Wacom announces new 4K 24-inch and 32-inch Cintiq Pro models: Digital Photography Review

Wacom announces new 4K 24-inch and 32-inch Cintiq Pro models

Published Jul 12, 2017 | Brittany Hillen

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sirhawkeye64

I wish Wacom or someone would release an program that you can install on a Surface tablet, that can be connected to your computer so you can use the Surface as a pen tablet (maybe this exists), but that would be the best of both worlds (for me at least, as I have a basic Surface 3 and would like to be able to literally draw on the screen over the image I'm editing, rather than using my Intous Photo tablet (not a bad product, but drawing directly on an LCD would be better IMO).

3 days agopermalink

EDWARD ARTISTE

Wacoms are great. Ive been using them for 20 years non stop. The pens wear out too fast for my liking though.

At the last photo expo, i had one question - have they manged to make the textured coating over the active tablet surface NOT wear out after not so long? Im currently still on my Intuos 4 - and the most active area of use is worn off.

The guy couldn't answer the question. Once the texture wears off, you are left with a slightly reflective, utterly smooth area. So i would love to buy a Cintiq, but if the coatings going to wear off, then no dice.

Hopefully next time they can answer that question.

1 week agopermalink

kevphil

I don't understand bad-mouthing Wacom products I still have my great-performing 7 year old Cintiq 21" and also owned a couple Intuos tablets. Their stuff is bulletproof 99% of the time. (My Intuos [1] still works fine, but they did not update drivers past Win 8.1. I think that's 15 years old--?)

Cintiqs are not for hobbyists. The pro who's working in 3D or 2D animation, illustration or even comics will find them indispensable. Wacom is getting pressure from a number of competitors out of China, but none of them are 4K, so that's the big thing that still keeps the Cintiq at the head of the class. And by Wacom's standards (admittedly high-priced), the 24" is not a bad deal.

I DO hope that Wacom will see fit to provide STANDS for these beasts! LOL

1 week ago*permalink

Melchiorum

I want to like Wacom, I really do. But I can't lately. I can't talk for Cintiqs, but their Intuos line gets more expensive to own with every single generation. The materials get cheaper, the surfaces are scratched by simply looking at them the wrong way and the nibs got so crappy you can go through one in a day. Yet these crappy surfaces and nibs are priced as if they were made of gold. It's a joke.

Several years ago you could buy a cheap Bamboo and get a solid pen, a scratch-proof surface and nibs that last for weeks and months. Now you pay premium for a professional level gear and you get materials that can't stand any professional use whatsoever.

I guess that's what you get when there's no real competition.

1 week ago*permalink

Fujica

No new Wacom Cintiq for me anymore. Sold my old Cintiq 24HD and replaced it with a Microsoft Surface Studio.

I think they desperately need to adapt quickly to changing market situations or they might end up into troubled waters sooner then later.

1 week ago*permalink

Matpan

quality wise they remain the leading product, by a good margin...

6 days agopermalink

Matpan

I am a 2d and concept artist. And no other product hits the top tier niche of the market. Microsoft surface is great, but still lacks sensitivity and overall quality wacom provides. And these new models represent a great leap from the previous ones, not only resolutionwise, but pen response and pressure sensitivity wise... They are simply unmatched in these respects.

I have tried and used every single pen to screen solution in the market. Wacom is the best (albeit expensive) And trust me, they are in no hurry since they are industry standard in game and art

6 days agopermalink

Biowizard

One thing I've always liked about Wacom, is their use of battery-free, magnetic resonance pens/pucks/styli. What I haven't liked so much, is the extortionate cost of their Cintiq line (meaning I've had to make do with plain tablets).

Now that I have both an iPad Pro and a Surface Pro 4, I feel a lot less need ever to invest in a Wacom tablet. And with the cost of the larger proposed model, I'd be far more inclined to buy the Surface Studio if I wanted a large, draw-on screen.

Brian

1 week agopermalink

falconeyes

Is it the 10.5" iPad Pro which creates the kind of pressure to make this kind of announcement this early?

Anyway, the 120 Hz iPad Pro with Apple Pencil was the first device I tried where drawing actually started to feel like the real thing, pen and paper. So, this is why I am wondering ...

1 week ago*permalink

saiko

In my experience even decade old Wacom tablets are quite responsive.
I don't think responsiveness was a ever problem with Wacom on a decent PC.

1 week agopermalink

hjs_koeln

It is quite possible that iPad Pro and the Surface product line from Microsoft forces Wacom to move and make announcements.

