Few weeks after purchase review:
I bought it to replace an older drawing tablet. Decided it was time to move up to drawing on screen. I Got it during a promo code sale and includes a bundled stand, a $60.00 value for a total of $120.00 savings.
The package comes with a microfiber cleaning cloth, a bunch of nibs, nib holder, and a drawing glove. Everything you need to get started, save for downloading the latest drivers from the website (Something you should do anyways, for any computer accessory device).
Being able to draw realtime on screen like you were using a pen/pencil on paper makes a big difference vs a plain tablet. I love the texture of the provided pre-applied screen protector, it feels like your pen device is drawing on paper, very pleasant to use.
I also love the fact that the pen is battery-free. I've long grown tired of batteries dying, needing recharge or replace batteries on devices such as mice & keyboards.
Product is very light weight, very comfortable to work with wherever your sitting. Included 2-in-1 cable seems to have enough length to be able to have a laptop placed off to the side. A USB 3.0 SS 'Super-Speed' port seems to have enough power, not needing to plug in the additional red-colored usb plug when using it with a laptop. I havn't bought or tried the usb-c to usb-c optional cable yet, may do so in the future. Connectivity to a cell phone via usb-c cable seems a very interesting feature, may be worth trying out!
The display menu is easy to get into, and very bright at factory defaults. Like my monitors (laptop& desktop) I find its easier on the eyes to turn the brightness setting down a fair bit, and its still very bright and vivid enough to use. Darkmode display theme also helps, but generally the drawing program canvas is going to be white until you start filling it in with color.
The display panel is an 8-bit IPS panel, very accurate and has better color range than my laptop 6bit panel. Screen resolution is 1080×1920, and is perfect for the display area, all program menus and icons are readable and visible. I'm using the default display mode set by the Kamvas driver and window options, so it mirrors the laptop display.
Tip: I went into Windows Battery Settings / Power & Sleep, changed what closing the lid does while Powered on Both Plugged In and On Battery mode, (set it to 'does nothing') and simply close the laptop lid, I find its less distracting, and makes for a viable option when running on battery power instead of being plugged in. You can also change the display preferences to set it as a secondary monitor mode, and use the laptop screen for displaying reference material which can be handy, but it does take a bit of setting up to get working properly.
The drivers/software make it easy to customize per application the side-buttons as well as make it left- or right side /handed functionality.
The Kamvas 13 has 6 side-screen programmable shortcut buttons, I probably could have used another 6 or more buttons. This feature is very handy to use and set per-program.
The Pen has 2 programmable buttons as well, I set them up as Middle and Right click functions, replacing the need for using a mouse.
Tip: Do you want to extend an enhance the functionality of your Kamvas?
I found some time ago a 3rd party handy utility app called RadialMenu (it's a bit buggy sometimes will crash and require reinstall, but there's nothing else out there I find that works for extra key inputs and shortcuts without using the keyboard, RadialMenu is great in that you can assign keys and shortcut combos as press or toggle, keys like Ctrl, Alt, Shift as toggles and keys 0-9 and A-Z as 'regular press once' and you can forgo needing using a keyboard entirely while working in your graphics program). I really wish Huion would create a utility app like this. With RadialMenu, I'm able to sit in my favorite armchair, set the laptop on the coffee table stand beside my and have the Kamvas on my lap.
The unit came calibrated perfectly edge to edge / corner to corner out of the box, no need to calibrate it.
Krita, Gimp, Autodesk Sketchbook, work fine out of the box, no issues – especially as those are free programs. Purchased programs like Adobe work as expected. No jitters issues on straight lines, pen pressure and tilt work fine.
Drawing pen display tablets have come along ways in the past 10 years, becoming more accurate and affordable. I'm really glad I made this purchase. If in doubt, go google the product reviews and youtube reviews, I did, and choose this product.
Report