7P notes: Huion and XP-Pen

Overview

HUION (https://www.huion.com/) and XP-PEN (https://www.xp-pen.com/) are the next big tablet brands. Their recent (2021 and later) models have been pretty good - but still trail Wacom a bit in quality and reliability. In general I think they offer 90% of what you get with a WACOM but at a substantial price reduction.

Their best tablets

In 2023 and 2024 Huion and XP have released models with upgraded tech that are challenging Wacom's professional line.

  • Huion Kamvas Pro 19

  • Huion Kamvas Pro 27

  • XP-Pen Deco Pro GEN2

  • XP-Pen Artist Pro GEN2

A lot of their improvements with these tablets are due to their pens handling pressure better: lower IAF and much wider pressure ranges than before.

What HUION and XP-PEN do well:

  • Good price vs cost

  • Their latest offerings since 2021 are very usable for creative tasks.

  • They introduce new models frequently - much more often than Wacom.

  • Their consumer level tablets tend to have more features than Wacom's consumer models (tilt & tablet buttons, dials, knobs)

How Huion and XP-PEN could do better

  • Huion pen displays - especially the high PPI ones tend to show more AG sparkle. more here: Anti-glare sparkle.

  • Pointer lag:

    • XP-pen pen displays tend to exhibit slightly more pointer lag than Wacom or Huion. More here: lag.

    • XP-Pen and Huion's pen tablets seem to have the same level of pointer lag.

  • Improve their Core EMR tech and specs - while on paper equivalent to Wacom are still trailing. For many artists they may not notice this, but tablet enthusiasts do certainly notice it. (Will be a topic for a future video)

  • Improve customer support. Both Huion and XP-Pen struggle with customer support. They tend to take more time to respond.

  • Reliability - Huion and XP-pen a little lag behind Wacom.

  • Huion and XP-Pen offer too many products - with new models (with newer tech) and older models (with older tech) sitting alongside them. This makes it confusing to buyers.

  • They should monitor and answer questions on https://www.reddit.com/r/huion/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/XPpen/

  • Long-term reliability unknown compared to Wacom. This can't be helped, they have only been around since 2011 (Huion) and 2005 (XP-Pen). And their passive EMR tablets (the ones where the pens do not have a battery) have only been around since the late 2010s.

Switching from Wacom

If you are an existing Wacom user yuou should keep in mind there are somethings that Wacom does where Huion and XP-Pen are still catching up on. In particular some of Wacom's pens (especially the Pro models) have an extremely low IAF (<1gf) . Huion latest pro pens can get to 2gf (per Huion's statements) and 3gf (per XP-Pen's statements). If you are used to a Wacom pen making marks at very tiny pressure you may find these higher IAF values hard to deal with.

Last updated