Huion Kamvas Pro 24 Review: A Flagship 4K Pen Display for a Lot Less

The Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) is Huion's flagship pen display: a high-resolution graphics display that delivers most of the benefits of a Wacom Cintiq Pro 24 at about half the price. In the two months I've spent using it on-and-off in preparation for this review, I've come to three important conclusions: (1) this is an excellent product, (2) a large 4K pen display is the best way to edit your photos, and (3) I can't realistically use this display as my daily driver.

Before unpacking the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) from its box and setting it up on my desk, I'd forgotten how much I love editing photos on a big pen display that takes up your whole field of vision and gives you such granular control. I'd also forgotten how frustrating it is to have your entire desk taken up by a single-use device that's so big you have to pack it away every time you're done using it, only to set it back up a few days or a few hours later when it's time to edit another shoot.

This has nothing to do with the product's performance, but it's important to point out as a piece of buying advice from the get-go, because anyone who is considering a 24-inch graphics display has to understand what they're getting into.

If you have the room on your desk or you're able to set this up as a functional secondary display by mounting it on very flexible monitor arm, then great -- I don't want to play down the benefits of using a big high-quality display as your canvas. But if you live in a smaller home where you edit on your kitchen table or your tiny desk is already being eaten by your current photo editing display, then you should probably consider something smaller like the XP-Pen Artist Pro 16 or the Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) instead.

Alas, I fall into the second category. So for the past couple of months, I had to haul this thing out pretty much every time I wanted to edit a photo shoot. Fortunately, the actual editing experience was excellent, and now that I'm done complaining about my desk space woes, I'm here to tell you that the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) is an excellent pen display that's worth every penny. In fact, I think it's worth a lot more pennies than Huion is charging.

Design and Build Quality

The design and build quality of the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) is definitely "flagship" grade. It's a surprisingly heavy display that feels solid and features a clean "minimalist" design aesthetic that borrows a lot from Wacom's Cintiq Pro 24. Actually, let's be honest: it basically is a Cintiq Pro 24 with slightly thinner bezels. Other than the display technology itself, which we'll talk about in a second, the two products are extremely similar in both good ways and bad.

In the pros column: the display housing is well-built, with convenient flip-out "feet" built into the back and the ability to connect with HDMI + USB, DisplayPort + USB, or go single-cable via USB-C. There's also a two-port USB Type-A hub and an audio port that you can use to plug headphones or speakers directly into the pen display. In the cons column: neither display comes with built-in express keys, opting for a design the company describes as "minimalist." There's also no adjustable stand included in the box, so you're stuck with the 20° drawing angle provided by the built-in feet.

Like the Cintiq Pro 24, the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) makes up for the lack of built-in function keys by shipping with an external remote the company calls the Mini Keydial KD100. It's a wireless express key remote with 18 buttons and a mechanical dial that can switch between three different settings:

The Keydial lacks the solid metal build quality of Wacom's ExpressKey remote or Xencelabs' Quick Keys remote, but I actually found it to be more functional. Because it's designed to mimmic the number pad on a full-sized keyboard, it was much easier to get used to the button placement and use the remote without constantly looking over to see which button I was actually pressing. It's also worth noting that an external "remote" like this is more convenient for left-handed users.

All of that said, I still prefer pen displays with built-in function keys, and I like the way Huion and XP Pen have tackled the left-handed issue before. Both the regular Kamvas Pro 24 and XP-Pen's Artist 24 Pro feature dual rows of function keys: one on each side of the display. Neither of these older displays can match the quality of the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K), but I find it more immersive when I don't have to keep track of an external remote that takes up room on my desk (or display), uses up one of my USB-A ports for the wireless receiver, and needs to be charged from time to time.

Overall, I'm happy with the design and the build quality of the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K), especially the included Keydial remote. I just wish Huion had done a bit of innovating instead of sticking so close to Wacom's Cintiq Pro design language. For all of the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K)'s technical improvements over the regular Kamvas Pro 24, the choice to go with such a sleek, minimalist design arguably takes away a little usability, and there are no exciting or quirky design elements to make it stand out.

Fortunately, this feeling that the display isn't anything "special" tends to fade away the moment you turn it on and lay eyes on the gorgeous, 4K QLED display.

