It's been a while since I don't post anything here (mostly because I don't really have much time or what to say), but today I have something worth sharing.
Recently I purchased a HUION KAMVAS Pro 24 4K as I was in need of this work equipment to be able to have a hybrid workspace, some days working from home, others going to the studio. I've had experience with a few different displays in the past, from the cheaper HUION ones to the more professional Wacom ones.
I was initially considering purchasing a Wacom at first, considering how good it felt for me to draw on it at school and work. Especially when I had previously used other HUION models, which while good, didn't feel as good as the Cintiqs. However, in the end, I decided to invest in HUION's higher-end display mostly because of the price and desk real-state.
What I've been thinking of it? It's surprisingly very good! Having previous experience with Wacom Cintiqs, this one is at par with it, with some advantages but also some disadvantages.
I will be breaking down in this post some of the characteristics of this display as well as giving my thoughts on it. Hopefully, this will help you with your purchase if you're looking into buying one.
Alright! Let's get started!
The Package (5/5)
My HUION KAMVAS Pro 24 4K was delivered to my door through Amazon in a pretty big box! Of course, with another box inside, which was the display's true box (why amazon does that).
The box is good looking and of good quality for my taste. One thing I always liked about HUION boxes is that they have a little handle on the top that makes it a lot easier to carry around. I actually keep these boxes for when I need to move because the way the display is packed is excellent.
The monitor is well protected by chunky pieces of styrofoam that perfectly fits in both ends of the interior of the box. The display itself comes inside an antistatic bag, with a protective plastic layer on top of the screen.
On top of that, the other components of the display come in other smaller boxes perfectly attached to a cardboard piece being held by the styrofoam. The pen and the KeyDial (more information about it below) come in their own little boxes, while cables and such come all together inside a bigger box.
Overall, great safe packaging! If you move often, make sure to keep the box!
Contents
This is what I received inside my HUION KAMVAS Pro 24 4K package:
- The Display itself
- Pen
- Mini KeyDial KD100
- Power Cable
- USB-C to USB-C Cable
- USB-A to USB-C Cable
- HDMI Cable
- Glove
- Cleaning Cloth
- Manual
The Display
The Display is outstanding! There are so many great pros that the cons are minimal by comparison!
Size (5/5)
The size is one of the main selling points for me. Although the display is not exactly 24", it's still pretty big compared to other models. However, despite being big, it doesn't feel as massive and chunky as a Cintiq. Part of that can be attributed to the smaller borders of this one.
I actually remember how painful it was to transport a Cintiq 22 HD from the studio to my place and to set it up. The KAMVAS Pro 24 4k was extremely easy!
The space it takes on my desk is a lot less than the Cintiq, which leaves me some wiggle room to push it around a bit.
The best thing about its size is how much room there is not only to draw but to organize the interface of your software of choice... which leaves you more room to draw, so in the end, it's all about how much drawing space you have. My bad sight and habit of drawing with my shoulder and elbow really appreciate all that surface area.
It's also worth pointing out that the display feels bigger in person than in the photos, especially when you're using it. Here, have my Nintendo Switch as a scale reference.
Ports (4/5)
There are 2, very handy USB-A ports on the right side of the display. It's where I connect my Mini KeyDial USB dongle. Along with them, there's also a P2 headphone jack for the ones with cabled headphones. I left this life in the past a while ago, so mine is not being used.
On the top of the HUION is where the main cables go. On the left, there is an HDMI port as well as a Display Port. Next to them is where you attach the USB that connects to the computer in order to have the pen working. Lastly, you have the port for the power supply.
There was one review I watched of Marc Brunet where he wasn't very fond of these cables being connected on the top as it looks ugly at higher angles, and he's not wrong! However, it makes perfect sense for it to be designed this way considering how the stands of the display work.
Stand (3/5)
Other HUION models come with stands that are attached to the display as a VESA mount, and those stands give the user a relatively wide range of angles from that they can position their monitors.
