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Review: Huion Kamvas Pro 24 Pen Display (1440P + 100% sRGB)

The Huion Kamvas Pro 24 is the largest pen display with the highest resolution from Huion, and it's the most expensive one too, at US $899. The main selling points are the 2560 x 1440 resolution, 120% sRGB colour support and the matte laminated glass display. This is their first pen display with 1440P resolution and that by itself is a significant upgrade.

Few disclaimers first. This is a review unit provided by Huion and I do not need to return it. I'm not paid for the review. And I've featured many Huion products on my blog and Youtube channel for years.

In case you don't know, a pen display is a monitor that you can draw on, and you need to connect it to a computer for it to work. This supports Windows and Mac.


The box is massive.


Everything's well packed inside.


The pen display came in a huge zipped bag. The stand has to be fixed on by yourself.


These are all the items included.


Here are the micro-fiber cleaning cloth, artist glove, quick start guide, a card with links to where you can download the driver, and a thank you card with details on how to contact Huion support.


Power brick and cable. You get to choose the which plug if you're getting from Huion's online store.


The pen display supports DisplayPort, HDMI and VGA

The cables included are HDMI and VGA. Huion's website listed HDMI cable as an included item but not the VGA cable. I've emailed Huion support and they said VGA cable is indeed included but DisplayPort cable is not.


USB data cable to connect to the computer so that the pen can be recognised.


The stand, four screws, and an allen key screwdriver.


Pen and stand


Build quality of the pen is solid. Design looks nice and feels good to hold with its large rubber grip.


The pen supports tilt sensitivity and 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity. The two side buttons have nice feedback and can be customised to various mouse clicks and keyboard shortcuts.


The pen stand allows the pen to rest vertically and horizontally.


Unscrew the pen stand and you'll see 10 replacement nibs and the nib remover.


This pen display looks even larger on this 80cm table. You will definitely need to set aside a good amount of table space for this pen display because you'll need space in front for the keyboard, and behind for the stand which extends backwards.


That's the protective film for the matte surface glass.


There are plenty of vents on the back.


Buttons for the OSD are on the top right.


The display can be VESA mounted. Dimensions for the holes are 10 x 10cm and 7.5 x 7.5m. The display weighs 6kg.


The ports from left to right: full size DisplayPort, full size HDMI, VGA, power, USB

It's strange to include VGA when most computer released in the recent years don't even come with VGA. USB-C would have been significantly more useful.


The stand is easy to screw on. Just make sure the latch is at the top where you can reach with your hand.


It's a stable stand with rubber feet. Together with the hefty pen display, there's minimal wobble when drawing.


That's the highest position which isn't completely vertical.


At the lowest position, the rubber feet and metal part of the stand will be in contact with the table. At this position, there's slight wobble if you draw on the display.


It's only at this angle where the rubber feet of the stand and display will all touch the table.


This pen display features 20 physical customisable shortcut buttons, 10 on each side. The pen display design is symmetrical so it doesn't matter if you're left handed.

The buttons work well, and they have indents so it's difficult to press the wrong buttons. The button feedback could more firm though as they are a slightly loose.

There are two touch stripes, one on each side. Swiping up and down can be customised to keyboard shortcuts. I personally prefer dials because you can change settings easily by turning the dial round and round. Anyway, the touch strip works so it's just a matter of getting used to it. It's intuitive if you think about it, swipe up to increase, and swipe down to decrease.


Here I've connected the pen display to my Macbook Pro using my own DisplayPort cable. I could use the HDMI cable provided but the HDMI port on the MBP is on the other side. Anyway, the cables Huion has provided are 1.5m long which are quite long.


Colours of the display look good out of the box.


I've colour calibrated the display to match my laptop and measured 99% sRGB, 81% AdobeRGB, 84% P3 and 76% NTSC. Huion's marketing claimed 120% sRGB support but my Spyder5Pro colour calibrator can't measure beyond 100% sRGB. I was surprised though that the 120% sRGB did not translate to higher AdobeRGB support.

The point is the pen display has reasonably good colour accuracy.

I measured 158 nits maximum brightness which was lower than the claimed 220 nits. It's sufficient brightness for use even in a well lit room but I wished it could be higher.


Viewing angles are good. Colours don't shift much when viewed from the side. The brightness was sufficient to go through the anti-glare as long as there isn't much white glare.


When viewing directly from the front, glare or anti-glare isn't much of an issue unless your monitor is just beside a window.

The design looks good. It's a clean and simple design. Build quality is solid.


The 2560 x 1440 resolution is a significant upgrade over 1080P. Everything looks sharper and detailed because of the extra resolution. Pixelation is still noticeable if you look close but not as obvious compared to a 1080P display. The 1440P resolution is the main reason why one would consider getting this display. If you don't mind 1080P, Huion has so many other pen displays running that resolution at much lower prices.


Pixelation is very obvious on 1080P displays, and it even looks a bit blurry.


This display is a laminated display which means there shouldn't be any gap between the glass the and LCD beneath. However if you look close enough, there is actually a gap between the line/cursor and the pen tip. It could be a gap or it could be the thickness of the glass. Anyway, if you look for the gap, you'll see it. When working from one or half arm distance away, lines will appear as if they are coming out from directly beneath the pen tip.