Wacom is the company which pioneered combining a display with a pressure sensitive input device. Since this has always been a niche product for professionals, Wacom never received much public perception. Now, with a buyer base counting by the millions, people credit Apple/Microsoft etc. for it.

I never had an iPad Pro or a Surface, but have tried them frequently in stores. I am using a 7 year old Cintiq 21 with the 4:3 ratio. When it comes to translating even slightest pressure into varying opacity and brush width, Wacom is best. They´re also doing a great job at re-creating the feel of a paper-like, textured surface (not like rubber on glas as with the iPad Pro).

My only gripe is the heavy parallax on the older Cintiqs. Apples iPad Pro did a much better job at that right from the start. Wacom has taken too long to address this particular issue.

1 week agopermalink

saiko

Very true.
Many now believe that pressure sensitive pens were pioneered by Apple! Little do they know that there are far superior tech available for almost two decades that doesn't even need battery in the pen.

Wacom used the best possible display available during its release for each CIntiqs. The displays that are with such thin glass cover directly pasted on top of the LCD without any gap were not available until recently - that's why parallax on the older Cintiqs is so high.

Despite their high price, I have seen way too many Cintiqs with faulty screens - and repairing them is so prohibitively expensive that they just sit there in the studio as a showpiece. That's why I prefer their gotten used to the Intuos tablets.

1 week agopermalink

hjs_koeln

@saiko:
Do you have that technical information from a reliable source?

Reason for asking is, years ago a technician from Wacom told me exactly that: The only way to significantly reduce parallax is to basically glue the glas surface directly on the display.

However, there is a big downside to this: Over time, the glass surface will show wear and tear (not as much as in my 13 year old Cintiq 18 with plastic surface, but still...), so after years of use, one would eventually want to have the surface exchanged (not the display), which by itself is costly enough (approx. 400€ in the Cintiq 21).

With the glas glued to the display, this would mean exchanging the display as well. Talk about costly....

Any info on that?

1 week agopermalink

Terkwoiz

The 120 hz iPad pro is the best drawing experience I've ever had on a tablet (and I've tried everything. Almost every designer I worked with was using Wacom). Everyone should try one before they judge it. Virtually no latency when scribbling at ridiculous speed for an unlimited amount of time. And the pressure sensitivity of the Apple Pen is very good. It's true, Apple doesn't necessarily innovate first but they are still very good at refining. Wacom has good reason to be worried.

1 week ago*permalink

hjs_koeln

I tried, several times. Considering that this is Apple´s first shot at such an input device, they did an excellent job.

However, it´s far from perfect. The feel of hard rubber on completely smooth glas is just unnatural. And there is something funny with the initial activation force required. It´s a bit like a lottery: You don´t know whether or not the pen is actually going to produce a line if you apply very light pressure.

With Wacom, it is almost impossible to not leave a trace behind even at the lightest touch, which is how traditional media basically works. And from then on it´s a very coherent translation of successively more pressure into more opacity and/or line width.

1 week agopermalink

melgross

Hjs_koeln: I don’t know where the idea of the glass surface getting scratched is coming from, but it’s unlikely. I haven’t found that to be true for my iPad Pro 12.9” from last year, or my new one. If it doesn’t get scratched within the first 18 months, then it’s not likely to scratch after that. The plastic nib isn’t going to do it.

There are glass screen protectors for these if you’re so worried. They are cheap enough, and the better ones are hard. You can replace them to your hearts content.

Apple doesn’t use hard rubber for the nib. It’s a vinyl plastic compound. The new iPad Pro 12.9” has a surface with some drag, unlike the first model. I tried them side by side after I bought my new one.

I don’t understand the problem some people have with drawing on glass. It’s just another surface to work with. Every surface I’ve used over the decades, along with every drawing and painting tool, feels substantially different from each other. Why should it be any different with this?

1 week ago*permalink

hjs_koeln

@melgross:
Not sure why you mention scratches, that was not the issue with the iPad Pro.

It´s the feel of a hard rubber tip on smooth glass which feels unnatural. Way too slick for my taste. Wacom somehow manages to put a slight texture on their Cintiqs which feels a lot more like drawing on smooth paper.

1 week agopermalink

Terkwoiz

The iPad with pen definitely feels less than natural. The iPad screens are ultra glossy to provide the clearest view of the pixels. The cintiqs are more matte. I've used a friend's iPad with a high quality matte screen protector and the feeling it gives is much better - more similar to the texture of paper. But then some of the clarity of the completely clear glass is compromised, if only slightly. The sensitively seemed the same though.

It will be great to see these side by side (when the new cintiqs are released). There has to be more innovation regarding tips - mimicking a ballpoint that rolls slightly or lead that actually crumbles minutely under pressure. Seems like there's a lot of room to grow in this regard.

