This pen display doesn’t seem too different from the older generation, but its subtle new advancements might actually be worth a close look. Depending on your use case, this might be much closer to the perfect editing tool for you.
Whether you’re a photographer, a digital artist, or a designer, you probably know and understand the different experiences that using pen tablets and displays offer, especially in very detailed workflows. As a photographer, shooting and raw developing are both crucial steps of the creative process, but in many different genres, the final steps of editing and retouching are what push our work as close as possible to perfection.
For the past couple of years, pen displays have been coming in all different shapes and sizes and with a wide variety of convenience features that aim to make the user’s workflow as efficient as possible. While this new generation of Huion’s Kamvas 16 may not be the top-tier tablet, the development of its capabilities, along with the subtle upgrades, definitely elevates the standards of editing tools.
In the video below, I took some time to pursue a quick personal project to check out and photograph an architectural masterpiece and later used the new pen display to refine the resulting images.
The Huion Kamvas 16 Gen 3
The third-generation Huion Kamvas 16 pen display comes as a 12.6mm-thin slate that’s 421.2 x 236.81mm (16.58 x 9.32 inches) in size. Compared to older generations of pen displays and tablets in general, this is surprisingly thinner than most and even lighter than other pen displays of its size. This is made up of a 349.6 x 196.7mm (13.77 x 7.75-inch) active area, which is also the size of the display housed in anti-glare canvas glass.
However, an even more impressive aspect is that this particular unit came with a rating of Delta E 0.59, which is significantly better than the supposed product line standard. Though this does not ensure that all of the units in the market would have ratings this good, as these findings are individual to each unit, if most are close to these values, that altogether makes it even more impressive.
On one side of the panel is a built-in shortcuts controller to minimize the movement of the user when switching to different modes and tools. It comes with two physical dials, each with a mode switch button in the middle and a portion protruding on the side for alternative control. Between the two dials are six customizable buttons that can be configured to the user’s preferences.
The active area of the pen display is not sensitive to finger touch inputs and only responds to the supplied battery-free pen. The new Kamvas 16 Gen 3 features the latest PenTech 4.0, which follows the same tapered form factor and silicone grip with three customizable buttons. This has a resolution of 5,080 lines per inch and is sensitive to 16,384 different pressure levels, responsive to inputs of up to 60 degrees on any side.
What’s in The Box
Inside the box, along with the pen display, is a lightweight but sturdy stand with up to six different viewing angle options. It might not be entirely relevant, but while the pen display itself is thin and lightweight, the stand adds to the bulk if carrying the device around. It also comes with a USB-C 3-in-1 cable that converges two USB-C and one HDMI cable into a single dedicated port, a much more convenient all-in-one USB-C cable that simplifies the setup, along with other accessories such as an extender power input cable, a power adapter, a pen stand with extra pen nibs, a half glove, and a cleaning cloth.
Setting Up
Setting up the Kamvas 16 Gen 3 can be as simple as plugging in one cable, and this is the benefit of the single USB-C all-in-one cable. Once plugged in, the device powers on and, by default, shows the main screen of the computer or a mirror of a laptop’s main display. However, through configurations on the computer’s control panel, it can be shifted to an extended display that will be independent of what is on screen.
With the downloadable driver, the display can be rotated to the orientation preferred by the user, and pen input can be redirected to any of the available windows. For more precise inputs, the user can do monitor calibration on the Huion driver app, which aligns the display and the pen inputs properly. Also through the app, each of the two dials and six buttons can be customized to keyboard or navigation shortcuts that can be set for individual applications. By switching to the pen setup module, the user can also adjust the pressure sensitivity curves as well as assign shortcuts on the three buttons of the pen.
Application and User Experience
The goal of innovations in both software and hardware that we use for different creative tasks is to make everything as simple and straightforward as possible. On the software side, AI-driven tools, such as Photoshop’s Remove Tool, have significantly changed how we take on supposedly challenging editing tasks and turned them into quick adjustments. In terms of hardware, this pen display brings together the accuracy of a high-end monitor and the precision of a graphic tablet.
As a personal preference, pen displays that are around 16 to 19 inches hit the sweet spot in terms of size as an editing interface. While there are larger pen displays around, since using this for photography deals more with retouching and blending, they can be too much in terms of surface area, not to mention too expensive for an editing tool. The Kamvas 16 Gen 3, which now has a higher-resolution display and significantly better color accuracy, fits perfectly into the workflow whether kept on a desk at home, in the studio, or brought around with a laptop.
While other pen displays and tablets have wireless shortcut remotes, the combined functionality of the Kamvas 16 Gen 3 with its set of customizable dials and buttons makes the setup simpler. That, along with the fact that it can be used with just a single USB-C cable, makes the functionality a lot more convenient.
If there is anything one would ask for this pen display to have, it would probably be touch sensitivity that can be switched on or off and/or the capability to go brighter than the current 220 nits. That would make the Kamvas 16 Gen 3 even more efficient and versatile, not just for editing but for other graphics-related workflows as well. Then again, those are probably features for a higher or pro-level variant of this tablet. Overall, the Kamvas 16 Gen 3 was quite surprising in terms of its subtle upgrades. Whether you’re getting your first pen display to make your workflow more precise and efficient or upgrading from an older version, the combination of features and specifications is certainly impressive.
What I Liked
- 16-inch 2.5K display
- High color accuracy rating
- Built in customizable dials and buttons
- Single cable operation
What Can Be Improved
- Maximum brightness at 220 nits
- Not touch sensitive