In the photo above, I've calibrated the pen and display to show you what you can expect to see when you're drawing.


This is a huge display to draw on. It's great for unrestricted large movement when drawing. The higher resolution allows you to put more palette on the desktop, and still have enough canvas area to draw on.

The display also does not produce much heat so you can work comfortably for long periods of time with the palm resting on the surface.


You can adjust gamma, brightness, contrast, hue and saturation from the OSD. Colour temperature is just warm, cool and USER (which goes into RGB adjustments).

Driver

Driver functionality for Mac and Windows is similar except there's the Windows Ink feature which you may have to turn on or off if pressure is not working as expected.

I've tested both Mac and Windows driver and did not experience any glitches.


This is where you can customise the 20 physical shortcut buttons and the two touch stripes. That's a lot of buttons!


You can customise the buttons to any keyboard shortcut and mouse clicks.

If you use multiple monitors, there's Display Switch which allows you to move the cursor from one display to another. With Windows, the functionality of Switch Display doesn't work exactly as I expected though. When you have two displays and you activate the shortcut, you can control the cursor across both displays (just like how you would use a mouse across multiple displays), and when you activate it again, you can control the cursor on the other display, and activate it third time, the cursor returns to the main display.

Other companies have Display Switch to work on either one or the other display, not both.

Switch Display works fine on Mac.


Pressure curve can be adjusted manually for more precise adjustment.


Mapping by default is to the whole desktop. If there's parallax or the cursor strays away from the pen tip, you can calibrate the pen and display to make sure the cursor appears directly beneath the pen tip.

Drawing performance

Drawing performance is fantastic.


Lines are able to taper nice and gradually.


Line transition from thin to thick is smooth. Pressure sensitivity works great.


The pen is also able to maintain consistent pressure for a consistent line thickness.

Initial activation force is minimal however I do have to apply slight pressure for better results. It can be difficult to control the thickness of the line when drawing with the lightest of pressure, and sometimes the line breaks.

The drawing experience is good with on both Mac and Windows with the various drawing software I've tested, namely Photoshop, Illustrator, Infinity Photo, Infinity Designer, Clip Studio Paint, Medibang Paint Pro and Krita.


Photoshop CC 2020


Clip Studio Paint


Medibang Paint


Krita

Tilt sensitivity works well, but performance is a hit and miss when the pen is near the sides. It's not a dealbreaker unless you're someone who always draw with tilt brushes near the side edges of the display.

Conclusion

The main selling point of the Huion Kamvas Pro 24 is the display, more specifically the 99% sRGB colour support, 1440P resolution and the matte glass laminated display. This display is what stands out among all the other pen displays Huion is currently selling.

2560 x 1440 resolution makes things look sharper and you also get more desktop space for putting extra palettes without sacrificing canvas area to draw on.

The matte surface glass is good for those who hate scratches on screen protectors.

Main downside is the brightness which could be higher. I measured 158 nits which is sufficient but it would be nicer if it could go even higher.

Ultimately, the drawing experience is fantastic. Lines come out just the way I expect them to. Line quality is consistent and predictable.

Here are the prices of various pen displays from Huion at the time of this review:

  • Kamvas Pro 24 - US $899
  • Kamvas Pro 22 (2019) - $799 (review)
  • Kamvas 22 (2020) - $399
  • Kamvas 22 Plus (2020) - $499
  • Kamvas Pro 20 (2019) - $699
  • Kamvas Pro 16 - $469 (review)
  • Kamvas 16 - $379 (review)
  • Kamvas Pro 13 - $399
  • Kamvas 13 - $239 (review)
  • Kamvas Pro 12 - $349

The Huion Kamvas Pro 24 is certainly pricey. You can decide whether it's worth your money based on the performance and features I've described.

If you have limited budget, well, Huion now has a pen display at almost every price point except for under $200. That's quite amazing. You can see all the pen displays from Huion at https://store.huion.com/collections/pen-display

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Good design
+ Good build quality
+ 23.8-inch display is massive to draw on
+ 1440P resolution is a significant upgrade over 1080P
+ More resolution means visuals, user interface elements are sharper
+ More resolution means more desktop space
+ Good colour support at 99% sRGB
+ Matte drawing surface has nice texture to draw on
+ Laminated display with minimal gap between pen and cursor
+ Matte drawing surface is glass and not a screen protector
+ 10 replacement nibs included
+ Pen does not require charging
+ Pen supports tilt and 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity
+ Initial activation force is minimal
+ Very good drawing performance
+ No major glitches with drawing software on both Mac and Windows
+ 20 customisable physical buttons + 2 touch stripes
+ Stand can be deployed at various angles
+ Can be VESA mounted
+ Does not produce much heat
- Brightness could be brighter
- When display is at flat position, it rests only on the stand and is not as stable
- Inclusion of VGA port not that useful
- No DisplayPort cable included

Availability

The Huion Kamvas Pro 24 is available on Amazon and Huion web store. Direct links (affiliate) below.
Huion web store | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp

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