7P notes: Tier 2 drawing tablet brands

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.

Like Wacom they both have a wide variety of products available.

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.

  • They 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 true EMR tablets (the ones where the pens do not have a battery) have only been around since the late 2010s.

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