Osu is an online multimedia game that has gained a lot of attention since the early 2010s. The game is a lot more than just ‘fun.’ It is super addictive with a plethora of colors, rhythms, and beats overpowering your screen and senses.
What makes the game addictive is the super competitiveness of the Osu community that is omnipresent during a gameplay session, as well as the total control over the screen that the game requires.
It is the total control of the screen that requires additional hardware to enhance the gaming experience that Osu has to offer. While the traditional mouse and keyboard is the cheapest and most convenient way to play, it isn’t at par with the harder songs that require uber precision and perfect timing control. This is where the best tablet for Osu comes into play.
Budget Pick
- Ideal For Beginners
- Special Buttons For Osu
- Extremely Cost-Efficient
Best Tablet For Osu
There are a variety of vendors to choose from while choosing an Osu friendly tablet. Previously, the Osu store itself used to sell tablets that were optimum for the game. But since the store has discontinued this product, many companies took the opportunity of a growing market of gamers and built tablets that cater to the needs of an average Osu player.
Following is the list of some Osu friendly tablets to choose from. But like the buying of any other product, consider the list of features mentioned above and recognize what kind of tablet would be most suitable according to your gaming needs.
Why Use A Tablet?
Unlike the popular touchscreen tablets, Osu gameplay is enhanced by a simple pen controlled graphic board that is connected to your computer. The pen replaces your computer’s mouse, and its movement can be tracked on your monitor screen. The pen that is used for tracking on a tablet gives you absolute tracking over a mouse’s relative tracking.
Absolute tracking corresponds to every point of the tablet to another particular point, which means that if the pen is lifted out of the sensitive area of the tablet and is placed at a totally different point on the sensitive area, the corresponding cursor will automatically jump to the new placement point.
Whereas, with the mouse’s relative tracking, the cursor has to be dragged to different points of the screen. Relative tracking is considerably slow and ineffective for advances Osu gameplay.
Whereas advanced Osu players would also factor in tablet features like RPS, tilt sensitivity, pressure sensitivity, and active area size; most dilettante players only require to care about the tablet’s LPI (Lines Per Inch), i.e., resolution.
LPI determines the amount of movement that is required for the tablet to sense activity. If a tablet has a resolution of 50 LPI, a movement of 1/50th of an inch will be enough for the cursor to shift. Anything over 100 LPI would enhance your gameplay by an exorbitant rate.
Touchscreen tablets are hardly used by advanced players since they provide much less control and coordination between the cursor and clicker than a combination of keyboard and tablet.
1. HUION H420 OSU Tablet – Budget Pick
Huion is a reliable tablet company that has come to rage because of it’s Osu friendly tablet. This is not the best tablet in the market for advanced players, but it seals the deal for beginners. It is a relatively cheap tablet, one of the cost-efficient products on the market. As in the case of most computing devices, this tablet runs much better with the right drivers installed.
Our Budget Pick
HUION H420 OSU
The tablet weighs about one pound and sports a 4 x 2.23” active area, which is not much, but enough for a beginner. It is entirely made of plastic, which seems cheap, and the compatible pen has to be separately bought.
The pen is battery operated, which is a problem because batter operated pens are heavy, causing a bit of mechanical lag in the gameplay.
The Huion tablet has three mechanical buttons that can be used to Osu which means that it eliminates the need for a keyboard clicker. This saves the money to be invested in a good keyboard and also manages clutter on your gaming desk.
Pros
- Ideal active screen size for beginners
- Works well with right drivers
- Sports three mechanical buttons that can use used as clickers in Osu
- Extremely cost-efficient
Cons
- Made of plastic
- Heavy, battery-operated pen
- Not suitable for intermediate to advanced players
2. XP-Pen 430S – Best Overall
Even though the XP-Pen 430S is not as popular as the Huion H420 Osu, it beat the latter on almost all grounds even though the two are pretty similar. It is probably the result of marketing that this tablet did not get as much hype as it deserves.
Our Pick
XP-Pen 430S
The XP-Pen 430S is a little more expensive than the Huion H420 Osu, but it comes with a battery-less pen, which is much lighter in weight and is, therefore, more comfortable to use. The active screen size is a little bigger than the previous tab.
This one sports a 4 x 3″ active area that is slightly taller, but due to forced proportions, it makes only a small difference.
This tablet also has a higher report rate, which makes it perform much better, considering how cheap it is. With the right drivers installed, this is an ideal tablet for a beginner player who is looking for a small hardware addition.
Pros
- Battery-less, lighter pen
- Light Weight
- Good response rate
Cons
3.GAOMON Osu Graphics Tablet Pad
As the name suggests, this tablet is specifically designed for Osu gameplay. Even even though at 6 x 6”, the size of the tablet is decent, most of it is left unused due to the awkward square aspect ratio.
GAOMON Graphics Tablet
A very cool feature of this tablet is that it is rubber flexible. Many advanced enjoy playing Osu on this table because of its exemplary response rate. However, the extremely thin and flexible design requires the player to place the tablet on a flat surface.
In general cases, that should not be a problem, since Osu anyway requires a sturdy hand over the tablet, but some players prefer to have the option of playing somewhere other than their desk, and that is a slim possibility with a flexible rubber tablet.
Gaomon Osu Pad comes with a battery-operated pen, which is slightly heavy, but not a dealbreaker. The pen comes with a variety of tip adjustments that increases the controllability of the gaming experience.
Pros
- The great response rate for the price
- Bigger active area
- Variable stylus tips
- Extremely grippy due to the rubber body
Cons
- Flexibility requires a flat surface
- Awkward aspect ratio
- Battery operated heavy stylus
4. Veikk S640 Drawing Tablet
This tablet has gained a lot of popularity after Wacom discontinued its best products from production. With an overall great performance, this one certainly is preferred by a lot of advance players.
