Huion have been releasing some really great quality drawing tablets recently and they sent us the latest in their lineup to review: the Kamvas 16 Gen 3. It's a good-sized screen, together with a PenTech4.0 stylus, that brings a more premium-feeling drawing experience at a very attractive price.

Note: We’re testing the tablet on a Windows 11 laptop using Google Chrome, and is 100% compatible with Magma.

Core features

• Shortcut controls - 6 buttons and two dials - fully customizable, of course;

• PenTech 4.0 - 2g initial activation and over 16k levels of pressure sensitivity, tilt auto-alignment;

• 3 button pen, same that comes with the pro level tablet - the Kamvas Pro 19;

• Display - 2.5k resolution, great color gamut, anti-glare glass;

• Portability - this can work with single USB-C cable connection.

Box contents

Before we get into the drawing experience and settings, let’s look at what comes in the box:

• The 16” display tablet;

• a stand (optional purchase);

• PW600L stylus;

• pen stand with spare nibs;

• One 3-in-1` cable;

• USB-C to USB-C cable;

• Power adapter;

• Cleaning cloth;

• Quick start guide;

• Color calibration report from the factory.

About the tablet

The tablet is the ideal size with a 16” screen and total tablet area being around 41 x 23 cm. That means that it's still quite portable to carry around with you in a laptop bag or backpack.

On one side of the tablet you have two USB-C ports for either single-cable connection or for using the 3-in-1 cable. On the other side is the power button and something quite unique to this tablet and it’s 13” version: a set of shortcut buttons with TWO dials. I’ve seen this on one of Huion’s screenless tablets before but this is the first time I’m seeing it on a display. I think it’s quite interesting and useful for a tablet like this that does not support touch gestures.

The Kamvas 16 Gen 3 display has a 2.5k resolution (2560 x 1440) so details are very crisp. I’m glad to have that slightly higher resolution on a screen of this size. It uses etched glass, rather than a matte film, that prevents sharp reflections by diffusing light really well and also gives a slight texture to the drawing surface. This is much nicer to draw on that straight glass.

About the stylus

The pen that comes with the Kamvas 16 Gen 3 is the PW600L with Huion’s PenTech4.0 inside. It's is almost identical to the pen that comes with their more premium display tablet : the Kamvas Pro 19. The only difference is that it does not have an eraser on the back. I don’t really use the eraser on pens like this, so I don’t feel like I’m missing anything here.

It has that standard tapered design, a comfortable rubber grip, and three buttons which we’re seeing a few brands do now. And I like it. I use these for my colorpicker, undo, and to switch monitors.

As mentioned above, the pen has a low 2grams of initial activation force required and that means that you can draw very, very lightly and marks will still appear on your canvas. This is much more important to me than how many levels of pressure sensitivity the pen has.

That said though, the pen does have a wide pressure range with 16k levels of sensitivity. And the pressure response is great. Drawing thin to thick lines, and then thick and back to thin is very smooth and accurate. Even while using a relatively large brush size, I could quite easily get varied line weight the way I intended.

The other big improvement that Huion have made with their new pen technology is the automatic tilt compensation. So as you tilt your pen, the cursor doesn’t really deviate from the pen tip.

I did notice some slight offset in the bottom corners, but this generally didn’t impact my drawing experience or tapping on UI elements as I needed them (except occasionally trying to use the tiny scroll bar we have in the Magma layers panel).

The driver

Before you start working on your next awesome artwork, you will need to download the driver from the Huion website. Be sure to first uninstall any other tablet drivers that you have and reboot your system. I did experience some issues having both Wacom and Huion drivers on my system.

For a more detailed guide on how I approach customizing my Huion tablet for Magma, check out our previous blog post on the Magma Blog about the Kamvas Pro 19.

The Painting Experience

Painting with the Kamvas 16 Gen 3 has been a very good experience. Huion have done an impressive job with their pen technology here. Also this screen size is just right. Normally, 13” displays are a bit small for me because I often like to have my reference on the same screen. 16” is much more comfortable to have my reference open, the software UI visible, and still have enough space to draw. When using Magma, I still have room to zoom in a bit while being able to see what people are drawing next to me.

I was using the the Kamvas Pro 19 before testing this and I used the touch features on that quite a lot. So I had to remind myself a few times when I tapped on the screen of the Kamvas 16 gen 3 that this does not have a touch screen.

Having two dials on the tablet was also a new experience, and this made up for not having touch gestures. For each one I set only two different functions. The top one is for my brush size and brush opacity. The bottom one is for zooming and rotating. When you cycle between functions, a small but handy popup appears on-screen to tell you which function is activated.

In my case, my computer can use this tablet on just a single USB-C cable. This keeps my setup a bit neater, and makes the tablet more portable if I want to take it with me to a coffee shop or a friend’s house. The stand that came with mine (optional purchase) is also well-suited for this. It's sturdy and folds away nicely if you need to travel.

Conclusion

The Kamvas 16 Gen 3 is a great medium-sized display tablet. Even though not carrying the Pro label on the tablet, Huion is making premium features more accessible with this one. The PW600L stylus is very impressive and what I’d expect from a premium tablet. If you have a more simple workflow, the dials and shortcut buttons are quite useful but you might find that you still need your keyboard or an additional shortcut remote, which Huion does have available on their website too.

The Gen 3 Kamvas also comes in 13” version if you need something more compact.

If you like what you see and are considering purchasing check out Huion Kamvas 16 Gen 3 product page on the Huion website.