1 week ago*permalink

KevinD65

I also purchased a 10.5" iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil. It is the first device I've ever owed that lets me write directly on the screen. It is totally awesome.

6 days agopermalink

vFunct

What's the response latency of the pen?

1 week agopermalink

dylanear

Call me when there's a price drop on the Cintiq Pro 16. That's the size I want, it looks amazing, but still so wildly overpriced. When a display with pen input cost a lot more than a whole tablet/computer with a pen display you have to wonder???!!! Hopefully the very good, super cheap competition from Huion and a growing list of others will bring Wacom to their senses. Their days of being the only option in town are over. They are still the best, but not enough to justify their bloated prices.

1 week agopermalink

OlyPent

24 inch 4k? Waste of time.

1 week agopermalink

Terkwoiz

It's a tablet not a monitor, so 24" 4k is great - much higher pixel density. The more pixels per inch for these tablets the better. They're not meant for multi-window multi-tasking. Cintiq currently has a popular 27" QHD model but this new 4K 24 with be so much smoother. A lot of people on tablet forums are wondering what in the world cintiq is thinking even making a 32" version which seems too physically big for most. Also it should be at least 5k for its size.

1 week agopermalink

PixelMover

As someone who is 'classically trained' as an Illustrator (on good old fashioned paper/board), back in the day, bigger was always better. Some people (like me) still prefer to work on an area that is as large as possible to avoid having to constantly zoom in/out and scroll all the time. Not saying I'd fork out $3300 for the extra work space, but I currently use the Wacom Intuos Pro L and sometimes wish it was bigger...

1 week agopermalink

OlyPent

I compared two 27" monitors the other day. Both Dell, one HD, the other 4K. Though there were some textural differences and minor resolution differences, you cannot fully-appreciate what 4K can do unless you have a much larger screen. On a 42-55" TV screen, the difference is dramatic, shocking.

1 week agopermalink

tygrus

The large sizes allow users to transfer A3 sized drafts onto the computer. It allows you to work on a small area while still being able reference a larger area of work without scroll/zoom (you want this so you don't loose scale/perspective). It can replace those really large drafting boards.

1 week agopermalink

bakanecko

@OlyPent because you compared drawing tablet to tv/monitor. One you look at 30cm distance from your eyes, the other one far much further.

1 week ago*permalink

Terkwoiz

Exactly, the viewing distance is much closer using a tablet or a phone. The term 4K by itself doesn't mean anything without knowing the physical viewing area which determines the pixel density. This 24" tablet with 4k has a pixel density of 183 ppi and 8.3 million pixels total. A 24" 1080p screen only has 91 ppi and a total of 2.04 mpx - 4 times fewer pixels! If you can't tell the difference between the two when viewing them then not sure what to say besides you might need an eye examination. The iPhone 7 plus by comparison has a 5.5" 1080p screen which gives it a pixel density of 401 ppi.

1 week ago*permalink

Terkwoiz

PixelMover - the tablet you have is only like 13" right? My point before is that 24" is a great size for a tablet - I'm definitely going to purchase one I think. 32" is just too large, in my opinion, when using at tablet distance. When using a monitor though, 32 to 40 inches is awesome. I currently use a 32" QHD and next will be going to 40" with either 4K or 5k I think. I'm an artist by the way and my main use for the tablet is drawing.

1 week agopermalink

Spectro

Dang, that is rich.

1 week agopermalink

Mike CH

Having read the article, and looked at the link given - I still CANNOT tell what kind of product that is?

1 week agopermalink

Kinematic Digit

Yeah, it assumes you know what the Cintiq line is.

If you don't, its a display with Wacom pressure sensitive pen support, with stand to use on desktop like a drafting/art table configuration.

1 week agopermalink

Sdaniella

Wacom Cintiq (computer)

it's a pen-touch computer-screen intended as a "drawing" surface for those in digital computer art/graphics (2D & 3D illustrations, animations, character modelling)

such as used in videogame object and context (scenery) rendering

i got a more basic wacom "pen-tablet-surface" (computer "accessory"), long ago, not the more fancy cintiq touch-computer-screen that came later on, for my daughter in high school. she later went on to get an animation degree (famed Sheridan in Canada), and she's now an animator professional in the digital animation industry

1 week ago*permalink

hjs_koeln

Sounds interesting - the big question is: Will there be also a Mobile Studio Pro 24 and 32?!

1 week agopermalink

hjs_koeln

OK, scratch that: Maybe it should be "Not-So-Mobile" Studio pro 24 and 32...... At any rate: A true all in one at those sizes.

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