Introduction
For years I’ve been reviewing graphics tablets and have always felt innovation in this area was a little slow. My feedback has always been that companies should be focussing on making portable devices to compete with the market Apple is dominating. I personally almost exclusively use an iPad and Procreate. Today I will be passing on my experience with my first alternative. The Huion Kamvas Slate 11.
What is it?
The Huion Slate 11 is an Android 14 powered 11 inch tablet. Being Andorid powered means you have full access to all the apps you would expect on a tablet. This has been created by Huion specifically for the purpose of being used as a painting tool, to accommodate that they have made it with the following hardware specification –
- 90hz refresh rate full HD screen
- Nano etched soft light screen
- 128gb memory (expandable up to 1TB)
- 99% sRGB Colour Gammut
- Anti-glare screen with a textured finish for a traditional fee
- Lightweight pen with quick buttons to make painting processes efficient
The device is an Android tablet pre-loaded with painting software, but the hardware has been designed to benefit digital artists, whereas a standard tablet has not.
You could of course buy any Android tablet and use Android painting software (which we’ll discuss shortly). But this device has been set up to give you the best painting experience, which is something you would find lacking on other Android devices not designed for the specific purpose of digital painting.
This is still a tablet though. So if you’re key focus is art, but also want to be able to watch TV, play games etc, your Huion Kamvas slate would be raring to go.
The device comes with a leatherette case which protects the tablet really nicely and has a nice space for the pen.
Audience
On the Huion website it says this device has “pre-installed drawing apps, perfect for beginners and kids”. By putting that on their page, I assume that is the audience they are marketing this at - entry level artists and children. At the very least they are suggesting the pre-installed software is aimed at that audience.
I’ll tackle this as we go through the review as it is an important point. However, I have been letting my 8 year old son paint on this for a few weeks now and he is getting pretty good and absolutely loves it. More on that later too.
It comes preloaded with some digital painting software
Price
Let’s jump straight to some key information. Say you want to buy a new iPad and use Procreate. A new 11 inch iPad pro would cost £1000 in the UK and something similar in your own territory. The procreate software is an absolute bargain wherever you are.
The Kamvas Slate 11 is currently a remarkable £249.00. I’ll be making a lot of comparisons in this review, but that very important comparison should not be forgotten or ignored. Second hand iPads are something worth considering, but obviously carry the risk of depleted batteries and no protection against faulty items etc. Every way you look at this it is a great price for a device designed for a creative.
The price alone makes it worthwhile spending time considering this device if you are thinking of buying something similar.
Pre-installed Software
When you turn it all you will see that it is pre-installed with HiPaint, HiNote, Clip Studio Paint, ibisPaint X. In my opinion, based on extensive use of all these options, Clip Studio Paint is by a significant way the best choice. However, that would require you to pay a subscription to use. Therefore, for this review I have used HiPaint, just in case you are a customer that wants to use a pre-installed option and not pay. I should add that the free version only allows access to a limited amount of tools, but you can still paint with those and the demonstration below will exclusively be done using them.
If you aim to avoid software with a subscription or cost, my advice would be to download Sketchbook, which is also the software my son favours when choosing from the options. All of the pre-installed options however are very workable.
I used HiPaint throughout and my dominant feedback which I will add to later is that the gesture controls are infuriating. If you rest your hand on the tablet to draw it either thinks you are choosing a colour or undoing what you have done. I love gesture controls, but with HiPaint on this device I found them unworkable and turned them all off.
This painting was created using HiPaint and this was the first time I had used it.
Basics
The key things for any painting device are that the registration and the responsiveness have to be spot on. The better these are the more you will like using it.
So let’s start with the registration. This is spot on! When you put pen to the screen it will make a mark exactly where you want it to. This is really very good and I have no complaints at all.
The registration when you put the pen on the screen is good. It will make a mark where you expect it to.
Let’s now talk about responsiveness - firstly in relation to pen pressure. This is also very good and very familiar. It works very much so as it does on my iPad Pro. This is also very good.
Let’s now get to the speed of responsiveness. Does the mark on the screen keep up with my pen movement? This is where this device falls behind. I’ll put a comparison below so you can see what I mean. The speed of response on the Huion is slower than the iPad. It’s not too slow, or unusable, but it is slower.
This is my dominant piece of feedback for this product. I don’t love the pre-installed software, but can easily get around that with alternative options. However, the speed of response to pen movement feels a bit dated which is remarkable on what is a very modern and well made device. I wouldn’t want this to put anyone off and it is incredible for the price, but it is the difference between this and a top price device.
I think this comes back to one of the first things I mentioned. They are aiming this at a beginners or young audience, rather than professionals. A professional may get frustrated by the very small and slight delay. A beginner or young user will never notice it and will just enjoy it.
My very old iPad Pro
The Kamvas Slate. The difference isn’t epic, but is noticeable when you are familiar with something a little sharper.
The Pen
A very quick word on the pen. It is light and very nice to use. It feels like a pencil to be honest which is nice. However, the button is in such an inconvenient position, unless you are constantly looking at your hand to ensure you don’t press the button, you will click it all the time. I had to disable it entirely when painting as it was very frustrating.
The pen is nice to use, but the button will require customising to ensure you don’t press it repeatedly.
What should I paint?
My Son is currently obsessed with Ninja Turtles. This brings me so much joy as I was also a huge fan as a child. I lost count of the hours I spend drawing Leo, Raph, Mikey and my favourite Donny.
He also has a lizard which is a Crestie called Rex. So my Son took on the challenge of redesigning the Ninja Turtles but as Ninja Lizards. I took his designs and ran with them to paint “The Ninja Lizards” done entirely in HiPaint.
These are my son’s attempts to redesign the ninja turtles as Lizards, which became my inspiration for my painting.
So what did I think?
I didn’t really enjoy the software and its restrictions. To do colour adjustments or tweaks to the shape etc all require a subscription. That meant the process was pretty inefficient and the painting I made probably took almost twice as long as it would have done on the iPad in Procreate, which for a professional user would be irritating.
I finished this painting using the device and HiPaint.
The only thing holding the hardware back however is the speed at which the strokes respond. That isn’t a big deal but is worthy of note, especially if you are used to using other devices and thinking of moving to this one.
But let’s jump back to the beginning of the review. This is only £249 and is aimed at beginners and younger users. For that price it is brilliant. I’ve had this for about 6 weeks and my Son has barely been able to put it down and has improved his painting and drawing skills significantly and is quick to turn to drawing and designing instead of watching the TV or picking up the switch controller. I love that and so does he.
If you are an experienced digital artist I am sure you can create great results with this, but it is probably not for you. However, if you are new to digital art and get this device and download Sketchbook I think you will be a very happy user for a very long time.
3.5 out of 5
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