I have many positive qualities but I am generally pretty terrible at demonstrating forethought and showing loved ones that I care. My presents are usually last minute efforts and my romantic gestures are very few and far between. Mother’s Day is coming up in a month or so and I hadn’t thought about what to get my wife, the mother of my son and the love of my life. When Huion contacted our editors at DRN with a new graphic art tablet/display, I jumped at the chance to finally do something right. 
My wife is a woman of many talents and one of those talents is visual arts. She teaches art at a state primary school and used to create airbrush murals for fun. With a 2 year old at home, and with us living in a tiny unit, it can be hard to find time and space to create art. This seemed like an ideal opportunity to reignite her passion.
That said, I have tried this before. Last year I reviewed an art tablet from a different company. While that tablet had many positive qualities, it did not feature a digital display. For both of us the disconnect between drawing on the tablet and staring at the separate monitor inhibited our joy of making art. As the Huion Kamvas 13 (Gen 3) functions as both a monitor and an art tablet, an art display, I am hoping that this will make it more fun to use.
First Impressions
The Kamvas 13 comes in a large white cardboard box that has become a bit of an industry standard. It has a strip of foam under the lid that protects the device and gives the box some longevity as a means of transporting the device around. The tablet itself is quite large, diagonally measuring 13.3”, the size of a modest laptop monitor. The tablet has two wheels that slightly protrude from the side and glide really nicely. It also has five ‘silent’ configurable push buttons down the side.
It also comes with a really fascinating pen. The pen is really lightweight and doesn’t need batteries, which is honestly a little mystifying in ways I will explain later. It features three push buttons that can be configured as well as the pen nib. The box also contains a pretty sturdy tablet stand that allows you to work on a range of angles up to 45 degrees. It contains a stand for the pen which comes apart to store 10 identical pen nibs, a glove with only two fingers covered and a large cleaning cloth. The pen nibs seem to be a common thing with art tablets but I do wonder how aggressively people are using the pens to warrant so many replacements.
The cables are particularly unusual. The main cable for the device is a ‘3 in 1’ cable with a USB-C head up one end and an HDMI head along with 2 USB-A heads on the other. The HDMI connects the monitor, one of the USB-A heads is for the power and the other is for the keyboard/mouse functionality of the device. In the manual it says you can also purchase a USB-C to USB-C cable and I find it really unusual that this isn’t the default cable supplied. It would take up less space, weigh less and work on a wider range of devices these days. They also provide a cable extension for the power USB-A cable, presumably so that you can use power from a wall socket, while warning about the device’s acceptable power supply limits. Frustratingly, the two devices I had at home – a Macbook and Microsoft Surface – didn’t have a HDMI input so I had to drive to work and borrow my work computer to test it. 
Set Up
Once I had the right computer, the set-up was really easy. It had full functionality the second I plugged it in. On the Huion website they offer driver software as well as a very detailed user manual. I downloaded the software and it allowed me to customise the functionality of the tablet to an unimaginable level of wonkiness. Firstly, I started reassigning the functions of all the many buttons and wheels. The wheels have 3 separate function sets you can switch between using the centre button on each wheel. I made sure the top three buttons were backspace, delete and ctrl-z because I knew I was gonna start making mistakes.
I then fiddled with the ‘working area’. Using the driver software, you can adjust the section of your screen that gets displayed on the tablet monitor. The default is for the whole screen to be mirrored to the device but at times you may want to customize the area to zoom in on sections for fine details or cut out unnecessary tabs. 
With the driver, you can also adjust the pen’s sensitivity. The dots on the graph on the left box can be adjusted to make the three key levels of pressure more or less sensitive. The device boasts 16,384 levels of sensitivity starting from 2g of pressure which is pretty impressive. As you adjust these dots you can test the changes by drawing in the box on the right. Ultimately the default options were probably the best ones here.
The driver also lets you adjust the display settings on the tablet monitor and so many other things. It was a bit overwhelming but I’m sure a real graphic artist would have enjoyed the scope for optimisation that this device offered. I had officially reached my limit for fiddling and was ready to paint.
In Use
I am not a visual artist and have no illusions about that. My goal with this device was to aggressively test it and feel confident that I understand its strengths and limitations. However, I did have fun with my drawing below. A self portrait based on my current (15 years old) headshot at my voice acting agency.
I did some other, less visually appealing tests of the paint brush functions using an open source art program. Initially, I tried drawing with the pen at different angles and in different hands. The PenTech 4.0 and tilt auto-alignment do a great job at responding to any changes I made in the way I used the pen. I was also really impressed at the responsiveness of the tablet. Even when I scribbled really quickly it managed to keep up with me and accurately track my movements in a way that impressed me.
I want to take a moment here to register my wonderment about the mysteries of that pen. Despite not having a battery, it can communicate from a pretty solid distance, when I push the buttons on the side. It feels great to hold and is so lightweight. I know the HV200 chip in it has some function in connecting it with the tablet but honestly, it does feel a bit like witchcraft.
Along with a really impressive pen, the tablet itself has many special qualities and features. The textured surface gives the perfect amount of resistance, making you feel like you are drawing on paper. The anti-glare/anti-sparkle finish does a great job of blocking out the glare from the sun. I had a go at drawing outside in the direct sunlight and it went better than I expected.
Finally, I noted that you can turn off the display function and use it as an art tablet. I realise that professionals may appreciate this but I will never use that function. You can also use the tablet for writing. I had a go at this but found that it wasn’t great at recognising my ‘Victorian-cursive’ letter shapes and translating them into computer letters so I gave it up. Ultimately, I much prefer typing to handwriting and I would be unlikely to use this function even if it were perfect.
Gripes
The only gripe I have about this whole device is about the cables. I don’t understand why you would ship it with a heavy and unwieldy ‘3 in 1’ cable and a cable extension when a much simpler and lighter weight pair of USB-C cables would do the job so much better.
The buttons are a joy to press and have so many clever functions, the pen is magical and the screen is a marvel to behold and write upon. It seems like such a petty thing to complain about but there are so many devices out there that this won’t connect to with the cables provided and it really bugged me.
Conclusion
I couldn’t wait until Mother’s Day for my wife to try this, it was just too good. We both agreed that having the textured display to draw on and using that pen made digital art a joy to create. You can buy it with or without the stand and I would strongly recommend using a stand when you draw with it. It’s currently discounted and priced at $242 [updated 23/4/25] (with stand) on the website and the USB-C to USB-C cable is another $31. I will probably buy that cable but I’m not happy about it. What I am happy about is a device that has been designed for both beginners and experts with huge customisability. The Huion Kamvas 13 (Gen 13) is a great product and I can’t wait to see what my wife can design with it.
DRN would like to thank Huion for providing the review unit.
