Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial Review:- The elegant power of dials combined with wireless & low IAF

Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial Review In Few Words (Mini Review)

I received Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial from Huion to review & give my opinion on. At a first glance, I liked its elegant thin design. The drawing surface has a nice drag to it, and you get additional friction if you used the felt nibs that come with it, and the medium-sized drawing area allows it to be used on almost any system without any issues.

The battery-free PW517 pen didn’t feel too thick or too thin. It was similar to the PW500 pen I use regularly, so I can talk more confidently about how it feels to use it for a long time. It has no eraser on the back, but you get the same standard two buttons on the side. You also get 10 spare nibs in addition to the one that comes in the pen itself. 5 of them are standard nibs, while 5 more are felt nibs.

Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial doesn’t lack it when it comes to hot keys. With 6 hot keys on the side, along with 2 dials on both the top & the bottom. The dials can be programmed to change the brush size or any continuous function of your choice. The driver also gives you the option to change the system volume or switch to the next track if you like. Each dial can be programmed with 3 separate functions, with the ability to toggle between them using the button at the middle.

You can connect Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial to your computer wirelessly using Bluetooth 5.0, mainly on Windows 10 & Android. I tested that on Windows 10, and while it worked, hot keys didn’t work in wireless mode at first, but they worked after a firmware update. I tried the wireless connectivity on Linux Mint, and it didn’t work at all, but I was able to it in wired mode.

Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial is a bit more expensive than many graphics tablets, but it gives you a good amount of features for the money.

You can buy Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial from the following affiliate links:-
Huion Official Store

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Pros Of Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial

Has a low IAF, which greatly adds to the drawing experience.
Wireless connectivity.
The design is thin & elegant.
The two dials are useful, and can be used in many different ways.

Cons Of Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial

It would be nice if wireless connectivity was supported on Linux (Huion told me that they will add that in the future).

Technical Specifications

Model number:- Q630M
Has 6 programmable hot keys, as well as 2 programmable dials
Color:- Black
Supports wireless connectivity via Bluetooth 5.0
Drawing surface with a good amount of friction
Can be used for both left-handed & right-handed users.
Tablet dimensions:- 356.6 x 207 x 8mm
Active drawing Area:- 266.7 x 166.7 mm (10.5 x 6.56 inch)
Cable Interface:- USB-C
Comes with the battery-free pen PW517
Pen Resolution:- 5080 LPI
Pressure Sensitivity:- 8192 Levels
Tilt Sensitivity:- ±60°
Report Rate:- >300PPS
Accuracy:- ±0.3mm
Wireless Distance:- 5-10m (Depending on the actual environment)
Battery Life:- About 18 hours
Battery Capacity:- 1300mAh
Goes to sleep after 15 minutes of idle time
OS Support:- Windows 7 or later (Wired), Windows 10 or later 64bit (Wired & Bluetooth), macOS 10.12 or later (Wired & Bluetooth), ChromeOS 88 or later (Wired & Bluetooth), Android 6.0 or later (Bluetooth), HarmonyOS 2.0 or later (Bluetooth), Linux (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) (Wired)

Unboxing & Setting Up The Driver

I unboxed Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial and found that it comes with the following:-

- Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial itself.
- The PW517 pen.
- USB-C cable
- Pen holder with 10 spare nibs & nibs removing tool inside.
- Getting started booklet

Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial has a quite elegant & thin design. To a good degree, it looks like a pen display, won’t be surprised if it was mistaken as one by some people. Anyway, after unboxing, I proceeded to set it up. I did the usual, which is removing any graphics tablet driver I have on my computer (there’s always one installed, nihaha~), then I installed the driver. Once that was quickly done, I disabled Windows Ink from the driver settings, since that causes issues with Photoshop for me. For other drawing software, like Paint Tools Sai, you may want to keep it checked, or else pressure may not work for you.

Now I am ready to try out drawing with Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial.

Drawing Experience

For a starter, I like the drawing surface of Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial. It’s smooth with a decent amount of friction, not the type that I like to call smooth friction, since the drag is more noticeable, but it’s still quite decent to draw on. When I tried the felt nibs it comes with, the friction was even more noticeable.

Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial has an active drawing Area of 266.7 x 166.7 mm (Or 10.5 x 6.56 inch). Making it a medium tablet. It’s more suitable to draw on larger screens with higher resolutions. For that reason, I can recommend it to anyone looking for a first tablet, as that’s the size I recommend in such cases. If you used a medium tablet in the past, you already know what to expect.

I tested the IAF of Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial (Initial activation force, or the amount you need to press for strokes to appear), which is one of the most important criteria to judge a graphics tablets, and I found it low enough. To be specific, in my standard test where I drag the pen across the tablet surface to see if strokes appear based on the pen weight alone, strokes barely appeared. You still need to apply a tiny little amount of pressure to make strokes appear, but that amount is so minimal. That places it below some of the other tablets I tested, but it doesn’t make it a bad tablet. I personally don’t mind as long as IAF as long as it’s low enough. I guess that majority of artists think that way too.

When it comes to the other stuff, Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial supports 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity. That’s the standard in the market. It supports 60 tilt levels, where the brush shape changes based on how you tilt the pen (assuming the brush & drawing program support it), making it on par with the other tablets in the market.

