The Cintiq 20WSX arrived at my doorstep from www.just4electronics.com  last week and I have had an enjoyable weekend giving Wacom’s latest screen tablet a run for its money. The 20WSX is the widescreen middle child of the Cintiq family, not as big and 4:3 as its big brother 21UX and yet much more applicable than its little 12WX kid brother. It was just launched in December 2007 along with the 12WX, so it is a brand new product. With its 1680 x 1080 resolution, 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity and fully 180 degree rotational surface, we are talking the magic stuff of illustrator dreams here.
The Box, Its Contents, Price & How to Steal Get One
The package the Cintiq 20WSX comes in is fairly large and weights about 15 kg, so if you are importing it from the States like I did then this might be useful info. Basically these things go for $2000 in the States, and is not available in Europe. The only similar choice us European have is the 21 inch 4:3 format Cintiq 21UX which will set you back the remarkable amount of $5000 or 3300 Euros. It’s no wonder that this hardware has only been the privilege of lucky high-end professionals. However, thanks to a severely failing American economy and their moronic banks, we can make a great purchase! Cheers, yuppies…
The Cintiq box contains the standard Grip Pen that is also used on the Intous line, five replacement nibs to change the feel of the pen, a uniquely unified DVI,VGA, USB & power cable (finally a company that understands cable clutter!), power adapter, user manual, driver cd and a dvd with useless copies of shareware full copies of Photoshop Elements 5/4, Corel Painter Essentials, Nik Color Efex Pro and a nice little set of 81 brushes for Photoshop. The voltage of the power adapter is compatible with 110-240 VAC, so all I had to do was plug a Norwegian cable in and it was up and running.

My first impression opening the box was the pleasant surprise of realizing what the real world size of the screen actually is. This thing is big! But not in a clunky way. It certainly won’t win any design awards with its dull grey exterior, but until Apple release a touch screen, this will do more than just fine. Setting it up went really smoothly, all you do is place its sturdy stand on your desk and slide the screen down into it. There is no need for any other attachment. Plugging it in went fine as well. There is a rather thick and chunky cable going out its back, but not having three or four cables flowing out of the device makes up for this in my book. Installing the Cintiq in Mac OS X was easy, it recognized it right away after the latest driver was in place and I was up and running. Calibration took a couple of tries, and will probably be a testing process for most to get the feel right.

The technical stuff was the easy part though. Re-arranging my workspace was a whole other matter. I have a typical designer setup with a 24? Dell screen as my main display, a normal Apple Keyboard and a mouse. Suddenly I didn’t know where to put any of these things. My normal setup was to have my Wacom Intous in front of my keyboard and my screen in front of that. This was the first setup I tried for the Cintiq and it really didn’t work. Either I couldn’t see the 24? or then the keyboard was touching my stomach and making me type like a cripple. After a few hours my neck hurt like hell. Eventually I changed the setup so my keyboard, mouse and 24? was to the left side of the desk and the Cintiq was on the right. This seems to be a very functional setup, and lets me do normal computer stuff to the left, and drawing to the right. From the right I can also see the screen well and use it for reference images or inspirational stuff like YouTube videos of pandas sneezing at their younglings.

First impressions
Once the Cintiq was all set up, I opened Illustrator to try it out properly. The best way to describe this experience is probably ecstatic magic / omfgimridingaunicorn. It is truly a remarkable piece of hardware for artists. It will change the way you work as well as speed it up. All of the troubles and grievances I had with the Intous’ strange detachment from the drawing surface were gone and this was actually just like drawing on a digital A3 sketchbook. The screen tilts up and down with surprising smoothness and the 180 degree rotation allows you to get strokes from angles you normally use on paper (and could only dream of on a regular Intous). Pressure sensitivity functions like a normal Intous, and is easily adjusted to your preference via the Wacom software. There was a bit of sound when drawing at first, but this is no longer noticeable as the nib has been worn down. Zooming in and out is easy thanks to the two touch strips intuitively placed underneath both sides of the Cintiq. The ExpressKeys were quick to setup and very useful when you have to be less reliable on your keyboard, unlike an Intous where it is easier to dual-wield. Drawing in Illustrator and Photoshop was treat in all ways, however modeling in Maya was a bit of a change of modus. This mostly has to do with the large screen-estate and my usual reliability on an ultra-fast mouse. Though after a few hours of testing and adjusting, I was modeling with reasonable ease.