Display Quality

The Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) covers 95.9% of the AdobeRGB gamut (left) and 86.7% of DCI-P3 (right).

The most important and impressive piece of technology packed inside the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) pen display is the display itself: a QLED (AKA "Quantum Dot") 4K panel with 10-bit color, impressive color accuracy and gamut coverage, and "support for HDR."

Huion really emphasizes the HDR support, a first for a pen display, but I've put it in quotes for a reason. With a maximum brightness of 220 nits and no local dimming, the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) isn't equipped for proper HDR editing. We at PetaPixel have maintained for quite some time that anything below 600 nits isn't really HDR, as it would not be bright enough to provide proper contrast against the darks of an image. It's nice to be able to view HDR content, and the increased contrast of a QLED display helps with that, but this feature is 80% marketing and only 20% useful.

What actually stands out about this display is the gamut coverage, color accuracy, uniformity, and the amount of control that Huion gives you through its on-screen menus. These are the features that make this one of the best panels you'll find in a pen display.

In terms of gamut coverage, the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) hit 99.7% sRGB, 95.9% Adobe RGB, and 86.7% DCI-P3 in our testing, with a maximum Delta E of 2.2 and an average Delta E of just over 0.6.

This is a very solid performance, especially when you combine it with the extensive on-screen controls that Huion's latest Kamvas Pro displays provide. Just like we saw in the Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K), the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) features on-screen menus that allow you to dial in brightness, contrast, and individual RGB gains so you can properly calibrate your white point.

I'd love to have a built-in LUT for proper hardware calibration -- a feature we've yet to see in a pen display -- but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Once I adjusted the RGB gains to match D65, I was able to get the measured vs expected white point Delta E below 1.2 and produce a perceptual match between this and the ASUS PA32UCG that I use for serious photo editing, making for a seamless experience when transitioning from mouse-and-keyboard editing in Lightroom to pen-on-display editing in Photoshop.

The screen was also impressively uniform. We ran a 35-patch test (7×5) and found only 13 patches that fell below the recommended tolerance (yellow outline) and none that fell below nominal tolerance. I've tested several "creator" displays that performed worse than this, so credit where credit is due: for color-critical work, the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) makes the grade.

Uniformity test results for the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K). Click for full resolution image.

The last display feature worth noting doesn't have to do with performance, but usability. The screen on the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) is fully laminated -- meaning the glass surface is fused to the display to reduce parallax -- and Huion opted for anti-glare etched glass instead of the cheaper anti-glare coatings you find on many displays. This makes for a nice pen feel with a little bit of bite, and it doesn't cause the kind of rainbows/haloing you experience with some anti-glare coatings. Both are necessary features for a flagship pen display, and it's nice to see Huion didn't cut any corners.

It's safe to say I was surprised by the quality of the new QLED display. Many of the large pen displays I've used or tested in the past suffered from poor contrast, mediocre resolution, crappy gamut coverage, and/or color artifacts caused by the anti-glare coatings. None of this was the case with the Huion display, and while I would have loved to see a peak brightness of 400 or even 600 nits to help justify the claim that this supports HDR content, as a photo editor who hardly ever touches the HDR switch anyway, I never felt let down by this display.

As Huion tries to expand its user base by wooing photo and video editors, upgrading to a high-quality, color-accurate panel and giving users more control over their display settings was a very smart move.

Stylus Quality

The stylus is where Huion has done the least to improve when you compare it to the options from Wacom, Xencelabs, and XP-Pen. It's not that the PW517 pen that ships with the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) is bad, it's just… bland. There's no eraser, only two buttons, and the same old specs as everybody else: it's a battery-free EMR pen with 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity, 5080 LPI resolution, and 60% tilt support.

Part of the problem is that the EMR pens used by all the major graphics tablet brands, Huion included, have gotten so good that you have to do something interesting to stand out. That's why Xencelabs offers you two pens -- a 3-button thick pen and a 2-button thin pen -- and XP-Pen recently debuted the "X3" pen that's thinner, better built, and offers a lower initial activation force than previous iterations. By comparison, Huion has just sort of stuck with what has worked. The PW517 stylus benefits from some new felt-tip nib options and "PenTech 3.0" for improved stability while drawing, but is otherwise unchanged from its predecessor in any noticeable way.

