HUION KAMVAS Pro 16 Graphic Drawing Tablet with Screen Full-Laminated Graphics Monitor Pen Display with Battery-Free Stylus Tilt 8192 Pressure Sensitivity 6 Express Keys Touch Bar-15.6inch Pen Tablet

4.0 out of 5 stars

By UberTechie2000 - Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2019

Almost feels exactly like my Wacom Cintiqs... GOOD!

Pros and Cons (TLDR version) + Build Quality is solid. + Pen is great, better side buttons than Wacom pens. + Flawless screen with high color range. Default Color calibration was not far off from what it should be. + Initial activation force felt just like a Wacom tablet, not squishy at all. + Barely generates any heat, most users wont even notice it. + Software profiles for hotkeys Not good not bad: +- Tracking works well for the most part, but due to pent tilt input it can travel a bit away from the nib. Hold it at the right angle and its accurate most of the time. +- Drivers + software is starting to match Wacom's feature set, just with a little less polish. +- Tablet is very light. For some this is a good thing, for others, not so much. +- Touch strip works well enough, though a dial for this form factor is probably better. +- Hotkeys are clicky enough but small size and round shape makes them a little awkward to press. Cons: - Calibration is extremely bad if you use multiple displays while calibrating. Software issue. - Tilt feature works but it messes with the accuracy depending on how the pen is held. Not a fan of tilt input. - Side buttons on the pen can cause the cursor to shift a bit when pressed. Seems to be a pen design issue. - High response rate (lower is better). Specs have it at around 25ms, UFO test suggest 14ms. - Not able to VESA mount without using some tricks. VESA mounted displays are very important for professional level work. If the Kamvas is going to have a Pro line, the 16 inch should have a VESA mount on the back or at least a clever attachable stand which can have VESA mount screws attached. (Note I had to use velcro and a laptop tray to make it work, and its not ideal.) Unique Con: - Box I received was already opened by someone else. The stickers used to seal the box had been cut. Nothing looked used on the inside, but noticing an opened box did not leave a good first impression. If the seller is opening the boxes to do a quick quality check, they should at least leave a message explaining why the box was opened and side stickers sliced through. Conclusion: A very competent Wacom like alternative for a much cheaper price point. It is not perfect, but none of these tablets are (even Wacom has its issues). The price to performance ratio has me recommending this product, even over the similarly sized 16inch Wacom Cintiq. --Long review--: I almost wanted to return this Huion for a few reasons (one being it came in an open box with the protective stickers sliced off), but when it came right down to it I simply did not want to go back to my Cintiqs. This surprised me quite a bit, as I have used Wacom tablets for years and even own two Cintiqs along with a handful of various other wacom tablets. The cintiqs I own are the 20wsx (think intuos 3 but as a cintiq) and a 13HD. I have also tried buying a few of these non-wacom screen tablets in the past, but the experience was horrible. So going into buying a Huion, I already expected the worst. Thankfully Amazon has a great return policy and from my experience, these Chinese companies have been extremely good at taking back faulty or poorly designed products. I had almost nothing to lose but my time. --Build Quality + Panel--: My first surprise was the build quality of the tablet and display, it was great! (Note: The response rate for the panel itself seems to be a bit high. UFO test put it at around 14ms, but the product spec sheet has it closer to 25ms.) The back panel is a soft aluminum, and the plastics used on the tablet feel hefty. The charging cable is thick and does not look like it will break any time soon. --Pen--: Picking up the pen, I immediately noticed how light it was compared to my Wacom Pens. Originally I felt like this was a bad thing, but after using the tablet for bit it ended up growing on me. This is a good weight. The best part about the pen however is not the weight or the form factor, but the actual tactile click you get when pushing the side buttons. I did not realize how much I needed this tactile clicking on a pen's side buttons, something you will find lacking in a Wacom pen. I am not ashamed to say that I prefer these Huion pens over the many Wacom pens I own based on that tactile click alone. --Drivers + Software--: After installing the drivers, I was happy to find out that the software actually allowed me to remap most of the side buttons on the tablet itself, as well as the touch pad and pen buttons. Past drivers I have seen did not allow this. Being able to switch screens ( I work with 3 monitors) is an important feature to have with these devices. Additionally, to my surprise, the software also has software profiles. This is beginning to make it look and feel much more like Wacom. While the software is not perfect, it does get the job done and you do not have to go into it often. Immediately tried to calibrate the graphics display, and this is where I encountered the first big negative. Calibrating the pen tablet literally broke the precise tracking. I have been reading that its a problem with having multiple displays, however this should not happen. I had to reset the software and keep the default calibration, which I have to admit is pretty good. Thankfully this can be fixed with a software update and Huion seem's to be updating their driver software all the time. --Tracking--: Another big negative I encountered was that the precision can go weird if you hold the pen at the wrong angle or have it rotated in a slightly different