All in all, the first impression from the Cintiq 20WSX was entirely positive.

Screen and Quality
To my surprise, the screen contrast was not as vivid as that of a proper high contrast LCD screen. Setting the backlighting to a higher value takes care of most of this issue, and your viewing angle affects the contrast a little too. But really, at this price point you would expect the contrast to be higher. When it comes down to it, sure, it’s not really a big issue. The colors are of excellent saturation and the ICC profile it comes with seems perfectly calibrated as images on the Cintiq and my 24? Dell are identical. The screen-estate of 1680×1050 is just perfect too, it’s not too high a resolution to make drawing / gui usage difficult and not too small to make the drawing are feel small.

Conclusion
The Cintiq is a revolution for artists. It has been around for ages, but has been completely unavailable for most people. While its $2000 price tag still makes it a very expensive piece of equipment, it is at least within reach. Most artists spend $1000 on their LCD screens and another $600 on a Wacom, so the step up to a Cintiq really is not that far off. In the end, I think most artists will benefit greatly with a Cintiq in their workflow, much more than a normal Intous. Personally I can already see that I have cut my drawing time in half, and that is very impressive to me. I can’t wait to draw more, and I highly recommend it to anyone serious about illustration, 3d modelling (ZBrush) and photo retouching.

Tips & Experiences
After a few hours of drawing, I realized that half of the screen had become very smudged and wet with a thin layer of sweat. This is apparently a common issue with all drawing tablets, and one that is easily fixed. You may have seen people on YouTube using this if you’ve searched for Cintiq videos. All you need is a glove for your drawing hand. You would imagine Wacom would bother to include this, but seeing as it’s not strictly necessary, they cut the 20 cent cost. While you can get a pre-made glove, it is considerably cheaper to go to a local photo shop / drug store, buy some cotton gloves and chop off all of the fingers except the pinky.

Whether you’re participating in digital media instruction personally or merely supporting visual arts programs on your campuses, you no doubt have Wacom tablets up near the top of the equipment list. They’re integral in the production of digital art, and they’re ubiquitous in all realms of professional creative work–from animation studios to graphic arts shops to post-production houses. Economic realities may have limited your choices in the past, but that changed this month when Wacom launched its new entry-level Cintiq, the Cintiq 12WX, bringing a mid-range price tag to high-end graphics input.

If you’re involved in digital art at all, you’re at least aware of Wacom’s more popular lines of interactive, pressure-sensitive tablets. On the high end, there’s the Intuos line; at the entry level, there’s the Bamboo line (formerly known as Graphire). Both lines make excellent additions to the artist’s tool chest. Intuos tablets are more sensitive and have more functionality than the Bamboo tablets, and they’re geared more toward professionals. But any kind of Wacom pen tablet is better than none at all. I personally have several models from each line, used for various purposes–some for the kids, a couple large ones for the workstations, a couple medium-sized ones for working in smaller spaces. I even bought a first-generation Cintiq way back when, although I don’t use it anymore because it doesn’t have the functionality of the newer, more advanced tablets out there, even though it is great in other ways.

With the new Cintiq lineup, Wacom has brought together the best of all of these without any compromises. The latest Cintiq generation has all of the advantages of Intuos tablets–including support for pen tilt and other functions–along with the killer feature that makes the Cintiq so sought after (and, until now, expensive): The tablet is, itself, an LCD display.

In the past, this feature has come with limitations. In the distant past (a few years ago), it meant you didn’t get all the functionality of the regular graphics tablets (less sensitivity, no tilt support). In the more recent past, it meant simply a whopping price tag, along with a form factor that limited the device to a fixed location (unless you were a fan of hauling around a 23-pound monitor).

Now, with the introduction this month of the Cintiq 12WX, that’s changed. Not only is this the first Cintiq to come in below $1,000 (just barely, at a retail price of $999), but it also comes in a form factor that’s truly portable. It fits snuggly in a laptop case (measuring 16″ W x 10.5″ H x .67″ D). And, at a total weight of 4.4 lbs., it isn’t a burden to carry around or use on your lap.

