Wacom Cintiq Review
by Sergio Ordonez at 7:26 am on Resources
After long time of hesitation, I finally decided to buy a Wacom Cintiq!!!
For those who don’t know much about it, the Wacom Cintiq is a monitor on which you can paint directly on the screen, sensitive to 1024 pressure levels, just like Intuos tablets. It’s the dream of an illustrator, the material dreams are made of!!!
Have a look to the Wacom Cintiq in action, isn’t it wonderful?
(If you’re a beginner and you don’t really know what a pen tablet is, what it is for, or if you will find it profitable, I advise you to read the “Manual to choose your first pen tablet”)
The applicants: Wacom Cintiq 21UX and 12WX
The 20WSX version doesn’t seem to be available in Europe.
First, we have the Wacom Cintiq 21UX, a 21 inches monitor and 1024 pressure levels, with reclining stand and rotative axis. Its price in European shops is about 2500€ (about 4000US$) while in the shops of the United States it’s 2000US$.
The second option is the Wacom Cintiq 12wx, a pen tablet with integrated screen and 12 inches display, with 1024 pressure levels. Its price is 1153€ (about 2000US$) for Europeans, and 1000 US$ for the United States.
Now you may be wondering: Why to buy it in Europe, when you can do it at half its price in the United States? Simple: You’d lose the whole manufacturer warranty, besides of the cost of the shipping. If you’re a freelance and have an Intracomunitary NIF (a mere formalism), you can get it VAT free in Pixmania-Pro, and then you’d have it for 2068€. Moreover, you can reduce the income tax on 20%, so the total price would be around 1650€ for the 21UX and 790€ for the 12WX.
My choice: Cintiq 21UX
Cool picture, but forget about using it in that position, it weighs 10 kg. (22,05 pounds)
- The Cintiq 21WX is very comfortable when it comes to draw, it’s much easier to coordinate eye and hand. Besides it’s huge, which eases the stroke.
- The 12WX is a choice between the 21UX and traditional tablets, not very comfortable for drawing because of its small size, and quite more expensive than Intuos ones. It’s true that it’s more portable, but for that I already have my old Intuos 3, for just a bit more than 200€.
Assembling
My working area. Did you expect thousands of toys and comics? I’m a businessman 
In less than 20 minutes I already had my Cintiq assembled and ready, it’s super-easy to install. I have it connected to my old monitor, so my working space is doubled. It’s like having a double-wide Windows desktop.
It’s a really good detail that the outlets are both in European and American version. Furthermore, it has adaptors for DVI-I, DVI-D and VGA connections.
Ergonomics
It was one of my main worries when I was going to buy it… Where will I place this doohickey? There must be a place on your desk for the mouse (in my case my Wacom Intuos 3) and the keyboard, in addition to my old monitor (a 24 inches CRT).
Up: Working position, down: Navigation position.
So I have two positions: working, with the tablet in front of me and mouse and keyboard on both sides, and navigation, with the keyboard in front of me and the mouse on one side.
Surprisingly everything matches without any problem: Thanks to the Express Keys (programmable lateral keys), the need of using the keyboard is lesser, which makes the work more comfortable.
The Wacom Cintiq is assembled on a reclining and rotative stand, which it’s great when it comes to draw. You can rotate the monitor, just like it was a piece of paper, and to incline it, like it was a drawing table.
The Cintiq display surface is excellent, it has a very natural touch when it comes to draw, which is something to be grateful for.
Efficiency
Generally, the Wacom Cintiq allows more precise works than pen tablets; the eye-hand coordination and the fact that you can rotate the screen let your hand make more natural movements. The number of times I use CTRL+Z has been decreased in 30-50%.
For jobs like painting it’s not very different from mi Wacom Intuos, though the efficiency is better. For drawing jobs, the efficiency is much higher. The more precise the job is, more different I find it from traditional pen tablets.
Screen
It doesn’t match the consistency of the old CRT monitors, but to my surprise the image quality is quite good. I calibrated it in just a few minutes, the colours are quite good and it offers a generous angle of sight. It has a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels, which is more than enough.
To cut a long story short, it’s a decent TFT active matrix LCD, and remember that you can use it together with your CRT monitor, this way any colour problem is solved.
Disadvantages
- The screen you lean on releases heat, if you live in a warm place, you already have your sauna at home for this summer.
- Due to the heat and the friction, sensitive hands may suffer a bit. Then you’ll have to buy a SmudgeGuard.
- Because of its big size, you have to be athletic to reach the corners without getting tired, specially if you’re used to small tablets.
- When you work with the stand in horizontal position, the Light from the ceiling reflects on the screen, even though the Cintiq mat surface is quite good. So, you have to choose between working in the dark or putting the lights on the floor.
- On its horizontal position the Cintiq is about 10 cm (3,94 inches) above the desk, so you may need a higher seat.
- While navigating through the pallets on the left in Photoshop, I usually touch the Touch Strip (zoom) by accident, which is quite bothering, although left-handed people will find it good. This problem can be solved by deactivating the Express Keys.
- There’s a small distance between the screen and the monitor surface, at first it can be bothering but it’s not a big problem. Besides, in the software there’s an application to calibrate that difference.
- It’s a bit heavy (10,2kg), so you can’t use it out of your desk (in opposition to 12WX model).
CONCLUSION
It’s still too soon to make a conclusion, but I have to say I’m very happy with my Cintiq. If you can afford it, the Wacom Cintiq is a wonderful device, it’s beautiful, efficient, well designed, and the most important thing: It will increase your productivity and comfort when it comes to work. You will probably need some time of accommodation, specially if you have been working with traditional tablets for a long lime, like me.
Thanks a lot to Anita for translating this article from spanish to english, please give her some love for spending some of her time with no other intention than help you 
