Huion Kamvas 13 (2020) review

The Huion Kamvas 13 is kinda the perfect tablet for those who have been bugged so far with massive sized display tablets. But like every other product out there, this also has a couple of minor issues. 

In a new or at least new for me, Huion launched this in 3 colors. Black, purple, and green. 

Let’s first see what all you get in the package. Like all other premium stuff from Huion, the box quality is excellent. The box art is nice and subtle. And that game art doesn’t mean that it’s asking you to play games on it. It’s trying to inspire you to create such epic artworks that other companies post your work on their packaging too.

You first see the tablet inside. And my first impression was definitely feeling the weight of it. You get a battery-free pen which is very light and kinda looks different to my wh1409 v2’s pen. This pen claims to have a new pen tech 3.0 on it and would feel more organic. And maybe that’s why it looks slightly different. You also get a pen holder that now comes with a rubberized circular ring on its base this time. And because the standing tips get tired, Huion made sure to lie them down this time.

You also get a manual, a cloth and a glove. The packing will look like a cd but it’s not a CD. Huion clearly thought to be nostalgic with its appearance this time. The cloth is there to wipe the screen and glove to protect the screen from smudges so that you don’t need to wipe the screen with the cleaning cloth. Ah, the loop of life. 

You also get 2 wires in the box. One of which is one is a USB-C to HDMI and 2 standard USB ports. And also a USB extendable cable. The inclusion of an extendable cable is smart. Now if your power outlet and the CPU or the laptop are far off, this cable would help and you don’t need to buy one yourself. And if you already had a spare one, then, well, it still remains as a spare one.

The HDMI port is for the display signal, the USB port is for the PC to recognize the device and the 3rd red USB is there in case the earlier 2 ports somehow fail to give enough power to the tablet. So this is where the extendable cable comes in handy. And yeah, no power adapter this time in the box. Use your phone charger. That’s what the manual said too. 

It’s good that the display tablet has fewer ports to connect on to. My computer was easily able to run it without hooking or taking the trouble of the 3rd red-labeled USB port. Lesser wire connections are always the best experience one would want from whatever device you use. 

And because the size of this tablet is 13 inches, it will not ask for much power draw anyway as compared to other bigger display tablets. 

Make sure to suspend your USB saving option in the power plan settings on windows in case your the 1st USB cable and HDMI can’t turn on the display tablet. And if, even then you can’t turn it on, just sacrifice your phone’s charger to give sufficient power to the tablet. 

The biggest benefit of this size and the tablet is that if your PC or laptop supports a USB 3.1 Gen1 with DP 1.2 data transfer protocol, then only 1 connection either way will be sufficient for the device to power on and run. But sadly, there is no USB-C to USB-C cable in the box. I think the company knows that not many users would have a device that already has a USB-C input on their laptops or PCs. But who in the whole wide world doesn’t like free stuff?

Even though my desktop does have a USB-C input, the failure to find a cable hampered my rocket launch efforts of testing that part. 

So make sure you know that the USB-C on the bottom is for the single USB-C cable transmission and the upper USB-C worked in my case with the 3 to 1 cable provided in the box. 

Ok now back to the elephant in the room, pun might have been intended, if you plan to work on the tablet by carrying it on your lap, then be my guest. But you can definitely feel the weight of it. It’s about 980 grams, so lighter than your laptop and 11.8mm thick. In comparison, the iPad pros are 5.9mm in thickness.  So it’s not a light or super slim display tablet for sure. It also has these anti-slip rubber feet.

The screen is full HD 13 inches with a 120% SRGB color gamut. I have been spoiled by a 4k screen so full HD feels a little congested. But that’s just me. And because of the size, it feels super compact. I think you wouldn’t ever need a dedicated space for this to store it when you are not working with it. Just slide it in any of your drawers. 

The screen has a super matte finish. They have this matte protective layer installed on the display. And the one which I received had this little tear on the corner. But that didn’t affect anything I had to do with the tablet. 