There's nothing wrong with that, but there's nothing particularly right about it either. This is one area where the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K), as the company's flagship offering, would benefit from a high-end pen that offers some significant improvements over Huion's previous generation… to say nothing of the competition.

A Cintiq Pro 24 for Half Price

Huion threw everything it could at the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) and it shows: this is a proper 4K flagship pen display that goes spec-for-spec with the Wacom Cintiq Pro 24 while shrinking the bezels, packing in a high-quality Samsung QLED display, and cutting the price by $700.

It's not a perfect display, but overall, my impressions were 90% positive. I think the pros and cons list bears this out:

Pros

• 4K resolution
• Solid color accuracy and gamut coverage
• Full control over your display settings
• Fully laminated display with minimal parallax
• External keypad with mechanical dial
• Built-in USB Type-A Hub and Audio Out
• Single-cable connectivity via USB-C
• Offers both HDMI and DP ports

Cons

• Built-in feet limit you to a single drawing angle
• 1-inch bezels are still pretty thick for a modern display
• No built-in shortcut keys
• No touchscreen functionality
• PW517 pen isn't anything special

My only major complaint is that Huion went too far trying to beat Wacom at its own game. By opting for the same "minimalist" aesthetic of the Cintiq Pro series, Huion has left out some nice-to-have features that might have helped the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) stand out. As it stands, the door remains open for a competitor to release its own excellent 4K pen display that includes these missing features, or at least does something new or different or exciting.

In the meantime, I can confidently recommend the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) for anyone who wants a top-tier, high-resolution pen display for color-critical work. In fact, as of this writing, I'd have a hard time recommending anything else.

Unfortunately, I can't use this display as my daily driver because I simply don't have the space on my desk or any way to mount it that would actually make sense. If you're like me, the smaller, cheaper Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) or XP-Pen Artist Pro 16 might make more sense. But if size isn't an issue, editing photos on a large 4K pen display is an amazing experience that just got a lot more affordable, and we have Huion to thank for that.

Are There Alternatives?

Until Huion unveiled the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) there was only one 4K 24-inch pen display on the market: the Wacom Cintiq Pro 24. As I've already mentioned several times, that display is much more expensive ($2,000 without touch or $2,400 with touch functionality), and yet it doesn't offer any must-have features or intriguing add-ons that you don't already get with the Huion. Wacom's build quality may be a notch better, and it claims slightly higher AdobeRGB coverage (99% vs 96%), but the feature set is otherwise identical.

Your other 24-inch and 22-inch pen display options are all QHD resolution or 1080p, putting them in another category entirely. They include the 2K XP-Pen Artist 24 Pro for $630, the 1080p Wacom Cintiq 22 for $1,200, and Huion's own 2.5K Kamvas Pro 24 for $720. These are all solid pen displays in their own right, but none can match the screen quality, gamut coverage, and overall build quality of a flagship display like the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K).

We anticipate that XP-Pen will put out a 4K 24-inch pen display soon-ish, Xencelabs has hinted that pen displays are in their future, and Wacom may update or replace the Cintiq Pro 24 sometime within the next year or two, but all of that is speculation. At least for now, your choices are somewhat limited.

Should You Buy It?

Absolutely. If you want a 24-inch 4K pen display and you're willing to try something that isn't made by Wacom, then you can save a bundle without sacrificing in any significant way. As far as I can tell, the Kamvas Pro 24 (4K) doesn't cut any corners that should seriously push you to consider the Cintiq Pro 24 instead. If anything, the improved contrast of the QLED display might make this the better option even if these two pen displays were much closer in price.

#equipment #postprocessing #reviews #4k #4kdisplay #4kmonitor #graphicsdisplay #huion #huionkamvaspro24 #kamvaspro24 #monitor #pendisplay #pendisplayreview #review

Huion Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) is the Perfect Pen Display for Photo Editors

As displays have become better and cheaper to manufacture over the past several years, high-quality pen displays have slowly been edging out pen tablets as the best way to edit your photos. One of the companies making a major push in this space is Huion, and over the past couple of months we've had the chance to go hands-on with the company's brand new, color-accurate Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) -- one of the most compelling options for any photographer looking for a high-quality pen display at a reasonable price.