way. It only becomes precise when I have it at a slight angle to the right, with my fingers gently resting where the side buttons are. This is my normal pen position anyhow, which is probably what they calibrated it around as a default. What appears to be throwing it off is the tilt input. To be honest, I never use tilt anyway, so being able to turn it off and have pinpoint accuracy at different angles would be a huge boon. I'd go as far as to suggest making one pen tilt based and another one not, include both with the Kamvas Pro tablets. --Pressure--: I was extremely happy to find out that the initial activation of the pen when it touches the screen was near perfect. It feels almost like the Wacom pens, which lets face it is what we all want in a graphics pen. No need to use heavy handed strokes just to get input, it picks it up with just the right amount of pressure. --Observations--: There was no noticeable dead zones or loss of tacking around the edges of the screen and every application I ran picked up its pressure perfectly, this includes Zbrush, Blender, 3D Coat, Krita, Hexels 3, and Painter 2019 to name a few. I did everything from photo editing, film editing, compositing, digital sculpting, pixel art, the tablet accomplished every task with ease. It as at this point I did notice another problem, one that almost made me want to return the tablet. When you press the lower side button, the cursor will sometimes show weird behavior, jutting to the right a bit before snapping back. It makes me think that the button press is nudging the sensor in the pen. This shouldn't happen and it basically rules out the side buttons for any precision tasks, at least the lower one. Thankfully I mostly use it to scroll on websites, or pan in 3D applications. If someone were to map it to an eraser however, that would cause problems when painting. After a quick search, I noticed some other users had the same problem. This let me know its not a faulty pen on my part, but perhaps something that effects the whole line of tablets or perhaps just the pens themselves. I also noticed around the same time, that when you click on the lower part of the screen, or perhaps just the task bar area, the cursor will also shift to to the right. However this behavior has been incredibly inconsistent, and based on my observation it appears to be a software problem rather than a hardware one. It is a little annoying to see but it did not hamper my work at all. --Hotkeys + Touch Strip--: The hotkeys on the side of the tablet are soft but give a slight tactile feel (nothing like the pen buttons), and the touch pad is about the right size for a thumb to slide up it. It was not as sensitive as I would have liked however. I have two touchpads on my Wacom 20wsx and they are more sensitive and pick up more input per movement than the Huion. I would definitely see if this can get fixed either in a software update or with future models of the tablet. If the tablet was Vesa mount based, I would even ask for it to be on the back rather than the front as that location feels far more natural. After using the hotkeys for awhile, I have come to the conclusion they are still a bit awkward to use. The reason for this is due to their shape and size. Good hotkeys have more form to them so you can really feel where they are, and they should at least have the circumference of a thumb or finger. The side buttons are simply too small and round. I'd much rather they be larger and rectangular, as they offer a better user experience. The more mechanical switch feeling the better. --Heat--: After hours of use, I really couldn't fine any hot areas on the tablet, other than it being barely war on the upper right side. I almost did not even notice it as it is that subtle, which is a good thing. Heat was a problem with my larger 20 inch wacom, it would get so hot you were basically cooking your hand after awhile, and one of the reasons I retired the darned thing. Huion did a great job with making the heat almost non-existent here. --Conclusion & Thoughts--: Over all this is a quality product. Great color accuracy, laminated, and mostly precise. It makes Wacom's non-pro cintiqs seem pointless to buy (with their much much higher price tag). The perks outweigh the cons, and for work it was almost indistinguishable from using a Wacom. Most of my dissatisfaction comes from receiving an opened box with the protection tape cut through, leaving me not knowing what might have happened to it, and having a poor experience trying to calibrate the pen from the software. These perhaps can be passed off as minor issues, but as a consumer I really want that confidence in a product. Thankfully for the most part I am impressed, thus the 4 star rating. Without receiving an open box and the calibration issue, this would easily be a 5 star product. Knowing that these digitizers are solid enough to compete with Wacom's, I kind of wish I purchased a larger tablet as I am used to working on a VESA arm mount. Even 16 inch tablets can benefit from having some way to hook them onto one. Sadly due to the weight (Kamvas 16) being very light, it makes it hard to use with an arm mount. I did try to find a solution however, which you can see in the pictures. I simply attached a laptop tray to the arm mount, and used velcro tape to keep the Huion from sliding off the surface of the tray. This is not an ideal solution but it works. Huion's Kamvas 20 Pro might end up being the right balance in terms of graphics tablets however. It has a vesa mount, and larger square hotkeys on the side. It uses the same pen and most likely digitizer as the 16, which would made it an ideal graphics tablet. In short, this is a solid product that can easily compete with Wacom. If these tablets from Huion get any better I absolutely will not go back to wacom. There won't be a need to.

