Cheap Android tablets are found aplenty, with options available in every budget segment and for various kinds of users. The Huion Kamvas Slate 11 is an affordable Android 14 tablet that’s priced at just $300. That’s a very competitive price segment, but Huion stands out as a noteworthy contender on many grounds.
The Huion Kamvas Slate 11 isn’t your everyday Android tablet. Unlike typical Android tablets that come with a stylus, Huion markets it to a very niche type of user. This is an eye-friendly drawing tablet first and foremost, and every aspect of the tablet is geared toward that.
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The Kamvas Slate 11 sports an 11-inch IPS LCD display with a 90Hz refresh rate and 1920 x 1200 Full HD resolution. The brightness levels peak at 350 nits, which isn’t the brightest under the sun, but also contributes to a very eye-friendly viewing experience. Its papery feel makes it ideal for reading.
Since this is a drawing tablet from Huion, a brand that specializes in this area, the screen displays 16.7 million colors and covers 99% of the sRGB color gamut, which is ideal for digital art and illustrations.
The paper-like screen pits the Slate 11 against popular E Ink tablets, since that niche primarily focuses on eye comfort. As truly paper-like as E Ink tabs are, they fail to compete with full-fledged Android tablets like the Kamvas Slate 11 in one key area: video playback. The snappy 90Hz display easily bests even the most premium e-paper screens.
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Aside from the tablet itself, Huion offers quite a few extras in the box. This includes the capacitive stylus from the brand called the H-Pencil, which supports 4,096 pressure sensitivity levels, tilt recognition, and tilt alignment. It has a customizable shortcut button and charges via USB-C. Extra nibs for the stylus are included, along with a USB-C charging cable, a card ejection tool, a leather folio case with a pen slot, and an artist glove.
The leather folio case imitates the tri-fold cases seen on Samsung Galaxy tablets. It only folds into a stand in landscape orientation. You can do this by folding the folio both inwards and outwards. The only difference is that folding it outwards places the camera at the bottom, which isn’t ideal for online meetings or video calls.
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Meanwhile, the glove is necessary because the Kamvas Slate 11 lacks palm rejection. Trying to draw or write on the tablet without the glove on is a nuisance. I’m used to writing on Onyx Boox tablets that have fantastic palm rejection and offer granular control over palm detection across various apps.
It was very hard to unlearn the carefree habit of putting my bare palm on the tablet while writing or sketching. And because it has such high pressure sensitivity, even the slightest touch registers.
On top of that, the H-Pencil’s shortcut button/side key keeps getting pressed accidentally while writing, so inscribing on the Huion tablet took some getting used to. I ended up disabling the button eventually.
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Still, writing and drawing feel fantastic on the paper-like screen. And though there’s no native OCR, you can write into fields using the H-Pencil instead of typing. The pen’s sensitivity can be adjusted via the HiPaint app. The side key can only be customized in HiPaint and ibisPaint.
You get minimal bloatware and a clean Android 14 build. Huion’s own HiNote and HiPaint apps come pre-installed, along with some of the best drawing apps like Ibis Paint X and Clip Studio Paint. Huion throws in free three-month memberships for both apps.
I am partial to Ibis Paint X because it has a user-friendly UI and a wide arsenal of tools. However, I was pleased to find that HiPaint is quite similar to Ibis Paint X in terms of usage, flow, and layout.
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The battery life on the Huion Kamvas Slate 11 is phenomenal, thanks to its generous 8,000mAh battery. However, I really wish the 10W charging speed were at least three times as fast, as it’s not ideal for batteries of this size.
The tablet also has quad speakers, 128GB internal storage, a memory card slot (up to 1TB), dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, an 8MP front camera, and a 13MP rear camera. The camera quality is poor, but it suffices for basic uses like video calls and document scans. It has no IP rating and no guarantee of software updates, which is a bummer.
Huion paired the sporty MediaTek Helio G99 processor with 8GB of RAM, resulting in fairly snappy performance. I was taken aback by its smooth processing prowess, as even with multiple apps open simultaneously in the split screen mode, the tablet did not stutter. Many budget gaming phones rely on the Helio G99, which helps explain the Kamvas Slate 11’s admirable performance.
Overall, the Huion Kamvas Slate 11 has a solid, dependable build reminiscent of the Amazon Fire Max 11. It performs well and comes with a pro-grade stylus and display, and functions like a portable workstation when paired with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Budding artists or art students will benefit from it the most, considering it’s a cheap entryway to the drawing tablet world and comes with two free subscriptions.
There are plenty of budget tablets out there with better update guarantees and charging specs, but few cater to artists at this level. Huion regularly discounts the tablet to below $300, so if you are eyeing this spunky drawing tablet, I’d suggest grabbing it for as less as possible.
An e-reader that’s not an e-reader
Curious about E Ink tablets but can’t pull the trigger? The Huion Kamvas Slate 11 doesn’t have ghosting issues or video playback limitations like E Ink tablets, but its eye comfort is almost on par with them. If you want an affordable Android tablet for studying and some entertainment, it’s an excellent tablet to consider.
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