can be used to mirror or as a secondary display
• It’s free (if you own compatible hardware)
• Little to no customizability
• Poorly optimized multi-touch gestures for Undo and Redo
• No pen pressure or other nice-to-have drawing features
• No Windows support
• Not supported on older iPads and Mac computers

Astropad Studio

Astropad is the maker of two of today’s third-party alternatives. There’s Luna Display, which we’ll talk about in a second, and the company’s namesake app Astropad.

Astropad works just like Sidecar. There is no hardware dongle necessary: just download the Astropad app on the Mac and on your iPad, and you can connect over Wi-Fi or over a USB cable. As of March, you can also download the public beta of Astropad for Windows, code-named Project Blue, which makes this our first cross-platform option.

Unlike Sidecar, Astropad is not free. You can pick up Astropad Standard for a one-time fee of 30, or Astropad Studio (which is what we were testing) for 80 per year or 12 per month.

This is very much a “good news, bad news” situation. The good news is that Astropad includes a ton of additional gestures, unlimited shortcut sets that can be customized by app, the ability to create custom pressure curves, and much much more, all incredibly useful and user-friendly. The bad news is that you’ll have to subscribe to Astropad Studio to get most of these benefits.

Astropad Standard lacks pressure curve customization, support for unlimited shortcut sets, “Magic Gestures,” on-screen keyboard, and external keyboard support.

Losing Magic Gestures is particularly painful because they’re so useful. These gestures allow you to set one, two, and three-finger taps (and holds) to various useful shortcuts like Undo, Redo, Eraser, and “Hover”—an extremely useful feature that lets you move the mouse around with your pencil without activating the click at the same time.

Both versions use the same intuitive user-friendly UI with useful shortcuts that change based on your app, and both use the same tech to connect over Wi-Fi or wired in over USB. Wired in, the latency is rock solid at three to six milliseconds. Over Wi-Fi, it ranged from a best of nine milliseconds to a max of over 150 milliseconds when the connection faltered or there was a lot going on. The average danced around 30 to 50 milliseconds, jumping up to slower speeds when you tried something new and then settling in between 10 and 15 milliseconds whenever there was less action on the screen.

Neither version can be used as a secondary display: even if you shell out for the Studio version, you can only mirror your display.

Finally, both versions of the app are more broadly compatible than Sidecar. Astropad works with any Mac running MacOS 10.11 El Capitan or newer and allows you to use slightly older iPad hardware as well.

In short: Astropad Studio is leaps and bounds better than Sidecar, with way more customizations and the best UI of the bunch. But at 12 per month or 80 per year, these benefits come at a steep price. Astropad Standard, meanwhile, is a hard sell unless you have an older Mac that isn’t compatible with Apple Sidecar. I do still like the UI better than Sidecar, but without the useful Magic Gestures and/or the ability to create customized shortcuts for various apps, I’m not sure it’s worth the 30.

• Seamless setup and connectivity
• Works wired or wireless
• Intuitive UI
• Support for older Macs and iPads
• Support for Windows (currently in Beta)
• Customizable pressure curves (Astropad Studio only)
• Useful “Magic Gestures” for things like Eraser, Undo, and Hover (Astropad Studio only)
• Support for unlimited shortcut sets (Astropad Studio only)
• On screen menu “dot” can get in the way
• Mirror mode only, can’t be used as a second display
• Astropad Standard offers very little to justify upgrading from Sidecar
• Astropad Studio is very expensive

Luna Display

Also made by the folks at Astropad, Luna Display is the only option on our list that uses a hardware dongle instead of relying exclusively on Wi-Fi or a USB connection. It’s been available for Mac for some time now — in USB-C and MiniDisplay Port variants — and is currently available for pre-order for Windows as USB-C or HDMI.

On the one hand, this allows Luna to “trick” your computer into thinking it’s using a real, secondary display. The dongle receives a display signal from your iPad or another computer and communicates that signal over DisplayPort protocol. On the other hand, it gives you one more tiny dongle to carry around and potentially lose in the bowels of your backpack or camera bag.

Personally, I didn’t mind the dongle, and the extra tricks that it enables make Luna the most versatile option of the bunch. Not only does it allow you to turn an iPad into a second display with full touch and Apple Pencil support, it can also turn another Mac into a second display, or use your iPad as the main display for your Mac mini in what’s called “headless” mode.

The same features will be available on Windows once that variant of Luna is ready to ship.

I also found that the experience — whether wired in with an extra cable, or wireless over Wi-Fi — was equivalent to Astropad Studio… which is to say, good. I still experienced some stuttering when performing heavy tasks over Wi-Fi, but had zero problems on long photo editing sessions when I plugged in the iPad over USB. The downside here, of course, is that I was already sacrificing one USB-C port to the Luna Display dongle itself, so plugging in the iPad meant giving up another precious port.

For photographers, the main downside of Luna Display is that Luna was designed first and foremost as a way to turn an iPad into a second display. As such, pen and touch capabilities take a backseat. It doesn’t feature any of the shortcuts you’ll find in Astropad Studio, no Magic Gestures, multi-touch support is limited to pinch-to-zoom and swipe, and customizability is pretty much limited to display arrangement and resolution.

