Review: Huion Kamvas 16 Gen 3 pen display (2025)

Review unit provided by Huion

The Huion Kamvas 16 Gen 3 is a 15.8-inch pen display released in January 2025.

This 3rd generation provides several upgrades over the previous Kamvas 16 (2021). Improvements are

• Resolution increased from 1920 x 1080 to 2560 x 1440
• Matte screen protector has been replaced with matte glass
• USB-C port is no longer recessed into the body
• Two dials are added to the hotkeys
• There's now 16K levels of pressure sensitivity, up for 8K
• Higher brightness from 195 to 240 nits (measured)

Price of the pen display is USD 499 which may or may not include free shipping depending on your location. Huion provides a 30 days return policy and 1 year of warranty.

Bottom line

This is a beautiful well made pen display with excellent pen performance. Drawing experience is wonderful thanks to the sensitive pen and matte glass surface.

I did not notice any major issues with the product during my test. Huion has made so many incremental upgrades and improvements to their pen displays over the years the Kamvas series pen display is so refined now that it's difficult for me to find negative things to say.

For the full review, read on. Or jump to the list of pros and cons at the bottom.

Specifications

• Display Size: 15.8 inches
• Resolution: 2560 x 1440
• Aspect Ratio: 16:9
• Panel Type: IPS LCD
• Colour Support: 99% sRGB, 99% Rec.709, 90% Adobe RGB
• Colour depth: 16.7 million colors (8-bit)
• Brightness:220 nits (typical)
• Contrast: 1,000:1
• Surface Finish: 2nd Gen Anti-glare Etched Glass
• Pen: PW600L with Pen Tech 4
• Pressure Sensitivity: 16K levels
• Tilt Recognition: ±60°
• Reading Height: 10mm
• Response Time: 14ms
• Hotkeys: Six with two dials
• Connectivity: USB-C to USB-C, or three-in-one cable
• Power Consumption: ≤10W
• Stand: Adjustable ST300
• Weight: 1.2 kg
• Dimensions: 421.2 x 236.81 x 12.62mm
• OS support: Windows 7 or later, macOS 10.12 or later, Android (USB3.1 DP1.2 or later), Linux (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS)

Things included

• Pen display
• 3-to-1 cable
• USB-C to USB-A power cable
• USB-A to USB-A power extension cable
• USB-C to USB-C video cable
• 18W power adapter (plug may vary depending on location)
• Huion PW600L pen
• Pen stand with 10 replacement pen tips
• Huion ST300 stand
• Artist glove
• User guide
• Colour calibration report

It's possible to power the pen display from your computer's USB-C port so you may not need to connect an extra power cable to the pen display.

Design

Design of the Huion Kamvas 16 Gen 3 looks good. Build quality is solid. Edges are beveled and corners are rounded off, including corners of the glass.

There are six hotkeys and two dials which are customisable with the driver. The dial has a button in the centre for switching functions.

The back is made with plastic, is matte textured and quite susceptible to fingerprints. There are four rubber feet with good grip on the table.

The LCD comes with a matte glass surface that has rather aggressive anti-glare. Shown above is diffused reflection from a big window on a cloudy day. Diffused reflection can be quite glaring with strong light source pointed at the display.

You can get the best visual quality as long as there's no strong light source pointed at the display. Viewing angles are good with minimal colour shift.

The pen feels smooth on the matte glass surface so that will take some time to get used to. The tactile drawing experience is more smooth than paper-like.

All matte surfaces will introduce some grain, colour noise or anti-glare sparkle to affect visual quality. On this pen display, there is slight softness with the visuals but overall visuals still look sharp enough to me from one arm distance away. Anti-glare sparkle is not really noticeable.

Note for MacOS users, you may need to use BetterDisplay app to get sharper visuals because 15.8-inch with 1440P is not a good combo for Mac users.

The display is laminated with almost no gap between the pen tip and line beneath. Response time is 14ms so there's some latency as the line is chasing the pen tip, but it's the usual amount of latency commonly seen with pen displays.

Cursor tracking is quite accurate. Cursor is always directly beneath the pen tip contact point, and does not stray away regardless of the angle of the pen. Cursor tracking at the extreme edge is also quite accurate.

Visuals

Having a pen display that's colour calibrated at the factory is convenient for those who do not own a colour calibrator.

The colour calibration report mentions sRGB with average Delta E of 0.86. Average Delta E is the variance between input colour and measured output colour. Another less than 2 is good, and less than 1 is great.

With my own colour calibration using a Spyder X2 calibrator, I measured colour support for 100% sRGB, 86% NTSC, 90% AdobeRGB, 94% P3 and a maximum brightness of 240 nits (with and without external power connected).

To achieve maximum brightness, the display mode has to be set to Movie. Movie mode's brightness is locked though, so to adjust brightness, use the following methods:

• MacOS: Move the cursor to the Huion display, and use the brightness control keys on the keyboard
• Windows: Use Twinkle Tray: Brightness Slider, and you can use the slider from the taskbar to adjust brightness on external displays.

OSD can be accessed by a press and hold of the power button. The OSD allows adjustment for the following settings:

• Display mode: Standard, gaming, movie, user
• Brightness, contrast, hue
• Colour temperature, RGB
• Colour modes: sRGB, Rec 709, AdobeRGB, native

Driver

The driver I've tested version 15.7.9

The six hotkeys and two dials can be customised with the driver.