For many years, professional photo editors have been using pen tablets to do most of their editing work, drawing on a plastic tablet while staring up at a computer monitor. But as display technology and manufacturing efficiency have improved over the past decade, a new, better option has made significant inroads into the creative community: more affordable pen displays with color-accurate panels are now available that let you directly edit on your photos.

It used to be your options fell on either side of a wide spectrum: either you spent $1,500 to $2,500 on a high-end, high-resolution pen display or you bought an "entry-level" model that sacrificed color accuracy, convenience, and resolution in order to bring the price down below $1,000. For many photographers, where color is key, a pen tablet was still the best option.

That's all about to change.

The Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K)—and its little sibling, the Kamvas Pro 13 (2.5K)— appear to offer the best of both worlds, taking advantage of the latest display technology to offer better resolution, excellent color accuracy, and a sleek portable design that only costs $600 for the Kamvas Pro 16 or $400 for the Kamvas Pro 13. These two displays were only just announced this morning, but Huion sponsored this Showcase and sent over the 16-inch model so we could get some hands-on time ahead of release, and man were we ever impressed by this product.

What's in the Box

First things first: when you unbox the Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) you'll find a little adventure in three layers.

Layer one is the tablet itself, which is enclosed in a plastic sheath with an additional peel-off plastic covering the screen itself. Next, you'll find the "Foldable Stand ST200," a basic stand that's adjustable between 20 and 45 degrees, and folds flat when not in use. Finally, the last layer includes the pen, a pen holder filled with 10 replacement nibs (five standard and five felt) and a nib clip, a drawing glove, cleaning cloth, quick-start guide, and all of the cables you might want or need in order to hook the tablet up to your computer.

The cable selection is actually one of the major features of the Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) that's missing from many similarly priced pen displays.

There's a new "3-in-2" cable, which features a dual USB-C connector that forks into an HDMI and two USB Type-A cables. The HDMI carries video, one USB-A carries the pen input, and the third cable connects to the power adapter, while the dual USB-C plug makes for a more stable connection to the tablet itself because it doesn't try to cram HDMI, a USB output, and USB power delivery into a single cable. That's already a small improvement over most affordable pen displays, which use a "3-in-1" cable, but Huion also offers the option to connect to your computer using only a USB-C to USB-C cable, which is also included in the box.

That single-cable option, which can provide power, display input, and pen input all at once, is the kind of feature we're only used to seeing from high-end displays that cost over $1,000, not affordable "mid-range" options. What's more, some high-end displays are too power-hungry to run entirely off of a USB-C input, but the Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) is small enough that you can get away with a true single-cable connection—no power outlet required.

That's a big plus for a tablet that's so small and lightweight. There's nothing holding you back from editing your photos on your couch or at the nearby coffee shop.

Key Features

In addition to the variety of included goodies, there are a few key features of the Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) that are worth calling out. For one, the tablet comes with Huion's latest PW517 battery-free pen with "PenTech 3.0," which boasts a more stable drawing experience, lower response time, more precise cursor position, and improved drop resistance. Other specs are similar to most of the battery-free EMR pens out there: 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity, 5080LPI resolution, support for ±60° of tilt, and two programmable buttons built into the pen itself.

I have an old Huion Inspiroy tablet lying around that uses the older PW100 pen, and I can definitely feel a marked improvement in both drawing stability and build quality for this newest pen. My only complaint is that they didn't add an "eraser" to the back of the PW517, but that's a minor gripe when you can just program one of the pen buttons to the letter "E" and activate the eraser on command.

Truthfully, I like the new pen, but my favorite feature on the Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) is something else -- something that companies have been systematically removing from their high-end options. My favorite feature is the eight programmable express keys on the left side of the display.

I absolutely love having built-in express keys. It's way better than an external remote (in my personal opinion) because it allows me to stay fully focused on the editing task at hand, one hand on the express keys and one using the pen to do my actual editing. I've spent many an hour cleaning up dust or cutting out backgrounds without ever having to look up or, indeed, look over to the buttons themselves because they each have a raised plastic marking so you can feel your way across the keys.

