Hey there! This review is coming from an amateur hobby artist that prefers digital art and wanted to find the best tool possible within a reasonable price range. I’m not rich or anything but this is a hobby I care about so I spent maybe 5 months trying to find the ideal tablet that would take care of everything I needed it to without costing an arm and a leg. This was the tablet I settled on, and I’ve been extremely happy with my purchase, and I’m going to cover the concerns I had from reading previous reviews and how those worked out in practice.
To start, I’m sure everyones biggest concern when debating on purchasing this is the “line wobble” pointed out by many other people. I’m happy to say that although this problem isn’t solved completely, it isn’t really a concern anymore! Huion has created a firmware update that once applied dramatically reduces the line wobble. It should be noted that this issue only really affected your drawing when you drew slow, diagonal lines, so for many people who do not draw this way they may not notice it. I have included before and after pictures(firmware update) to ease the concerns of anyone debating on this purchase but thinking that it might not function well enough for what they want.
To receive this firmware update, you must email the huion support team at service@huiontablet.com. It includes directions on how to apply it, but a tip from me is that if the device does not show “connected” during the process, leave the usb/hdmi connected but disconnect and reconnect the USB-C port from the tablet and it will work!
Now for my experience with the device… Digital has always appealed to me more than traditional as a medium, but for a few years all I’ve had was an old Wacom Bamboo. I never got over the disconnect between drawing on a surface and looking at different one, this feeling acted as a barrier to my motivation. I felt at home immediately upon switching to this device after it was set up and working. Even though I’m still only beginning to learn digital processes for art, I was able to crank out a painting the very first day I got it which i will include here!
The screen is pretty, and I haven’t yet needed to calibrate either the screen settings or the touch settings(which i hear there may be issues with unfortunately). The pressure and tilt work perfectly, and it was a significant step higher from anything that I had used. The device feels quality and the buttons/slider feel good to the touch! I feel that I will be able to grow and develop as a digital artist without feeling like there are any annoying hardware handicaps to fight through.
Part of my reason for choosing this device was the smaller size and weight. It is very easy to hold and move, feels very good to hold up in my bed or to set on my lap in the chair. It isn’t truly portable in that it will always require a computer and a wall outlet, but paired with my macbook they both fit easily in a bag and thats as good as portability will get for a device of this quality in my opinion.
Some issues I had with it:
On mac, the “Adjust Brush Size” setting of the slider did not function within photoshop. After some testing, I discovered that this functionality seems to break when you change the button bindings within the driver software. I fixed this by exporting my settings and reinstalling the driver, and importing my settings again. Testing with this it seems to work fine, however I was slightly annoyed support didn’t help me with this and I had to troubleshoot it myself. There may be other obscure bugs like this that I haven’t ran into yet, but here is my solution to this in case anyone needs it, I couldn’t find one anywhere. In the case of other obscure bugs, I cannot promise that support will help or that you will find the answer easily online.
There is some heat in the top of the screen. It gets warm, but I do not feel at all that this could impact the user or the device negatively, you typically do not have your hand at the top middle of the screen when drawing.
At the very edges of the top of the screen, the mouse moves away from where you have the pen when drawing. This also has not affected me negatively, I draw in the middle mostly. I wouldn’t have noticed it if other people hadn’t pointed it out in other reviews, it wont affect your ability to draw with it.
The stand that comes with it is pretty much garbage. It offers 7 height options but will only truly support the device at around 4 of those including just laying it flat. The lip of the stand that supports the bottom of the device needs to be longer after a certain inclination, currently it will just slide off. I can’t really use it so now i’m just storing it. The pen stand is wonderful and sturdy, though, and includes 10 spare pen nibs which is very generous considering how long they can last. The stand quality hasn’t impacted me much beyond disappointment, as I’d rather just hold the device anyway.
So final thoughts after a week of owning this, I really love it. I feel if you are a fledgling artist looking to finally invest in good digital hardware, this is the ideal choice. If you are a seasoned digital artist, there may be larger options and more expensive options, but at this size and price you won’t be upset with it as a more portable spare. I’m hoping this review eases the minds of anyone that was in my position and wondering if the kamvas pro 13 is the correct choice! I feel I’ll be happily drawing on this for a few more years at least, and have really come to respect Huion as a company for offering such quality at this price for those of us who can’t dump ~$2000 on a graphics monitor from Wacom.
Rated material as high because it feels professional and nice. Rated durability as 4 because although I don’t think it would break/scratch from use or maybe somewhat rough handling, I certainly wouldn’t want to drop it from any height(like any screen device really). Ease of install rated 2 because of the need to contact support for necessary firmware updates (had to wait 12 hours for response) and issues with driver detailed above.
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