5.0 out of 5 stars

By Marylin Alvarado - Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2019

Such a good alternative to the Wacom products

Man Oh Man, This is an upgrade! I Previously Had The Huion Gt 191 Tablet, and using that was nice, but you could see and feel it wasn't as good as a Wacom Product. But this, the Kamvas Pro 16, is so well made that you can hardly tell that it's an alternative to the Wacom products. The screen is nice, smooth to draw on and the colors are more accurate than the Gt 191. Its very light weight and you have the option to bring it with you, just make sure to bring a laptop. I'm happy with the port being on the side instead of underneath the tablet. The only problem I had with this is the cable. It's a 3 in one, which isn't a bad design choice if you're trying to cable manage or if you use a laptop. Its just that the 3 wire at the end are a bit short for a whole PC set up. Lucky, my bf was able to get every working while attached to the tower so the Hdmi and the usb didn't have to be in 2 different place (I was placing hdmi in my Monitor and trying to reach the tower to connect the usb). Overall I would recommend this to people who want to upgrade from thier old huion tablet, or to people looking for a good Monitor tablet on a budget. And if you want the stand (which this one does not come with) you can either buy the bundle with the stand or buy it separately on the Huion website. Cheers!

5.0 out of 5 stars

By Fury - Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2019

Simply amazing

This is my second Huion purchase, and once again I am thrilled by the quality of the product I received. My first Huion was the Kamvas G156HD v2, and was purchased only a little over a year ago- it’s still in perfect condition and works beautifully, I am just a weak, weak woman, and when I saw the Kamvas 16 pro, I couldn’t resist. All in all, this is a solid product. The build is both slim, and extremely sturdy- nothing feels “cheap” about it at all. The screen color was gorgeous right out of the box, and I have barely had to make adjustments. After extensive use, I can say for certain that the tablet will get mildly warm as is to be expected, but it does not get hot. Parallax is greatly reduced with the Kamvas Pros, due to the laminated screen, and if I had any complaints about my previous Huion, it would be the adjustment time necessary to get used to that. This isn’t to say there isn’t some parallax, but the simple fact is that so long as there is distance between the cursor and the pen, there will always be some form of parallax. Just the way it goes. On the new Kamvas Pro, however, it’s literally unnoticeable until you get to the edges of the screen, and once there the accuracy is greatly increased. Naturally enough can’t be said about a charge-free pen, and the donut pen stand is super stable. I do find the little donut to be a hassle to get open to get to the nibs, and to be honest I think I actually preferred the form factor of the earlier pen-though I am sure I may be a very quiet minority on this. It’s very similar to a Wacom pen in feel, and now has a rubberized grip on the barrel that makes me a little sad- in the past I have found those things can get to where they feel sticky, and unpleasant to use. A non-rubberized version of the pen would be fabulous for weirdos like me. The tablet I purchased did not have the portable stand with it, which was perfectly fine for me- I needed something that would offer a more vertical drawing angle, so purchased a Parblo stand separately, however it was as slickly packaged as ever, and came with a drawing glove and a spare (hooray, because my cats love to take those things and hide them in dark, hairy corners). The Kamvas Pro 16 comes with the three in one cable, which is probably the one thing that prevented me from going up in size to a 20”. I use an MSI laptop, and so the less cord mess I could have, and the more mobile I could be, the better. As is, the Kamvas Pro 16 is infinitely portable (still no protective sleeve though, Huion...hint, hint) while providing ample drawing surface. Well done, Huion. I was thrilled with my first tablet, this new one absolutely cements my loyalty to your brand.