No need for a keyboard and mouse, just full-on photo-editing flow.

Another really nice feature that will appeal directly to photographers is the option to use the tablet in "pen tablet mode," which allows you to turn off the display and use the surface as a more traditional pen tablet. I'm a big proponent of editing with pen on screen because of the immediate feedback it provides and the precision that it enables, but once in a while, it's nice to turn the screen off, even if it's just to correct your posture for a little while.

Finally, the last (rather important) feature is the fact that the display is compatible with Mac, Windows, and even Android phones. I mostly used the tablet on Mac, though I did test it on Windows, and found the driver software easy-to-use and intuitive. You can remap the display, set the express key commands, adjust your pen pressure, rotate the display orientation (particularly useful for lefties), and dial in different settings for different apps, all within a few clicks.

A Huge Display Upgrade

The last, and most important, feature that I want to talk about is the 2.5K display that Huion is using on the new Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) and Kamvas Pro 13 (2.5K). More than anything else, this is the feature that wins me over and makes me want to recommend this display to photo editors because the panel inside this tablet is excellent.

Many affordable pen displays I've tested make at least one or two significant compromises in display quality. It's either 1080p resolution, and/or it doesn't get very bright, and/or it isn't particularly color accurate. The affordable Wacom One, for example, is a convenient little pen display, but it uses a 1080p panel that barely covers 84% sRGB, despite costing the same as the Kamvas Pro 13 (2.5K).

I was eager to know: did Huion make the same sort of compromises with these new Kamvas Pro displays? As you may have guessed, the answer is a resounding "no."

The Quantum Dot display in the new Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) covers over 95% of both the AdobeRGB (right) and DCI-P3 (left) color gamuts.

Both the Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) and Kamvas Pro 13 (2.5K) use QLED (AKA "Quantum Dot") display technology to improve color accuracy, brightness, and contrast, producing the best visual quality I've yet tested in a 16-inch pen display.

According to my results using DisplayCAL and an XRite i1Display Pro Plus colorimeter, the Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) that we've been testing achieves 99.9% sRGB coverage, 96.6% DCI-P3, and 95.7% Adobe RGB at a Delta E of 2.25 and an average Delta E of just 0.5. That's high-end "creator laptop" territory, and far better than I expected from a $600 pen display.

What's more, Huion also gives you control over your display primaries -- not just brightness, contrast, or color temperature, you can actually change the gains on your RGB channels to dial in your white point. This level of control is usually reserved for dedicated photo- and video-editing monitors, and it's key if you want to properly calibrate your display. After futzing around with the primaries, I was able to hit D65 and match my main 32-inch 4K display perfectly.

And Huion didn't stop with color accuracy and control. The company continued to borrow technology from more expensive displays by using proper anti-glare etched glass; most affordable displays use a light scattering "film" that can have a noticeable effect on color accuracy—and laminating the display itself to the glass surface in order to reduce parallax.

All of the above makes for a display experience that far outstrips most pen displays in this price range. It almost feels like Huion has shifted focus from the digital artists that usually use these products to the photo editors who are increasingly interested in taking advantage of this technology for themselves.

The Best of All Worlds

The recent trend among pen display manufacturers like Huion and Wacom has been to split the lineup into an entry-level tier with 1080p resolution, buttons built into the display, and a three-way HDMI/USB/Power cable for connection, and a high-end 4K display with better color, a "minimalist" design with no built-in express keys, and the option to connect to your computer using a single cable. Up until now, Huion's Kamvas Pro product line basically fell in line with the above: you have the 1080p Kamvas 16 (2021), the Kamvas Pro (4K), and the Kamvas Pro Plus (4K) that's identical to the regular Kamvas Pro 4K but features a more color-accurate QLED "Quantum Dot" display.

The Huion Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K)—and, by extension, its 13-inch sibling—is essentially a combination of the best features from these three displays, making it (in my humble opinion) the best option for price-conscious creators.

You get the built-in shortcut keys lacking from the high-end models, a QLED "Quantum Dot" display that's on par with the most expensive of the three, and more resolution than the entry-level "non-Pro" Kamvas 16. Sure, you're losing a bit of resolution over the Kamvas Pro 16 4K and Kamvas Pro 16 Plus 4K, but at 16-inches that resolution difference is basically imperceptible since you're likely to be using it from only 1 or 2 feet away.

