Affordable Huion Gifts Under $110 for Creators

Every year, holiday gift guides for creators, especially photographers, tend to circle around the same checklist: the latest camera body, new lenses, or even faster cards. But with how expensive and increasingly complex camera gear has become, it is now harder than ever for someone with little technical knowledge to pick the “right” piece. The risk is real, as you might end up spending a significant amount on something that doesn’t fit the creator’s needs, ends up underused, or quietly collects dust on a shelf.

This is why I decided to take this opportunity to share a different holiday gift guide when Huion reached out. Instead of stretching your budget on big-ticket items, I wanted to look at tools that support the creative process in a quieter and more accessible way. Huion offers a few of these thoughtful, under-$110 options: an electronic smart notebook, an affordable pen tablet, and a multipurpose portable light pad. They are simple, functional, and quite relevant to photographers, videographers, and anyone who works with visuals.

If you are looking for gifts that encourage creativity without overwhelming your wallet, this non-camera guide is a good place to start.

Huion L4S LED Light Pad

Before we dive into the more pricey pen tablets and smart notebooks, let’s start with something affordable — under the $50 mark: The Huion L4S LED Light Pad. It is a portable light panel designed with eyesight-protected technology for everyone, ranging from enthusiastic amateurs to professional artists who need a light panel for their work. At first glance, it looks like it was designed mainly for tracing, sketching, animating, or even calligraphy. I did find it to be rather useful as a simple and quick fill light backup for photography and videography work, thanks to the softness and evenness of the light coming out from the panel. (Note: all the images in this article except the L4S itself are lit using a single Huion L4S as the key light and ambient light as fill.) And if you are a film photographer, the light pad can also be used to quickly view your film negatives.

These three product images were shot and edited using an iPhone 14 Pro and the L4S as a background and main light source. This is a quick way to create interesting product images.

The Huion L4S is a remarkably slim A4-sized LED light pad that has a working surface of 310 mm × 210 mm and is only 5.1 mm thick, making it super portable and easy to carry around. Its surface is made of acrylic, which gives it a glass-like feel while at the same time being lightweight—around 0.6 kg. You can find horizontal and vertical ruler markings on the edge of the acrylic surface bezel for easy measurements. But having an acrylic surface means that it is not scratch-proof, so do refrain from using anything sharp or trying to cut anything on the surface. There is also no clip on the panel to hold the film sheets in position, so you may need to use a DIY solution or tape them down on the panel to hold them in position.

On the outside, the build quality is rather simple but just enough to keep it functional as it is. Unfortunately, this also means that it is going to feel a little cheaply made in hand, as there are no premium materials used in its construction. It feels exactly like a thick plastic panel back glued to an acrylic surface. There is a micro-USB port located at the side of the panel to receive a power supply, and an unclickable touch-sensitive button can also be found on the upper left side of the panel. This button is responsible for switching the panel on and off and also controlling the brightness.

By long-pressing the touch-sensitive button, the dimming can be adjusted gradually, and not in steps, making fine adjustments to the lighting control possible. However, I did personally find it tricky to get the brightness to the level I preferred, as there is no indication of the brightness levels, and everything is based on eyeballing it. Thankfully, there is also onboard memory that remembers your last settings when switched off, so you can just set it once and forget about it.

In terms of brightness, it outputs about 745 cd/m² (approx 110 LM) with the color temperature sitting in the range of around 8,000–10,000 K, which can be a little cool depending on what you want to do with it. A full stop CTO gel is needed to adjust the color temperature of the light if you hope to achieve something closer to daylight balance. Power-wise, the Huion L4S is not picky and runs mainly on USB. You can plug it into your power bank or wall plug. Another plus point is that it also does not heat up when used for an extended period of time.

Huion Inspiroy Frego M

The Huion Inspiroy Frego M is an affordable, entry-level, sleek, and minimalist pen tablet. Its overall design simplicity carries through the entire product, from the user experience and user interface to the physical build. On its surface, you can find a paper-feel texture that is surprisingly satisfying to use. Having no physical buttons on its surface allows the pen tablet to have a larger distraction-free working surface of 254 mm × 158.8 mm with a physical size of 304 mm × 220 mm × 8 mm. Not to mention, the absence of dedicated control buttons also conveniently makes the tablet friendly for both left- and right-handed users. It also features a sloping bottom edge design where you usually rest your hand to ease wrist strain. On the upper edge of the tablet is where you find two buttons (an on/off button and a Bluetooth connection button) and a built-in cloth pen holder in the middle for you to carry your drawing pen around.