As a display designed specifically for visual artists, its quality is far superior to that of any notebook display I’ve seen. It has true 24-bit color depth (as opposed to the fudged “millions of colors” on standard notebook displays). Colors, brightness, and contrast are even across the face of the screen. And the device calibrates up nicely using a colorimeter. (The factory settings on my review unit were a bit dark, but that was fixed easily enough.)

It has a wide viewing angle (±85 degrees horizontal and vertical, which is slightly less than the higher-end models in the Cintiq lineup). At factory settings, it does have a discernable sweet spot of (very roughly) 45 degrees on the vertical and maybe 70 degrees on the horizontal. Proper calibration with contrast boosted all the way up took care of this problem.

In terms of tablet functionality, the Cintiq 12WX has a resolution of 5,080 lines per inch, 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, and support for pen tilt (up to 60 degrees). The tablet also supports Wacom’s 6D Art Pen and Airbrush. So essentially it’s an Intuos with a screen. And that’s pretty much all I need to know.

The Cintiq uses a cord-free, battery-free grip pen that has a pressure-sensitive tip and eraser and two side switches with user-assignable functions (right click, click lock, display toggle, application-specific commands, etc.) The pen also includes a variety of interchangeable nibs: standard, spring-loaded, and pressed-felt nibs, the last two providing for greater tactile interaction. (I’m partial to the spring-loaded nib, but I’ve been known to swap it out for the pressed-felt nib at times.)

The bezel on the unit also sports 10 customizable keys, along with two touch strips (for scrolling, zooming, scrubbing, etc.). These are in two banks on either side of the display–five buttons and one touch strip per side.

The tablet also has an integrated pop-out stand so that it can either lie flat on your lap or be propped up for use on a desktop.

In terms of connectivity, the Cintiq 12WX includes everything you need for pretty much any situation. A single cable comes out of the unit, connecting up to an external hub (included). This hub has both a USB port and a DVI-I port. Included in the packages are all of the necessary cables, including the USB cable, a DVI cable, and a VGA cable. Cable length is generous at more than 6 feet, allowing for easy placement. (Note for MacBook users: a mini-DVI adapter is needed, as it would be to connect to any external display. The mini-DVI adapter is included with MacBook Pro notebooks, but it’s an optional accessory for standard MacBooks. These adapters run about $20 to $25 for the “mini-DVI to VGA” adapter or the “mini-DVI to DVI-D” adapter. I tested both, and they both worked fine.)

One final note on the hardware. I’ve been using graphics tablets in my work (and for the heck of it) since the late 1980s. In all that time, with more than a dozen tablets, not a single one has ever gone bad or stopped functioning properly in any way.

Thanks to the guy’s from www.just4electronics.com for getting the tablet to me in just two days…

 Thank you,

Wan Lim

While the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” is dubious advice for many practical situations (fending off invading barbarian hordes, etc.), the phrase “the pen is mightier than the mouse” is almost always true when you’re talking about digital painting and graphics work. Wacom Technologies has long been the market leader for pressure-sensitive graphics tablets, thanks to their innovative tablet design and excellent battery-free, cordless pen.

The 21UX follows the same design as Wacom’s previous 17″ Cintiq. You can easily adjust a solid metal stand that comes with the tablet to incline it anywhere from 10 degrees to 65 degrees. The tablet is roughly 5″ thick and measures 21.1″ x 16.5″ inches. It weighs 22 pounds. A sturdy round tab protrudes from the middle of the back of the tablet and slides easily in and out of a corresponding socket on the Cintiq stand.

The screen itself measures 17″ x 12.75″ with a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels (UXGA). A single cable at the back of the tablet splits into a power and video cable. Wacom provides all the adapters you need to connect the Cintiq 21UX to VGA, DVI-D, and DVI-I ports, meaning you should have no trouble connecting the Cintiq to just about any type of graphics card.

The Cintiq 21UX ships with a Grip Pen, a rubberized fat-barreled pen that provides 1,024 levels of pressure. The pen has a two-way rocker switch on the side and an “eraser” on the top. Like the nib, you can program the eraser to automatically switch to the tool of your choice.

Got mine from the guys at www.just4electronics.com and it arrived in no time…..

Thanks,

 Bill Miller