Given the choice between these three tiers, I can honestly say that the 2.5K variant—the "mid-tier" Kamvas Pro 16—would be the pen display I would personally purchase. The improved screen quality and resolution are worth it all on their own, but when you add in the built-in express keys and the ability to connect my computer with a single USB-C cable instead of the clunky HDMI/USB/Power combo cables that are used by many pen displays, there's no doubt in my mind that the new Kamvas Pro (2.5K) models offer the best bang-for-your-buck in Huion's whole pen display lineup.

Welcome to a PetaPixel Showcase, where our staff gives you a hands-on with unique and interesting products from across the photography landscape. The Showcase format affords manufacturers the opportunity to sponsor hands-on time with their products and our staff, and it lets them highlight what features they think are worth noting, but the opinions expressed from PetaPixel staff are genuine. Showcases should not be considered an endorsement by PetaPixel.

#equipment #sponsored #25k #graphicsdisplay #kamvaspro #kamvaspro13 #kamvaspro16 #pendisplay #pentablet #productshowcase #showcase

XP-Pen Artist Pro 16 Review: A Great Portable and Affordable Pen Display

XP-Pen's new Artist Pro 16 is one of the most compelling entry-level graphics displays on the market. It's lightweight, well-built, highly customizable, color-accurate, and all for a price that will make Wacom owners blush. It's not a perfect product, but no other Full HD pen display on the market offers this kind of experience and build quality for just $450.

Modern pen displays from companies like Wacom, Huion, and XP-Pen come in a few different tiers. The easiest way to tell them apart is usually resolution and size: entry-level displays typically come with Full HD screens in either 13- or 16-inch varieties, mid-range displays come with 2 or 2.5K displays in 16- and 24-inch varieties, and the top-tier models pretty much all sport 4K displays no matter what size you choose.

That puts the new-and-improved XP-Pen Artist Pro 16 squarely in the entry-level category. But where other Full HD pen displays like the entry-level Wacom One tend to cut corners on build quality, stylus quality, and color accuracy, the Artist Pro 16 provides a premium experience in all of the above.

Let me put it this way: as of this writing, the XP-Pen Artist Pro 16 is my favorite pen display to use for day-to-day photo editing, and that includes the $1,500 Cintiq Pro 16. That's high praise.

Design and Build Quality

The new Artist Pro 16 is basically a rebranded Innovator 16: the "slim, swift, and sleek" 16-inch pen display that XP-Pen released in June of 2020. Obviously, the ultra-slim Innovator 16 struck a chord with buyers, and we're glad that XP-Pen has decided to adopt the same approach with the Artist Pro series -- both the design and built quality of the Innovator 16 are a huge step up from most entry-level pen displays.

The housing is solid metal with a "space gray" finish and measures just 1/4-inch thick. It's solid, unlike so many of its entry-level competitors, which makes it that much more portable. I probably wouldn't hesitate to throw this display in my backpack and take it on location.

The only thing that would possibly hold me back from doing so is the clunky three-way cable that you have to use to actually connect and power the thing. A single USB-C connection on the display forks into an HDMI cable for display input, a USB Type-A cable for pen input, and another USB Type-A cable for power. The fact that there is no USB-C to USB-C single-cable solution is baffling to me, and one of the only major cons that hold this display back.

Customizability is excellent for a display this size. On the left-hand side of the screen is a row of eight programmable function keys and a mechanical dial, which itself surrounds a touch-sensitive surface that acts as a secondary dial.

I really like this design. The buttons feel great and the mechanical dial is my favorite way to adjust brush size, zoom in and out, or rotate the canvas, but I could have done without the touch dial. Because the mechanical dial is relatively small, my fat fingers accidentally activated the touch dial all the time, which eventually forced me to turn it off in the settings. I suppose it's better to have the option, but at this small size, I found it more cumbersome than useful.