Veikk S640
The response time to this tablet is great. The 6 x 4″ active area is ideal for most players regardless of difficulty handling level. The high-quality plastic build is extremely thin and lightweight, which makes this tablet an ideal for traveling gamers.
The pen has a good and evenly distributed weight proportion but can do better with rubber grips, as it tends to slip during high difficulty gameplay sessions.
Pros
- High-performance rate
- Good built
- Lightweight
- Ideal for all kinds of players
Cons
- Slippery pen
5. Wacom Wireless Drawing Tablet – Premium Pick
This is the best tablet for Osu out there.
The response rate of this tablet is phenomenal, and it has very low latency. The resolution is 120 LPI, which makes it super smooth and seamless. This tablet is built of high-quality plastic and feels very opulent while using for gaming.
Our Premium Pick
Wacom Wireless Tablet
This tablet does not require any extra drivers to perform well and is, therefore, a complete package in itself. It comes with a great passive pen, which is lightweight and very well connected to the gameplay.
There is no doubt that this is the top tablet for Osu however, cheaper tablets can be found in the market that does not perform the same, but are more cost-efficient and practical.
Pros
- Good build quality
- Supreme response rate
- Good passive pen
- Independent package – does not need drivers to enhance performance
Cons
- Expensive
How To Choose The Right Tablet For Osu
Absolute Tracking
The most important feature that comes without saying with a tablet is absolute tracking. For a game that relies on speed and precision, absolute tracking, and the ability to shift seamlessly to any point on the screen becomes a crucial gaming necessity.
Absolute tracking can also be achieved by other controllers like a MIDI board, a joystick, and a touchscreen. Gaming tablets, however, are the best way to go about enjoying a game of Osu
Resolution/Lines Per Inch
Another crucial feature high in importance right after absolute tracking is LPI. The easiest way to understand LPI is understanding that when a stylus is moved over the active area of a tablet, it comes with contact with active lines that send movement feedback to the cursor on the monitor. Tightly packed lines, i.e., a greater number of lines per inch, make the active area extremely sensitive to movement.
The desired LPI again depends on the advancement level that you’re willing to play at. In general terms, a tablet that has a resolution of 100 LPI or above will do much better than any monitor or mouse that you’d be using.
Active Area
Other than the minuscule brownie points tucked away into the corners of the screen, all major scoring in a game of Osu requires a tightly packed moving area. Therefore, the smaller the tablet sensitivity/active area size, the better. A larger screen would also require higher resolution that keeps increasing the cost of an ideal tablet.
Style And Response Time Of The Pen/Stylus
Styluses that come with gaming tablets are usually battery operated, but some are also connected to the tablet via USB cable. Both styles have their benefits and drawbacks. While a battery-operated stylus is unusable for the time it takes to get fully recharged, a USB style stylus can pose a mobility threat as the wire might get tangled during a particularly heated session of Osu
If you’re interested in performing at the absolute epitome of perfection, a stylus with high response time would be ideal for you. Such a pen will ensure that the cursor position would be as accurate as possible, giving you maximum control over your game.
In the general case, however, a standard stylus with a standard response time will be sufficient to fulfill your gaming needs. Combined with the resolution of the tablet, any stylus will make the cut.
Another thing about styluses is that they come with replaceable tips that vary in size. A thinner stylus tip will give you even more control over your game. A thicker tip will be sturdier and more reliable for a heated gameplay session.
FAQs
Q: Is it better to use a clicker designed into a tablet or to use a keyboard as clicker substitute?
A: For most players, timing is highly compromised while using the clickers available on an Osu tablet. This is because you’ll either have to point and play with the same hand, or the distance between the two hands is so less that they disturb each other’s performance.
Therefore, sing a separate keyboard as clicker is preferred, as not only does it give greater control over both scrolling and clicking functions, but it also makes Osu an even more enjoyable game to play.
Q: Why are touchscreen tablets not as effective as graphic board tablets?
A: The problem with touchscreen tablets is that one hand has to concentrate on two functions – clicking and scrolling. The multifunction gaming makes Osu a much more difficult game to play. But this increase in difficulty is not an enjoyable one. Besides, Osu is a musical video game, and the sounds produced by physical clickers of a keyboard or an Osu tablet makes the experience more addictive and fun.
Q: Can other kind of devices/controllers be used for an Osu gameplay experience?
A: Certainly. There are many other controls that work just fine for a game of Osu. However, a combination of a tablet and a keyboard gives an optimum gaming experience.
Other controllers that can be used are the basic Play station remote control, MIDI board, electronic piano, or even an electronic drum set. The only two important things for Osu gameplay are that you have something to track your cursor through, and you have something to click through. Nothing else matters, so any controller would do. Quality of gameplay can not to confirmed, however.
Q: Is pressure sensitivity important for a tablet to enhance the Osu gameplay experience?
A: Pressure sensitivity is of absolutely no need in a game of Osu since you’d already been using a clicker for the function that a pressure sensor would be performing. An in-built pressure-sensitive tablet is not ideal for Osu for the same reason, a touchscreen tablet is not necessary. One hand should be focusing on only one task and one device, and the function of a tablet and a pen is to scroll.
A pressure-sensitive tablet costs a pretty price, and in no way will it enhance your gaming experience. Therefore there is no need to invest in such advanced tablets. Basic gaming tablets are enough for Osu
Final Thoughts
After much thought being put into the best tablet for Osu, it is clear that Osu is a game that does not require any highly technical tablets. For a beginner to intermediate player, a decent tablet can be procured at a small amount. There is no need to dig a hole in your pocket to enhance your performance at Osu
The only things to keep in mind are that your tablet has a good resolution, the stylus feels good in your hand, and the built quality is good enough to not break under minimum pressure.
