Huion Kamvas 22 Plus Pen Display (Hardware)
Official GBAtemp Review
Product Information:
- Official Store: https://www.huion.com/pen_display/kamvas/kamvas-22-plus.html
Review Approach:
A few months back we looked at Huion's Kamvas Pro 13 (2.5k) pen display. Released last year, this was a slim and portable pen display packed with features at a great price, and something I still recommend for people looking for a portable monitor that can do more. The Kamvas 22 Plus we're looking at today is a different beast however. Released all the way back in 2020, we have something far less portable that sits closer to a more traditional monitor. Is bigger better, and what does this 2020 display do to justify its £519 price point?
You really have everything you'd need to get going out of the box. Outside of the 22 inch pen display itself, you get a battery-free pen, a doughnut-shaped pen holder complete with spare nibs, a half-glove, stand, and assortment of cables. If you've read our Kamvas Pro 13 review, much of this is going to sound familiar. Huion are fairly consistent in the accessories that come with their tablets and displays, but there are some notable differences, with the biggest being the included stand.
While the Pro 13's stand was adequate for drawing, I criticised it for its limited angles for a more general use case. The adjustable stand here has no such problems; in short, this stand is marvellous. Mounting to the back of the display instead of having the display rest on it, it's incredibly secure and provides a huge and surprisingly granular range of positions. With the display being larger, this is a really significant thing for me. You'll want to keep it on your desk, and you'll have no issues going from drawing to just watching a video or two on YouTube.
What really completes this package is that the stand attaches using a standard VESA mount, so if it doesn't meet all of your needs you're entirely free to swap it out for something else. I actually put the display onto a monitor arm, resulting in a great and out of the way auxiliary display that I can just pull towards me when I want to draw.
The display itself doesn't feel extraordinarily premium, but it's not to say it isn't well-built. You have a plastic body that's around 20mm thick, weighing around 4kg in combination with the stand. Coming from more tablet-like devices I was at first a little taken aback, but really this is more like thin-ish monitor. The screen of the Kamvas 22 Plus features anti-glare etched glass on top of a 140% sRGB QLED panel with a 1200:1 contrast ratio. In short it looks really good, though it isn't quite as bright as I'd like with a listed maximum brightness of 220 nits (note I'm unable to measure this myself). I wouldn't say it's prohibitively dim, and looking at other brands this level of brightness is somewhat typical, but it is noticeable when next to what my Zephyrus Duo is outputting.
Thanks to the size of the display you have a fairly standard array of menu buttons to tweak things as you'd like. This time we're working with a fairly typical 16:9 1080p display, but you are again able to tweak the aspect ratio to your liking, stretching the image appropriately. Strangely, outside of the usual 16:9 and 4:3 options, you can also opt for a 5:4 ratio. I don't think I've ever seen a 5:4 aspect ratio monitor, but Google seems to suggest they were once popular.
Despite this being an older panel and an older pen than the Pro 13, the drawing experience is largely the same. You lose some pixel density with it being both lower resolution and larger, resulting in a less crisp image. As somebody who frequently switches between 4K, 1440p, and 1080p monitors, I do believe 1080p is fine for this size, and it hasn't had any real impact while drawing. It's nice to have a higher resolution, but I don't think it's a necessity.
In terms of features, we once again have 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity alongside a very similar pen that supports up to 60 degrees of tilting. It feels really responsive, and at a 14ms response time, it actually is more responsive than the Pro 13. It's still not going to be the best of the best for the highest echelons of gaming, but for most people it'll do just fine. The pen on screen feel is still great, and having it floating above me on a monitor arm has been fantastic for doing quick sketches or visually explaining something during a meeting. Pen displays like this excel for artistic professionals, but I do think they have merit for more general users at the right price.
Much in the same fashion as the Pro 13, we again see Switch docking capabilities from the 22 Plus. I don't know why this is a feature they've been including but it's definitely one that makes more sense here than it did on the Pro 13. The 16:9 display fits the Switch's image perfectly, and the display does look great. It is held back slightly by the lack of speakers in this department, but it doesn't really feel right to hold that against the device when it clearly isn't its primary use. One thing I did notice is that while the Switch is docked, it isn't actually getting enough power from the display to charge itself, and will discharge slowly during use. This is a bit of a shame, especially when, unlike the Pro 13, this display requires external power to use regardless of the device it's plugged into. It seems a bit of a missed opportunity not to just have some decent charging pass-through here to limit cable clutter. It's by no means the end of the world, but it's something that would be nice to see improved down the line as Huion revisit and renew their pen displays.
The question remains. Is the Kamvas 22 Plus worth buying? At £519 (currently £467 at the time of writing), Huion have put together a fairly competitive package that can not only cater to the creative professionals among us, but those that are just in the market for a monitor that does a bit more. Huion do also offer the Kamvas 22 at the lower price of £419 (again £335 at the time of writing) with an anti-glare matte film in place of the etched glass, a lower 1000:1 contrast ratio, and 120% sRGB colour gamut. I could see this being a better option for those wanting to try out a larger pen display without wanting to put down quite as much money, but having not tried the anti-glare matte film before, I can't comment on how it feels to use. All in all though, I think the 22 Plus is a great display, and one to consider if you've got the budget and want more out of your screen.
Verdict
- Again great pen-on-screen feel
- Pen doesn't require batteries/charging
- Fantastic included stand
- Works well out of the box
- VESA-mountable
- Dimmer display is noticeable when used alongside other screens
- No power pass-through option