The KAMVAS Pro 24 4k stands, however, have an integrated stand that flips open. All you can do is open and close it, which means your default options of angles are only two: a little bit of an angle or none at all.
That is a disadvantage not only in comparison to the Cintiq 22 HD model but also to other HUION models. However, considering the size and weight of this one, I think the stands that come with the other HUION models wouldn't be as sturdy. Also, the Wacom Cintiq 24 has a similar design with a fixed angle.
Another problem with this design is that if you want to nudge your HUION left or right a bit, if the surface of your desk is not smooth or has some sort of mat where the display is on top of, one of the legs might end up closing. So be mindful of that.
The ideal option for this one is to have an ergonomic flexible arm VESA mount, which HUION actually provides if you pay the additional cost, but I didn't get it so I don't know how well it works. Also, my desk board is pretty thin, so I think the arm wouldn't work very well (time to get a new desk).
What I've been doing as an improvised method to have my HUION at a higher angle is to support one of its legs on top of a COPIC Marker box I have, which is more effective than you might think but extremely far from ideal. Keep in mind that I only do that when I want to use my display as a regular monitor and to have room for my keyboard so I can comfortably type.
Despite this downside, I think the angle I get with the integrated stand is very good for drawing. It doesn't feel too low or too high. Also, it's very sturdy!
Screen (5/5)
I have a friend that recently upgraded his workstation and invested in a 4K monitor, saying that his life changed because of that. When I plugged this HUION in for the first time, I immediately understood what he was talking about. It makes a huge difference!
The image is super crisp, and with the higher resolution, even the icons look a bit different, with more detail. With a screen this big, it definitely feels a lot better to be 4K rather than 1080p like the Cintiqs.
I thought the colours look great as well! They're very vivid, especially when compared to other HUION models I've used in the past. One of the reasons I was afraid of going for a HUION instead of a Wacom is because when I was using the KAMVAS 20, it had a lot of ghosting effects and the colours were kinda muddy. None of that is here, the quality of the screen is great!
For some people, the lack of touch functionality is a turn-off. If that's a selling point for you, perhaps stay away from this one (I am actually not sure if any of the HUION displays has that feature). However, I never used it or cared about it, so it doesn't affect my experience in any way or form.
There is virtually no parallax, especially if you're at the angle you usually are while drawing. You can only notice a tiny little bit of space between the pen and the screen when you reach the farthest corners of the screen, like when you click the farthest upper right corner of the X button on the browser, for example. Only then, you can see a minimal amount of parallax, but it's so ridiculously small that you might as well disregard it completely. I think the only display in the market that does it a little bit better than HUION is the iPad. Even then.
Most displays have it nowadays, but my first HUION back in 2017 didn't (at least not well executed), but the screen has a bit of a texture that makes it feel nicer to draw on. It doesn't feel like you're scratching glass or anything. That might be due to the anti-glare material they use for the screen, but it feels nice. I only mention this because back then I purchase a HUION KAMVAS GT-191 which came with a cheap sheet of textured plastic that was only glued to the screen on the 4 corners instead of the whole surface. That was its texture and anti-glare material, which fell off after not a very long time, leaving me with a display that reflects everything in my room and whenever I draw feel like I am scratching the screen. It's cool to see how much they improved their products.
The Pen (4/5)
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| Left Side: HUION KAMVAS Pro 24 4k pen | Right Side: Wacom Cintiq pen |
Another thing that I didn't have back in 2017 when I purchased my HUION KAMVAS GT-191 was a good pen. It felt cheap, was way too thin and needed to be charged! I believe that was due to a patent Wacom had back then that prevented other brands to use the same technology. Don't quote me on that though.
However, the HUION KAMVAS Pro 24 4K feels almost exactly like the Wacom's one! Starting with the fact that it abandoned the charging pens and works just like the Cintiq. The pen uses magnetic force to work, which actually charges the pen with the power it needs as you use it! Pretty cool, huh?
It is also blessed with over 8000 levels of pen pressure sensitivity (which I actually don't know if the feature is in the pen or in the tablet, but just so you know).
