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Interactive Displays
Review: Wacom Cintiq 12WX
The high-end interactive display goes mobile for around $1,000
12/12/2007
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.
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