If you’re curious how tilt sensitivity works, here’s a quick sample on how the brush changed shape based on it:-

Because of all the points above, I found that drawing with Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial is quite a pleasant experience. Programming the hot key was helpful with the stuff that doesn’t require a lot of shortcuts, like drawing line art (I will talk about the hot keys later in this review).

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The Hot Keys & The Two Dials

Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial has 6 hot keys on the side. The keys can be programmed with any shortcut you use frequently. The keys are soft & doesn’t make clicky sound when you press them, which I consider a bonus.

Besides the hot keys, there are 2 dials you could rotate to resize the brush, scroll, or zoom in or out, or anything else you may think of, like adjusting the brush opacity or softness, or to rotate the drawing canvas if you need to do that often. You don’t even need to use them for things related to drawing. You can use them to adjust the sound volume or switch to the next the song to listen to instead, just like multimedia keys. Each dial can be programmed with 3 functions. You toggle between these functions by pressing the button at the middle of the dial. You can adjust the dial sensitivity from 5 sensitivity levels. Each dial makes a pleasant clicking sound when you rotate it.

Besides assigning shortcuts to the dials, you can simply make Windows control the dial functionality. If you picked that option, you will have to program the dial from Windows settings (not Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial’s driver). After that, you can access the radial menu by holding down the dial button. This will open the radial menu & allow you to pick the current function for the dial.

Overall, the placement of the keys in a column makes it a bit harder to use all of them unless you want to move your hand around (which is entirely possible). This is an issue with the majority (if not all) of graphics tablets with hot keys, but I always welcome having these keys. I always use them when I draw in a way that don’t require many keyboard shortcuts, like doodling & creating line art.

The PW517 Pen

Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial comes with the PW517 pen, which looks similar to the PW500 pen I use regularly with my other Huion devices. It has two buttons you can program on the side, but no eraser on the back. Unlike the PW500 pen, the PW517 pen battery-free, with no need to be charge at all. It’s neither a thin nor a thick pen. I never had any issue or felt any discomfort holding it in my hand.

The PW517 pen comes with a pen holder to place it on while you’re not using it. The holder can be opened to reveals 10 spare nibs for when the nib it comes with wears down, along with the pen removal tools. 5 of the spare nibs are standard, while the other 5 are felt nibs. I talked about how each nib type felt when I talked about drawing experience earlier in this review.

Wireless Connectivity (Via Bluetooth)

Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial supports wireless connectivity using Bluetooth 5.0 if you have the operating system that supports that. To pair it with your computer, simply press the power button on the left side with the USB cable disconnected (the same side with the hot keys), and a blue light will start blinking indicating that it’s on pairing mode. Then pair it just like you do with any Bluetooth device. The steps for that is different depending on the operating system you are using. Once the tablet is paired, the blue light will stop blinking, and you will be able to use Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial wirelessly. There’s a small button you could also push for 3 second to start the pairing process, but I never had to use it the first time I paired it on Windows 10.

One issue that I faced when I connected Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial via Bluetooth is that the hot keys didn’t work at all until I plugged the USB cable, the two dials worked completely fine in both cases. Huion helped me solve this issue by helping me update the firmware of the tablet.

When connected wirelessly, Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial enters sleep mode after 15 minutes of idle time, and the led will be blinking while at that. You can’t customize that amount from the settings as far as I can tell.

While I managed to get wireless connectivity to work on my Windows 10 test machine. Not all the operating systems support that. According to Huion’s website, and based on my conversations with Huion, only the following systems support it:-

- Windows 10 or later 64-bit
- Android 6.0 or higher
- Mac OS 10.12 or later
- Chrome OS 88 or later
- Harmony OS 2.0 or later

Windows 7, 8.1 & Chrome OS are explicitly stated to only work in wire mode. Nothing specific was mentioned for Linux, but I tested wireless on Linux Mint & it didn’t work (it worked in wired mode only). It would be nice to see this tablet support wireless on all the major platforms in the future with an update or something. Huion told me that they plan on adding Linux support in the future, which is nice. I think wireless connectivity is a nice selling point for a graphics tablet. In general, I also think universal support is one advantage of graphics tablets with wireless dongle have over those with Bluetooth, at least for the ones I tried.

Testing Linux Support

Aside from the commonly supported operating systems, Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial has an official driver for Linux. Linux has been getting a really good support for graphics tablets for a while now, not only there are a healthy amount of open-source drivers for it, but also getting official drivers is becoming a norm. I tried it myself on a Linux Mint installation I have on one of my computers, and it worked well. I used the Tar Ball file (the one with the .tar.xz extension), and I ran the install.sh from the terminal after extracting it. After restarting the laptop, I tested it on Krita & pressure sensitivity worked well.. Wireless connectivity didn’t work though. You can kinda pair Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial via Bluetooth, but you simply get no response from it unless you plugged it with the USB cable.

A Final Word On Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial

I can confidently add Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial to the list of graphics tablets that I like & recommend to others. If you don’t mind any of the issues I mentioned about it, then it can be a good graphics tablet for you, and one of many I would recommend to others to try.

I hope you liked my Huion Inspiroy 2 Dial review, and see you again in another review.