Mediocre hardware and a buggy Windows 11 pen input mean this potential Surface Pro alternative is a frustrating mess.
It’s too heavy and lacks a keyboard cover, so it’s difficult to carry around.
It weighs a 3.75lbs, or nearly 1.7kg.
James Bruce / MakeUseOf
It’s stiff, and maintains almost any upright angle you set it at.
Not that you’ll want to use this handheld for any length of time.
A separate desk stand is included for more comfortable, flatter drawing angles.
Mediocre hardware and a buggy Windows 11 pen input mean this potential Surface Pro alternative is a frustrating mess. Once you get to the drawing features, it’s pretty good, but everything else doesn’t make sense. It’s too heavy and lacks a keyboard cover, so it’s difficult to carry around. And if you wanted this for home use only, you’d be better off with a drawing tablet you could connect to your more powerful home PC—and upgrade as needed.For those wanting to only sketch or take notes on the go, an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil is just the better choice.
It wobbles a bit, and protrudes a little too much for my liking.
Other connectivity comes in the form of two USB-C ports on the left.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth round out the scant connection options.
James Bruce / MakeUseOf
The stylus is comfortable enougha little thicker than a pencil, but lacking any special grip.
It’s single-ended, and a rocker button provides a right click and other assignable functions.
Huion claims the battery should be good for about 6 hours, which is very optimistic.
James Bruce / MakeUseOf
Sure, if you run in the lowest brightness and don’t do much, you might achieve that.
Sadly, the problems didn’t stop there.
The next time I booted the machine up, most things failed to load.
James Bruce / MakeUseOf
Illustrator wouldn’t open.
Creative Cloud remained a white window.
Neither Chrome nor Edge would bring up any window.
James Bruce / MakeUseOf
NightRaid is specifically designed to test integrated graphics; it scored10,446there.
The key takehome here is: don’t buy this for its graphical prowess.
LEGO Fortnite ran smoothly enoughafter turning down the texture details even further from the default low configs.
James Bruce / MakeUseOf
It wasn’t brilliant, but it was playable (with occasional freeze-ups).
GTA V was stuck at 30fps, and again, playable, once the parameters were lowered.
It wasn’t a horrendous experience, but abandon all hope of playing anything heavier or more graphically demanding.
James Bruce / MakeUseOf
Generally though, the fans were inaudible most of the time.
I suspect there’s some throttling to keep it running cool without needing to rely on the fans often.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t always reliable in my testing.
Actually, that would be putting it nicely; it was utterly inconsistent and frequently infuriating.
I’ll also note the lack of palm rejection if you don’t use the included glove.
That’s not unusual; it’s a consequence of using a passive pen input.
Another annoying aspect of the included pen was that I found it was too thin.
Thicker pens with grips (or dual-ended pens) don’t have that issue.
Other frustrations lie solely within the Windows interface.
An ink input panel is supposed to appear when you tap on a text input field.
But it didn’t, at least not in a surfing app or other apps.
If this worked everywhere, it would be fantastic.
Swapping to “hard” sensitivity
As a initial test, I tried writing in the included Journal app.
Now the journal refused any input at all.
Attempting to click back on the Huion app just left the screen flashing briefly.
James Bruce / MakeUseOf
Sometimes the screen would just refuse to rotate when held upright.
Smooth lines, and accurate nib following without lag.
Just be sure to wear that glove, or you’ll be dealing with random dots everywhere.
James Bruce / MakeUseOf
Should You Buy the Kamvas Studio 16?
The Kamvas Studio 16 feels like it’s having an identity crisis.
The difference is that you don’t normally use a pen as the primary input method.
James Bruce / MakeUseOf
The Kamvas Studio 16 and Windows Ink invites you to use the pen for everything, then disappoints.
There’s no comparison.