My only other complaint is that the mechanical dial has no "click" mechanism. It's a smooth rotation, and I'd prefer some tactile feedback since the dial basically just presses " CTRL + + " or " CTRL + ] " when you're zooming or adjusting brush size. Without any feedback, I often overshoot and have to adjust backward, since there's a slight delay between the mechanical input and the digital output.

These are, of course, nitpicks. The very fact that it has a physical dial and eight programmable express keys already puts the Artist Pro 16 at the top of the heap. Its main competition either doesn't have a dial or, in the case of Wacom's current lineup of pen displays, no buttons whatsoever.

Overall, I was delighted by both the build quality and design of the new Artist Pro 16. Its solid metal construction and polished aesthetic put it right up there with much more expensive, high-end 16-inch and 24-inch pen displays that I've reviewed, and make it one the only pen displays I'd feel comfortable traveling with.

I genuinely hope that the entire Artist Pro lineup benefits from a similar shift in design and build quality moving forward.

Screen Quality

The screen on the Artist Pro 16 benefits from two big pros: it's fully laminated, and it boasts a surprisingly wide color gamut for an entry-level option that costs just $450.

"Full lamination" means that the touch layer of the tablet has been bonded directly to the LCD screen underneath, minimizing the distance between the surface that detects your pen input and the display itself. This helps to minimize parallax, which makes a huge difference when you're trying to do something precise like cutting out a selection using the Pen Tool.

As for the gamut, the Artist Pro 16 benefits from a very slight upgrade over the Innovator 16. Where the Innovator 16 claimed 125% sRGB, the Artist Pro 16 allegedly covers 133% sRGB. But these numbers need some explaining.

Without getting into the weeds, just know that XP-Pen and all of its competitors like to engage in the dubious practice of sharing gamut volume instead of gamut coverage because it makes their products sound better.

Gamut coverage maxes out at 100%: it literally indicates what percentage of a particular color gamut your monitor can actually produce. If any part of the sRGB color space falls outside of the display's native panel, then gamut coverage is less than 100% sRGB.

Gamut volume, on the other hand, takes into account how many colors the display can produce above and beyond the borders of a given color space, and it's expressed as a percentage that includes those additional colors. That means that a display can have less than 100% sRGB coverage while reaching well over 100% sRGB volume.

That's exactly what we have here.

In our testing, the Artist Pro 16 was able to cover 93.3% sRGB, 91.3% Adobe RGB, and 81.1% DCI-P3 with a maximum Delta E of 2.93 and an average of just 0.13. That's a great result, especially at such a low price, but you can see why XP-Pen decided to report gamut volume instead of gamut coverage.

When you look at the panel's native gamut, you can see that the display's blue primary isn't saturated enough to show the most vibrant blues in the sRGB color space, even though it covers way more than sRGB elsewhere. That's why it can't quite hit 100% sRGB, not really:

The XP-Pen Artist Pro 16's native panel gamut (colored outline) can't quite cover all of sRGB (dotted line) in the blue region.

The other downside of this panel is the lack of control. You can only adjust brightness, so what you see is what you get when it comes to both color temperature and white point.

For our unit, the color temperature hovered around 6,675K and the white point was a bit off-balance towards the green. That balance gets better and better the lower we put the brightness, but I found anything less than 50 on the brightness scale was just too dim to comfortably use in a well-lit room.

For professional users, we would recommend picking one brightness setting, calibrating the display at that level, and then never touching this setting again. This will give you the best overall results. The display is more than accurate enough for web-based color-critical work in terms of Delta E, just be aware of its limitations in the blue region.

Stylus Quality

In addition to the slightly improved screen, the other new feature that sets the Artist Pro 16 apart from the Innovator 16 is XP-Pen's new X3 "smartchip" stylus.

I'll be honest with you, this upgrade alone is reason enough for me to go with the Artist Pro 16 over some of XP-Pen's other options. XP-Pen's other stylus is fine, but just like Wacom and Huion's EMR pens, it's kind of fat and uncomfortable for me to use. In contrast, the new X3 stylus is much thinner, sleeker, and feels a lot more like an Apple Pencil or the thin pen that comes with the Xencelabs pen tablet.

I find this form factor much more comfortable to use for long editing sessions, and XP-Pen claims that the X3 chip inside offers other benefits besides. Apparently, it produces a 10-fold decrease in initial activation force, bringing the IAF of this pen down to just 3 grams, and XP-Pen claims the chip is also more resistant to electromagnetic interference.