Astropad apparently knows that this might be an issue for some users, which is why you can actually use Astropad and Luna together if you’re fortunate (or loaded) enough to own both. Plug in Luna and turn on Astropad, and you now get Astropad’s intuitive and full-featured drawing UI on your iPad as a second screen, using the Luna dongle to essentially bypass Astropad’s “mirror mode only” limitation.

That’s great, but I can’t sit here and recommend that you purchase a 130 Luna Display and pay 80/year for Astropad Studio, even if that does provide the best photo editing experience on an iPad. It’s simply too much money. As it stands, I’d recommend Astropad over Luna, and both of them together over anything else, but I can’t tell you that it’s worth 210 plus 80 per year for as long as you both shall live.

• Quick and easy setup
• Works wired or wireless
• Available with USB-C, MiniDisplay Port, or HDMI dongle
• Windows version available for pre-order
• Support for older Macs and iPads
• Support for “Mac to Mac” and “Headless” modes, not just iPad to Mac
• Can be used in tandem with Astropad
• Can be used to mirror or as a secondary display
• Limited gesture support
• No shortcut support
• Hardware dongle is easy to misplace or lose
• Using it wired means giving up two ports
• The most expensive option at 130

Duet Pro

Duet Display is the last entry in our roundup, and it comes in three flavors: Duet, Duet Air, and Duet Pro.

Duet and Duet Air are limited to using your iPad as a second display or remote desktop (Duet Air only), with no proper Apple Pencil support. As such, they’re not considered here. Our contender is Duet Pro, which will cost you 30 per year and includes all of the important drawing features we’re looking for like support for pen pressure and tilt, line smoothing, and multi-touch gestures.

Duet Pro is like Astropad Studio if Astropad Studio could turn your iPad into a secondary display. Like Astropad, it offers lots of useful gestures, lets you customize your pen pressure curve, and is optimized to work with photo editing and illustration applications. Unlike Astropad, it’s not limited to mirroring your computer’s screen. It’s also the only option that already offers full support for Windows and has for some time—no betas, no ‘pre-order,’ you’re good to go.

Of the four options tested here, Duet Pro was probably the least reliable for me. It threw the most glitches, stuttered the most over a wireless connection, and once froze my computer solid when I tried to adjust the resolution from System Preferences instead of the Duet desktop app. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time Duet Pro worked flawlessly, but I have to mention the few glitches I experienced because the other three options were all so stable.

Minor issues aside, Duet Pro matched Astropad Studio and Luna Display step for step in terms of the smoothness of its wired and wireless connection. I opted for wired most of the time for the sake of mitigating latency but could use it wirelessly in a pinch with no problem.

As far as customization and UI, it’s not quite as full-featured or user-friendly as Astropad Studio. You can still change the pressure curve, and there are some useful shortcuts and gestures like two-finger tap to undo and one finger hold to hover, but the app’s menu is sort of “hidden” and the UI takes some getting used to.

The one place where it beats Astropad outright is compatibility. Duet Pro is compatible with Macs running anything from MacOS 10.9 onward, and any iPad running iOS 10 or later will work; and, as I already mentioned, it’s already fully compatible with Windows as well.

Overall, Duet Pro is a good option if you’re a Windows user and/or can’t stomach the cost of Astropad Studio. At 30/year, it’s certainly a lot cheaper than AstroPad. But the features aren’t quite as polished and the UI isn’t on the same level, making it a harder sell if you have access to Sidecar or you’re willing to wait for Astropad to release the full version of Astropad Studio for Windows later this year.

• Easy setup
• Fully compatible with both Mac and Windows
• Works wired or wireless
• No hardware dongle required
• Can be used to mirror or as a secondary display
• Customizable pressure curve
• Useful multi-touch gestures
• Cheaper than Astropad Studio
• glitchy than Astropad or Luna Display
• UI can be a bit confusing
• No custom shortcuts
• Subscription only

And the winner is…

Best Overall: Astropad Studio

For the most full-featured experience with the best support for photo editing and illustration with the Apple Pencil, choose Astropad Studio. Duet Pro can’t match the sheer customizability of Astropad, and if you wind up getting a Luna Display down the road, you can use the two together for the ultimate photo editing experience on an iPad.

There’s simply no comparison between using Astropad Studio and using Apple’s Sidecar or even Duet Pro. Astropad’s commitment to creators is evident. It’s baked into the DNA of this product through and through and now that it’s coming to Windows, I have no good reason to tell you to choose another option.

I just wish they’d sell something similar as a one-time purchase instead of asking us to pay 80/year for the foreseeable future. That structure should encourage Astropad to keep improving the app year-in and year-out, but it also means that it’s only worth the cost for those photographers who are willing to integrate the app into their professional workflow.

Best for Most People: Apple Sidecar

For most people, Sidecar is good enough. It has the smoothest performance of the bunch when you’re connected wirelessly, can be used as a mirrored or secondary display, supports full pen pressure and tilt, and gives you the bare-bones shortcuts and multi-touch gestures you need for enthusiast-level photo editing on an iPad.

In other words: it gets the job done.

The customizability is lacking, compatibility is limited to new-ish computers and iPads, and it will never be available to Windows users. If that disqualifies you, consider spending the 30 on Astropad Standard or checking out Project Blue. But if you own compatible hardware and you don’t consider yourself a power user who plans to use the iPad for serious photo editing, stick to Sidecar. Your wallet will thank you.