Under the hood, it is actually quite capable. The Frego M integrates Huion’s PenTech 3.0+ which, when paired with the PW550S pen, can support up to 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity and even recognizes a ±60° tilt angle. Do note that it is not the latest-generation PenTech from Huion that supports up to 16,384 levels of pressure sensitivity, but it is still more than enough for general retouching work. It also features a pen resolution of 5,080 LPI, giving you fine control for detailed work if you need it. That said, the PW550S pen that comes with the tablet is a little too thin for my liking, especially during longer editing sessions where a slightly thicker grip would help reduce fatigue.

In terms of connectivity, the Frego M supports both Bluetooth 5.0 and USB-C wired connections. When used wirelessly, it offers up to 24 hours of battery life with its 1,300 mAh battery, and it takes only about 2.5 hours to fully charge, making it suitable for on-location work, especially with a weight of less than 600 g. However, it is worth noting that there is a noticeable lag when making finer adjustments using a Bluetooth connection compared to a wired connection. Therefore, the USB-C wired connection is still recommended for much more detailed work that requires ultra-precision reliability.

That being said, in actual use, I would say the Huion Inspiroy Frego M sits comfortably in the “good entry-level pen tablet” category at under $90 price range or under $70 for Huion Inspiroy Frego S (smaller size version) — especially for creators who wish to level up their retouching or want something portable without overspending. The size does feel just right: not too big to travel with, and at the same time not so small that you are cramped when working on images.

Huion Note

Rounding out this affordable non-camera gift guide is the Huion Note, a smart notebook designed for creators who like to capture ideas quickly and digitally. Now, I have to admit this is an interesting device because, physically, at first glance, it looks like a simple A5-sized notepad with a nice PU leather protective cover. But inside, it is more than just paper. It is a hybrid device with a built-in writing pad that tracks your pen movements to digitally save what you wrote or drew in real time. Having both physical and digital copies of the note makes it easy for photographers and videographers to create mood board sketches, write down or refer to ideas and notes when planning for the next project.

In terms of connectivity and versatility, there is no doubt that Huion Note will take the crown. It supports both wireless and wired connections, relying on Bluetooth 5.0 and its USB-C port. In wireless mode, it has a 1,300 mAh built-in battery that takes only 4 hours to fully charge and is capable of lasting up to 18 hours of usage with a 30-day standby time. When it is connected to a computer with Huion’s driver installed, through a USB-C wired connection, it can also act as a pen tablet by simply removing its physical notebook and using it with the provided drawing panel. It also has built-in storage that can store up to 50 pages of notes when working in offline mode. These offline notes created in the offline mode can be synced to your desired device using the Huion Note app. Besides that, the Huion Note app is also capable of showing pen strokes in real time when used in online mode, making it suitable even for presentations. The process of syncing the note is also pretty straightforward, making the experience seamless.

The Huion Note comes with the 2nd-gen Huion Scribo smart pen featuring Huion’s PenTech 3.0 that supports up to 8,192 levels of pressure and ±60° tilt recognition in pen tablet mode. This provides a rather stable writing and drawing performance on the note itself. Depending on your needs, you can choose to use the Scribo pen with different nibs to write physical notes on the paper sheets with an ink tip, or swap the ink tip for the plastic nibs to draw directly on the provided dotted drawing board panel, like a pen tablet that saves what you write. However, in the pen tablet mode, I do suggest using it online, as it can feel a little disorienting if you’re writing without looking at the screen, because you can easily lose track of where you are or what you’ve written.

Its design is also rather simple but functionally smart and elegant-looking. Physically, the notebook cover looks the same as any leather notebook cover. It comes with a slot for the notebook itself, and on the upper right side of the notebook cover, you can find a status LED light indicator and a clickable physical button. This single button is responsible for indicating the creation of new pages in your digital notebook. The physical notebook itself is removable, and you can even replace it with any third-party notebook as long as the size is right with a thickness below 10 mm, since the device tracks pen movements, not the paper. Overall, for anyone who takes a lot of notes, sketches frequently, or wants a flexible hybrid device for both analog and digital workflows, this $110 digital notepad is a perfect handy addition to your toolkit.