The two dials are pre-programmed with shortcuts to change brush size, scroll and zoom. There's no way to set keyboard shortcuts to the two dials (with the Mac driver).

Here's the list of shortcuts that can be assigned to the hotkeys:

• Keyboard key
• Mouse key - Includes modifier keys, Ctrl Shift Alt Cmd
• Tools - Includes Switch Display and you can choose which displays to include
• Run program
• System application - Mac or Windows shortcuts
• Multimedia
• Precision mode - Moves the cursor slower
• Pan scroll
• Quick menu - Shows a popup menu with 6 customisable shortcuts
• Fixed pressure sensitivity
• None

The three side buttons on the pen can be customised with the same shortcuts listed above.

The pressure curve can be adjusted by moving three control points.

On this screen, you can customise the drawing area, calibrate the pen (to remove cursor misalignment) and change the orientation of the display if you're left handed.

Since this pen has three buttons, one can be set to call up the Quick Menu where you can add six more shortcuts. You can choose to "fix" the menu permanently on the screen or have it disappear after activating a shortcut. This is quite useful. I usually use one side button on the pen for Switch Display as I use a dual display setup.

Pen

The Huion PW600L pen uses PenTech 4 and supports tilt and 16K levels of pressure sensitivity. The pen is not powered by battery so no charging is required.

The pen is well made and feels grippy with the silicone grip. There are three customisable side buttons but no eraser. Other pens compatible with this pen display are the Huion PW600S slim pen and the Huion PW600 with an eraser.

Pen tip is firm and has no movement. This pen tip glides smoothly on the matte glass surface.

If you prefer a more tactile drawing experience, you can purchase the Huion felt nibs PN06F (10 pieces for USD 10). The only replacement pen tips included are the plastic ones.

Line tests

The line tests were created with Medibang Paint (Mac) which had a split second lag after drawing a long continuous line. This does not happen with other drawing apps thankfully.

The pen performance is similar to the Huion Kamvas 13 gen 3 so I just duplicated the text from that review over here.

1. Pen has very low initial activation force. Drawing thin lines is easy even with a thick brush selected. There's no noticeable diagonal line wobble or jitter.

2. Lines are able taper smoothly and sharply.

3. Line transition from thin to thick and back is smooth. This is also a diagonal line and there's no noticeable diagonal line wobble and jitter. Thin lines can still be drawn after drawing thick lines, and this is possible because this pen has excellent pressure sensitivity.

4. Line width can be maintained consistently with consistent pressure.

5. Dots can be drawn easily.

6. There are no issues with cursor misalignment. Lines could be joined easily without gaps and without lines overshooting.

Pen performance is consistent and predictable.

Drawing experience

The display is big enough for comfortable drawing. There's space for two columns of palettes with enough canvas space leftover for drawing.

The six hotkeys and two dials are useful if you use them, but for me, I prefer to use my keyboard instead.

The pen tip glides quite smoothly on the matte glass which may surprise people who are expected a more paper-like experience. If you prefer a more tactile drawing experience, you can always purchase the Huion felt nibs PN06F.

This was drawn with Medibang Paint. I didn't experience any issues, not even the Medibang-specific lag issue mentioned above. Lines are able to come out exactly the way I want.

This was drawn with Clip Studio Paint. Workflow is smooth and predictable. There are no surprises.

You can get amazing line quality with Clip Studio Paint, and also with other apps.

The pen is sensitive and accurate. Quality is good.

Conclusion

The Huion Kamvas 16 Gen 3 is a beautiful pen display that's well made and has excellent pen performance.

There is a USD 100 price increase over the previous model but you do get many upgrades. If you have limited budget, you can consider the smaller Kamvas 13 Gen 3 which selling at USD 249, half the price of the 15.8-inch model, or you can still get the previous model which has come down in price to USD 309.

This pen display is definitely worth considering if you're looking for a mid-sized pen display that's big but not too big.

What I like more specifically would be the use of matte glass instead of a matte screen protector, and the increase in resolution from 1080P to 1440P.

For the softness of visuals, I find it slightly sharper than the Kamvas Pro 19 which I currently still have, and hence can compare side by side. Note that such comparison is relative. Unfortunately I no longer have the Kamvas 13 Gen 3 to compare with but I remember the sharpess of that pen display is satisfactory and hence it should be quite similar to the Kamvas 16 Gen 3.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Good looking design
+ Good build quality
+ 6 hot keys and two dials
+ 15.8-inch still a comfortable size to draw on
+ 1440P resolution is sharp for the display size
+ 100% sRGB colour support
+ 240 nits max brightness possible with single USB-C cable connection
+ Matte glass has nice texture to draw on
+ Matte glass does not affect image quality much
+ Laminated display
+ No cursor misalignment with pen at angle
+ USB-C single cable connection possible
+ 10 replacement nibs included
+ Pen does not require charging
+ Pen is accurate and sensitive
+ Initial activation force is minimal
+ OSD settings can be adjusted with the pen
- 15.8-inch 1440P is not a good combo for Mac users. BetterDisplay app is needed

Wow. I actually do not have any negative things to say, so let me just say what I wish could have been included instead: 16:10 aspect ratio, inclusion of some felt nibs.

Availability

The Huion Kamvas 16 Gen 3 is available from Huion online store