Speaking of its physical aspect, the pen is just as thick as a Cintiq pen, which is a lot more comfortable to hold. Similar to its competitor, it also has a rubber material on the bottom third near the nib, which gives you a firmer grip and prevents the slippery feeling (although harder to clean for the ones with sweaty hands). It also has 2 buttons on the side that you can customize in the driver to perform different functions. Overall, the pen is pretty much the standard you've already seen.
One thing that could be considered a downside in comparison to Wacom is the lack of the eraser top. I know some people love and use that, so it could be a turn-off of this model. Once again, I never used that, so it doesn't affect my experience whatsoever.
Mini KeyDial KD100 (4/5)
Now, this was a very nice little addition HUION gave the consumers who purchased this model. The Mini KeyDial KD100 is basically a blank Numpad with a wheel on its upper side that you can use to program any shortcut keys or combination of keys to use in your software of choice. It's great for when I want to be more comfortable and don't want to use the whole keyboard that I keep on the side of the display. Also, it comes with no additional cost!
The KeyDial has a rechargeable battery, which requires a USB-C cable that HUION provided with the rest of the package if you remember the beginning of this post. Customizing it is also very easy to do through the HUION Driver, and it even has a function that you can bind to one of the keys that when you press it, an overlay appears on your screen showing what each of the keys does.
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| Screenshot of the Mini KeyDial KD100 customization window in the HUION Driver. |
A nice thing about the keys being blank is that you can either make or purchase some stickers with the icons of whatever tools you're assigning to that key so you can more easily tell what each key does. I haven't done that, but I certainly do think about it.
That being said, while it's a good addition, it doesn't replace the full keyboard for me considering the limited number of keys. I never expected that though since I use pretty much the entire keyboard while drawing, so I don't really consider that a downside.
What could be a downside is that there is no reliable way of making it stay on top of the screen other than the 4 rubber corners it has. The problem with them is that the KeyDial will slide down if those rubbers are not perfectly clean. The Wacom Cintiq 24 has magnetic borders to which you can attach the controller on top of the display. It's a better solution but also a more expensive one, perhaps the reason why HUION opted to take another route.
Driver (5/5)
The driver works perfectly! Although I've been using this model for only a couple of weeks, I used other models and the drivers always worked well. In fact, they work better than Wacom's, as I remember constantly having to restart my computer due to the driver stopping working while I was in the middle of something. Sometimes even turning off the Cintiq by pressing the button would mess up the drivers.
Up until this point, I had basically no issues with the Driver. They were easy to find on HUION's website, downloaded quickly, and it was easy to install and set up. The only minimal issue I had with it was being unable to adjust the brightness of the KeyDial LED light, but come on! What difference does it make!?
Customer Support (5/5)
I didn't really need to reach out to customer support yet, but I want to briefly comment about that because I already had a good experience with them.
My product arrived with no issues at all and even arrived earlier than the estimated date. Without me requesting anything, HUION's customer support reached out to me on Amazon just to double-check if my product had arrived with no issues as they had the information that I already received the package.
I said it was already in my possession and everything went fine. They then reassured me saying that if there are any issues to reach out to them.
This alone made me happy about purchasing a HUION display. I feel like I am in good hands if anything ends up going wrong with my KAMVAS Pro 24 4k.
- Customer Support
- They reached out to me without being requested just to check if my product arrived properly, while letting me know I can reach out anytime in case I have any issues.
Final Thoughts
The HUION KAMVAS Pro 24 4K is a very professional, high-quality drawing display, scoring high on my book in most categories. It's big and has lots of room for drawing without feeling chunky like the Cintiq. The 4K screen makes everything look extremely crisp, and drawing on it feels great with its rougher texture! While the stand could be a bit better, the current design ensures sturdiness while drawing, but can be inconvenient when attempting to use it as a regular monitor. The pen is comfortable to hold and feels just like Cintiq one, except that is missing the eraser. However, a lower price and a very effective and intuitive driver sets itself apart from its competitor.
8.9/10 - Excellent!
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