Right after I installed the driver software as admin, it restarted my PC. But once when I opened it, it then also showed me this button to activate it as admin. Kinda odd. Make sure you select this screen number as active on the software. 

As I tested the tablet with photoshop, the experience was surreal. The feel of the nib to the screen and its feedback were smooth and fluid. My emphasis here is that you really can’t nitpick much when it comes to working and creating stuff with this tablet. The lines and pressure felt perfect like the recent Huion products I tested and working on this was a true joy also. I mean it almost pushes me to go out and buy this one. There were absolutely no problems while trying shading and line art in photoshop. You can also judge for yourself for how it is behaving. 

Even working on Zbrush was pleasurable. Damn, I really can’t nitpick anything here when it comes to working on all these software with this tablet. There is an almost very minor parallax on the screen like in all other display tablets. As I said in my previous video, it will remain till screen panels are literally paper-thin. LG has made extremely slim TV panels, so let’s see till when companies like Huion, etc acquire that tech on their displays too.

Oh, and you can also work on your androids with this tablet. They have posted a list of compatible devices on their website. Another bonus of buying this tablet. But you would need to connect to the power source when trying to use this on an android phone. But again make sure it’s USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 with DP 1.2 as mentioned earlier. 

Also, if you ever want to use the tablet as just a pen tablet and not a display tablet, you can do so by powering it off and reconnecting it to the laptop via a USB cable to activate the Pen Tablet mode. This might just save your battery on the laptop if you’d ever want to do that or in case you ever get stuck in an adventure where there is no power but somehow you were creating stuff on a tablet hooked to your laptop?

Anyway, I tried hooking the tablet to my laptop and just the HDMI connection and the non-power USB were enough to power it on. Now just imagine the convenience of not plugging the tablet in a power outlet. Doesn’t that feel good? 

And if you have a compatible PC or laptop with that usb-c to usb-c cable, then just imagine the convenience. Now the only thing left for these tablets is to go Wi-Fi. Bwahahaha.

Now lemme come onto the few drawbacks of this tablet. The tablet lies flat on the tablet and as there is no stand available right in the box for many this might cause an issue. If you sit upright which is the healthiest way to sit for long hours you would find some variation in the screen colors. So a stand would be a must to use this tablet with. Especially if your eye for colors is extremely peculiar. 

As you can see here the very slight variation which happens as your viewing angle changes. I mean, if I see the previous version being even worse than this but the very slight variation was visible here too. But it is not a deal breaker at all as I know not a lot of users will be working on it with it lying flat. That’s just not practical and healthy.

And if you try to pick it up and work then you have to rely on the keys on the tablet and just forget about your keyboard. Many do love using these few shortcut keys on the tablets themselves and do not bother to use the keyboard, but I personally so far have failed to replace my keyboard with the tablet’s shortcut keys on the many tablets I have tried.

Now, many would actually wonder if the tablet has these restrictions that you have to hook up to a PC or a laptop and it’s thick and is heavier than an iPad or surface pro then why bother? The benefits of these tablets are its price and hardware upgrade convenience. You can buy the surface pro or the iPads if you are already accustomed to the iOS app store for your art creation needs but at 21000 rupees or 250 US dollars or 230 pounds, you can’t really get those. Well at least for a decent set of hardware which might already own as a laptop or a PC, or even a mac. So this is where the market of such tablets will keep on existing and will never cease. 

Yes, the tablet should come with a stand right out of the box. I believe for most of the artists, it will be an essential accessory to avoid that slight screen variation and for a healthy upright sitting posture too. So anyway make sure to get other 3rd party stands available on Aliexpress or Amazon or just make sure you add one whilst placing your order. 

In summary, the overall feel of working with this tablet is top-notch. Another good worthy product by Huion. Sadly I get these for a couple of weeks only, so can’t promise a long term review which would have been best for people buying this after a few months since this video was published. 

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/2EdKtua
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You can checkout the full video above. Hope all of you are staying safe. That’s all for today. MuBot out.