XPPen 16K pressure vs Huion 8K vs Apple Pencil

XPPen has recently released the XPPen Artist Pro 14 (gen 2) (review) and the XPPen Deco Pro (gen 2) that feature 16,384 (16K) levels of pressure sensitivity with the new X3 Pro pen.

Shown above are the line tests comparison between the X3 Pro pen, the Huion PW550S with 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity and the Apple Pencil with unknown levels of pressure sensitivity. The app used is Medibang Paint.

A 100px brush without smoothening was used for the line tests. All three pens have low initial activation force. The pens also have slight wobble with slow diagonal lines but these is not really noticeable during drawing.

The Huion pen is able to taper with shaper end.

All three pens are able to draw thin lines after drawing thick lines. This means the pens can detect changes in pressure accurately when drawing with minimal pressures. Some pens are not able to draw lines as thin after drawing thick lines.

Both XPPen and Huion pens offer better drawing experience because they have felt nib options for drawing on matte textured display surfaces. You'll need to apply a matte screen protector on the iPad to achieve the same tactile drawing experience.

Apple Pencil has a firm pen tip with no movement. XPPen and Huion have pen tips with minimal movement and overall still feels firm. Cursor tracking for all three pens is accurate.

Shown below are line tests created with Clip Studio Paint.

Drawing performance of the X3 Pro pen is excellent.

Drawing performance of the Huion PW550S with PenTech 3 is excellent.

Drawing performance of the Apple Pencil is really good. There's some variance to the line width for the cursive line test at the bottom left.

It's actually difficult to see any difference between the three pens with these drawings.

XPPen (black) and Huion (red) have better writing performance than Apple Pencil 2 (brown). XPPen looks alright. Huion has more noticeable tapered strokes. Apple Pencil has thicker start and end strokes.

XPPen and Huion lines are smoother. The Apple Pencil line has variance to the width/thickness, so there is some inconsistency. Or maybe it's because I've dropped my Apple Pencil too many times.

Conclusion

It is difficult to see the difference from the drawings from 16K, 8K and Apple Pencil's unknown level of pressure sensitivity. Looking closing at the lines, you can definitely see the XPPen and Huion have more consistent line quality.

The main difference comes down to the feel, e.g. how the pen feels in pen from the physical design of the body to how the pen tip feels on the drawing surface, and for that the XPPen and Huion pens feel better.