Review #2: Huion Kamvas GT-191 Pen Display

Here's another review of the Huion Kamvas GT-191 pen display, this time from a Mac user perspective. My friend had already reviewed it a few months ago so you can read his review for a second opinion -- he uses Windows.

The unit I have is actually review unit sent over by Gearbest, an e-commerce site that sells lots of gadgets, gear and electronics. They happen to sell some Huion tablets and pen displays as well.

Specifications

• Screen size: 19.5 inch
• Resolution: 1920 x 1080
• Panel type: IPS
• Pressure sensitivity: 8192 levels
• Viewing angle: 89 degrees vertically and horizontally
• Brightness: 250cd/m2
• Contrast ratio: 3000:1
• Colour support: 16.7m
• Report rate: 233PPS
• Response time: 25ms
• Video ports: DVI, HDMI, VGA

The Kamvas GT-191 is a significantly better pen display than its smaller brother, the Kamvas GT-190 that I reviewed recently.

The Kamvas GT-191 has higher resolution (1080P vs 1440x900), better colour support (99% sRGB vs TFT screen), more levels of pressure sensitivity (8192 vs 2048), better viewing angles and better design overall (even though they look pretty similar).

At the time of this review, the GT-191 is selling at US $500 and the GT-190 is US $400. If you have the budget, I recommend the GT-191 because it's better in many ways, and more worth the money.

Here's the packaging box.

These are all the items included:

• Display
• Display stand
• 2 pens
• Pen holder
• 8 replacement tips
• USB charging cable for pen
• USB data cable
• Power brick and cable
• Driver disc and manual
• Screwdriver and four screws
• VGA cable
• HDMI cable
• Cleaning cloth
• Matte screen protector

The screen

When you first take out the pen display, you'll notice it's protected by a piece of plastic pasted over it. You have to remove that to reveal the screen.

A matte screen protector is included should you want to use it.

Application of the screen protector is incredibly difficult. I spent a considerable amount of time to make sure there wasn't any dust on the screen be even so, after application, I could see lots of air pockets, some created by dust. In the end, I gave up, removed the screen protector and threw it away.

While the matte screen protector feels good to draw on, but it looks too ugly with those air pockets. Thankfully, the pen does not produce squeaky sounds when drawing. The matte screen protector also looks quite grainy. Drawing on screen should not produce scratches.

The screen is the glossy reflective type. Colours out of the box looks great. Since I use a lot of monitors, I have to calibrate each one to make sure I'm seeing consistent colours on all of them.

With the Spyder5Pro calibrator, I measured 99% sRGB and 77% AdobeRGB support. Colour accuracy is quite good. To get the best colours, be sure to go into the monitor menu to choose USER setting from the colour temperature option.

Brightness isn't that good though. I measured a maxium of 155 cd/m2, far from the stated 250cd/m2. That's laptop screen brightness territory. If you're working in a brightly lit room, that brightness may be found lacking. But if you're away from the windows, or working with average lighting, the brightness is acceptable. It's not a deal breaker though. I've seen even dimmer screens.

The resolution of 1920 x 1080 is sufficient and suitable for a 19.5-inch screen. The user interface elements are all comfortably large to see.

The VESA mount is the 10cm type.

These are the HDMI, DVI and VGA ports

This is the very typical stand used by a lot of pen displays.

You have to fix the stand yourself using the screwdriver and four screws provided.

At the upright position, the pen display is almost vertical.

One thing I like about this pen display is Huion has added an additional piece of rubber beneath the front of the display. This rubber provides a good grip on the table. While most pen displays may look the same (as if they came from the same factory but pasted with different brands), that additional piece of rubber helps differentiates the GT-191 slightly from other models. That rubber also prevents the base of the display from dragging all over the table.

At the lowest position, the front rubber feet lifts up and the display will rest on the metal part of the stand. If it rests on the graphic cables, you've got to move them to the side.

Menu buttons are at the bottom right side, facing downwards. You can change the brightness, contrast, colour temperature and other basic settings through the menu. Most important setting is to make sure the colour temperature is set to USER.

The overall build quality is quite good. It feels sturdy and well build. It may not look as cool or polished compared to Wacom Cintiqs but it's good enough, and functional, and is more affordable than Wacom Cintiqs.

Pen

The pen and the pen holder.

The pen is battery powered so it needs to be charged with the USB cable provided. It's good that two pens are included so you can charge one while working with the other. Not sure about the battery life but with such pens, it's usually about a few weeks. But it really depends on how often you use the pen.

You can configure to two side buttons with keyboard shortcuts, mouse buttons, or the ability to switch between displays if you're using dual monitors.

The replacement tips and nib remove is hidden inside the pen holder.

Driver

I'm using the pen display on the Mac and this is how the driver looks like.

This is where you can change the pressure sensitivity. The slider will adjust the pressure curve.

If you're a left handed user, this is where you rotate the screen. But since there aren't any physical shortcut buttons on the side of the pen display, it doesn't really matter whether you're left or right handed.

You can also calibrate the screen to remove parallax with the driver.

Drawing performance

I'm using this only on the Mac. If you are using Windows, read my friend's review.

In short, drawing performance is excellent but some apps don't work well.

Photoshop CC (Mac) works fine, The strokes are smooth, tapers well and has no wobble while drawing slowly. Pen is very sensitive and lines come out predictably. Photoshop CS5 produces only dots. I wasn't able to draw lines with CS5.

Clip Studio Paint (Mac) works fine.

Illustrator CC (Mac) works fine.

Medibang Paint Pro (Mac) works fine.

Mischief (Mac) works fine.

Tayasui Sketches Pro (Mac) works fine.

Krita (Mac) does not support pressure sensitivity but the Windows version has no problem. I read Krita's pen display support documentation and found that GT-191 is not supported.

Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer both work fine too.

Conclusion

The Huion Kamvas GT-191 works well with many of the apps that I have except for Krita and Photoshop CS5.

The overall drawing experience is good. The strokes are really smooth.The GT-191 has none of the jitter, wobble, stroke tapering issues that I've seen in some of the pen displays I've tested. The drawing performance gets two thumbs up from me.

There really isn't many downsides to talk about. I don't like the glossy reflective screen but at least the colours are good. What could have made this pen display even better is the addition of some physical shortcut buttons on the side.

And lastly, the price point. The retail price is US $500. This is significantly cheaper compared to Cintiq Pro 13 (US $999) and Cintiq Pro 16. For those who find drawing on screens more intuitive, thanks to competition, we can now have pretty decent alternatives as well, ones that don't break the budget and are affordable to more people.

So that's it. If you're looking for a functional pen display that works well, consider the Huion Kamvas GT-191.

Here's a summary of the pros and cons:
Pros
+ Good build quality
+ 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity
+ Two pens included
+ 1920 x 1080 resolution is decent for a screen this size
+ Good colour accuracy, 99% sRGB support
+ Good viewing angles
+ 8 replacement nibs included
+ Drawing performance is excellent
+ Works well with most apps
+ Display does not feel warm after long period of use

Cons
- Matte screen protector is very difficult to apply
- Matte screen protector is quite grainy and affects sharpness of the screen
- Gloss screen is very reflective
- Display is not very bright but very usable
- No physical shortcut buttons

Availability

Huion KAMVAS GT-191 is available at:

Gearbest | Huion web store | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.es | Amazon.it | Amazon.co.jp | Gearbest