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Review: Huion Inspiroy Dial Q620M wireless graphics tablet

Updated with drawing performance on Mac

The Huion Inspiroy Dial Q620M is a 10.5 by 6.5 inch wireless drawing tablet that features 8 physical shortcut buttons and a control dial. At the time of this review, it's selling at US $109 on Huion's website. It's US $89 on Amazon USA.


These are all the items included in the box.


The USB wireless receiver.


USB type A to USB type C and microUSB adapters. These are so that you can use the tablet with your Android phone.


USB charging cable to charge the tablet. The battery life is said to be 20 hours if you draw non-stop. You can still draw while the tablet charging.


The pen supports 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity. There's no tilt support though. It's not powered by battery so no charging required.


Build quality of the pen is good. It has a nice weight to it, although it's on the lighter side. The rubber grip is comfortable to hold.



The pen stand included can hold the pen horizontally and vertically.


Twist open the pen case and you'll find ten replacement nibs and the nib remover.


The quick start guide and a card with links to where you can download the driver.


Design of the tablet looks beautiful.


The design asethetics is simple and clean. All corners are rounded off. Finishing looks great.


That's the dial at the top left. When turning the dial, audible clicks can be heard as the dial clicks into each step. There's a button in the middle of the dial that lets you switch the functionality (which can be customised). For example, you can switch to using the dial to scroll, zoom, change brush size, undo/redo or whatever you want.


The eight shortcut buttons can also be customised with specific keyboard shortcuts. All the buttons have firm feedback when pressed. There are also lights on the buttons to indicate the battery life. 8 out of 8 lights means the tablet is fully charged.


On the back are parallel lines that run diagonally across the whole surface.


Even the finishing on the back looks good.

In terms of looks and build quality, this tablet definitely gets a 5 out of 5 stars from me. The look and feel is probably why you may want to spend a bit more here. If you have limited budget, there are so many other cheaper Huion tablets you can choose from.

Driver

The driver that I used was the 25 Oct 2019 version. Driver functionality is similar on both Mac and Windows.


Pressure sensitivity can be adjusted with a pressure curve. Default pressure settings work fine. Initial activation force is minimal. As long as the tip is touching the drawing area, it produces a faint line.


The eight physical shortcut buttons and dial can be customised.


You can customised specific keyboard shortcuts to any of the shortcut buttons. If you're using dual monitors, you can set a button to switch display.


These are the default functionality for the dial. You can press the button in the centre of the dial to switch between the three functionality.


By default, the drawing area will be mapped onto the whole desktop. If you're left handed, this is where you can change the orientation of the tablet.

Drawing performance

Overall drawing performance on Windows is very satisfactory. Pressure sensitivity works well. Strokes and curves are smooth. Performance is predictable and consistent.


Affinity Photo (Win)


Adobe Illustrator CC


Krita (Windows) has really lousy refresh rate and the line looks like it comes out bit by bit. It's really a problem with Krita and not the tablet. It's as if it's running at 30Hz on a 60Hz display.


Photoshop (Windows) has some input lag too but not as obvious as Krita. Again, it's a Photoshop and it happens with many tablets that I've tested. Overall I would say it's still usable but it's definitely not as responsive compared to Clip Studio Paint or Medibang Paint Pro.


Clip Studio Paint (Windows)


Medibang Paint Pro (Windows)


Clip Studio Paint (Mac)


Adobe Illustrator (Mac)


Photoshop (Mac)


Medibang Paint Pro (Mac)


Krita (Mac)

User experience with the drawing software on Mac was much better. Even Krita and Photoshop which had lag in Windows are very responsive on the Mac. Everything works well.

In an earlier version of this review, I mentioned the tablet not working with Mac. It didn't work with my Mac Pro 2013 but somehow it worked with my Macbook Pro 2015. Both are running the same Mac OS 10.14.6. My Mac Pro wasn't able to detect the tablet and each time I connected the tablet with cable, the driver would crash. My Macbook Pro did not have this problem.

There's an additional step for the Mac driver to work. You have to go into Mac System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility, make sure the “TabletDriverAgent” and “HuionTablet” are enabled. HuionTablet driver can be found in the Applications folder. TabletDriverAgent should appear automatically when you connect the tablet for the first time to your Mac, but for my Mac Pro it didn't happen.

Drawing on Android

You can use the tablet to draw with your Android device (at least Android version 6). User experience on Android is a hit and miss. You don't have to install any driver and pressure sensitivity works. Drawing performance is actually good if it works. Pressure sensitivity works well with drawing apps that support pressure.

When I connect the tablet with cable to my phone, the horizontal drawing area is mapped to the vertical display of my phone. So that obviously is not going to work right. You have to use the wireless receiver.

Out of the three Android devices that I have, all running Android 9, only one worked with the tablet. I've tried other brands of tablets that work with Android as well and it's always a hit and miss. Sometimes the cursor may not be visible but you can still draw, or sometimes it just doesn't work, which is the situation I faced with two of the three Android devices.

Other more major problem is the random disconnection when in wireless mode. To get the wireless connection working again, I have to connect the cable, and put the wireless receive back. It's very frustration whenever it disconnects.

Video review

You can see the actual drawing performance in action in my video review below.

Conclusion

Drawing performance was quite satisfactory on Windows and almost flawless on Mac. Only issues were with Krita (Win) and Photoshop (Win) with the lag.

I definitely won't recommend getting this tablet just to draw with your Android device. It's risky in the sense that it may not work with your Android device. This tablet performs well strictly with desktop OS.

This is tablet I can recommend easily unless your main software is Krita (Win). The drawing performance is predictable and consistent. Pressure sensitivity works well and the line quality looks good. The tablet also looks great and build quality seems solid.

You can read this other review I found online for another point of view.

Availability

You can find the Huion Inspiroy Dial Q620M on Amazon and Huion's web store. Direct links (affiliate) below.
Huion's web store | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.es | Amazon.it | Amazon.co.jp

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