That second bit is actually interesting to me, as my standing desk mechanism has occasionally sent the cursor flying while I've been using some cheaper pen tablets. It's a niche problem to be sure, but anything that makes the pen more reliable is a bonus in my book.

In terms of real-world use, I honestly didn't notice a huge difference between this pen and any other pen display I've used. I'm sure if I had them side-by-side I'd notice some minor improvement in IAF, but for me, the biggest reason to praise the X3 smartchip pen is simply the improvement in form factor and reliability.

That, alone, makes the Artist Pro 16 a worthwhile buy over the slightly cheaper Innovator 16. Everything else is just spec sheet fodder.

A Portable, Affordable Pen Display

Overall, I found the new Artist Pro 16 to be a near-perfect combination of portability and features at an irresistible price. I can certainly find things to gripe about, but the fact remains: for just $450, XP-Pen is selling a pen display that's more convenient and enjoyable to use than some $1,000 or $1,500 displays that I have available to me.

Pros

• Thin, light and sturdy
• Decent gamut coverage with excellent Delta E
• Improved "X3 smartchip" stylus
• Includes function keys, physical dial, and touch dial
• Great price

Cons

• Only 1080p resolution
• No control over RGB gains or color temperature
• Three-way cable is bulky and awkward
• HDMI-only display connection
• No included feet or stand

The more pen displays and pen tablets I use, the more I tend to value portability and customizability over size or resolution. Maybe that's why I enjoyed the Artist Pro 16 so much. Whatever the case, it delivers build quality, design, and performance that far outstrips its $450 price, and XP-Pen deserves to be praised for it.

For the first time in … ever? … it might actually be cheaper for photographers to opt for a high-quality pen display instead of a high-end pen tablet. That's awesome.

Are There Alternatives

In this price range, the main competition for the Artist Pro 16 is Huion's Full-HD Kamvas 16 and Kamvas Pro 16 or the Wacom One we reviewed last year. Unfortunately, neither of these options can compete in terms of build, design, or color gamut.

From there, the options quickly get more expensive. The Full HD Wacom Cintiq 16 offers slightly improved color gamut but it's not fully laminated, it's bulkier, and it costs $650; the Huion Kamvas Pro 16 4K and Kamvas Pro 16 Plus 4K are $830 and $900, respectively. Ironically none of these more expensive options offer a single express key or adjustment dial, forcing you to spend an additional $40 to $100 on a separate shortcut key remote.

For now, the Artist Pro 16's particular combination of features is hard to beat at its price.

Should You Buy It

Absolutely. Most photographers have probably never considered a pen display for their photo editing. For a long time, the cost simply outweighed any benefit that you might get over a traditional pen tablet like the trusty Wacom Intuos Pro line.

Options like the XP-Pen Artist Pro 16 turn that whole equation on its head.

For the first time, you can actually get a high-quality, rugged, ultra-thin, ultra-portable pen display for less than the cost of a good pen tablet. Whether or not you'd prefer this style of editing is for you to decide, but cost should no longer be a factor.

#postprocessing #products #reviews #display #graphicsdisplay #lightroom #pendisplay #pendisplayreview #pentablet #pentabletreview #photoediting #photoshop #productreview #review #xppen

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 pen display 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.

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Apple Sidecar

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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 WiFi. 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.

Pros

• 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)

Cons

• 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

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Astropad Studio

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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 WiFi 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 WiFi or wired in over USB. Wired in, the latency is rock solid at three to six milliseconds. Over WiFi, 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.

Pros

• 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)

Cons

• 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

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Luna Display

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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 WiFi 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 WiFi -- was equivalent to Astropad Studio… which is to say, good. I still experienced some stuttering when performing heavy tasks over WiFi, 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.

Pros

• 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

Cons

• 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

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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.

Pros

• 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

Cons

• More 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.

For everybody else…

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.

#comparisons #reviews #app #appreview #drawingtablet #editing #graphicsdisplay #ipad #ipadapp #pendisplay #pentablet #photoediting #photoshop #postprocessing #review #software #softwarereview