Cintiq 20WSX Review
The Cintiq 20WSX arrived at my doorstep 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.
Hit the jump for my full review & pics.
1. 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.
2. Specs
Actual size: 21.6″ wide, 14.5″ tall and 1.8″ deep
Screen Size: 20.1″ (16:10 aspect ratio) at 1680 x 1050 pixels
Contrast ratio: 600:1 (250 cd/m2 brightness)
Colors: 16.7 million
Display Input: DVI-I or VGA (comes with converters if you’re old school)
2. Setup
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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
March 12th, 2008 at 4:12 am
[…] out the quick review of the Cintiq 20WSX drawing tablet I wrote for Ultrasquid!read more | digg story posted by admin at 5:12 am […]
March 19th, 2008 at 8:19 am
This is awsome!
March 24th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Im from Spain, here we can´t buy the cintiq. I have a question about battery do it have one?
Thanks.
Post scriptum, may my question sounds stupid but it important for me.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Hi Ramon,
You could do like me and import it from the US… I’m in Norway myself.
The Cintiq’s do no have batteries, no. They run of a standard power adapter that also works in Europe, all you do is change the plug at the end
March 27th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Thanks for your review!
Uff…it seems it was easy for you to decide for the 20″ instead of a 21″. I’m struggling… I’d like to go for the 20″, but since it is not available in Europe and they just made a limited addition of 3000, you will not get any tech support in Europe. They simply have no parts for it… how come you went for this one and not the 21″?
Thanks.
d
March 27th, 2008 at 12:12 am
i played with both (in the states). i like that you have more express keys on the 20″, the slider is in the back, the format itself, it seems a bit more handy and the resolution seems to be a bit higher. for editing and animating in maya i consider the 21″ just because you get a bit more workspace and it seem better proportioned for that…my struggle
March 27th, 2008 at 12:27 am
…and once more …how do you calibrate it right??? i went to that shop, we opened a new cintiq and with the two crosses i tried to calibrate, it didn’t work. and the guy in the shop at that time didn’t know any better… it was about 1cm off the tip and when i went up in the left corner the offset would even move to another side and the opposite to the bottom right corner. that frustrated me rite away… so please let me know about the tricky parts about calibrating …within the next 6 hours and you’ll be my hero (sorry, got a tight schedule ;))
cheers
d
March 27th, 2008 at 11:49 am
David: I went for the 20″ because of the widescreen format, I’m not a fan of the 4:3 format by default, so that’s why I went for the 20″. Tech support isn’t something I usually worry about, if it breaks, I’ll just send it back to the states. As for getting the 20″ in Europe, the price is 2/3 of the price in the US, so if that’s what you pay for support these days, then I don’t need it
The calibration is done the way you say, it’s just a matter of working with it until you find the ideal calibration. I agree that it’s quite the task to get it calibrated though…
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:01 am
Hi, I’ve heard that the screen gets scratches easily. Is this true? How do you prevent the screen from getting scratches? Also, are the pre-made gloves you refer to called the SmudgeGuard gloves?
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:06 am
Hi KK,
That may be, however after 3-4 weeks of use, I don’t see any on mine. I haven’t heard anything about that from other users though. The pre-made gloves are the SmudgeGuards yeah, but you should really just make your own, they get dirty real fast around a typical desk environment. I’m guessing the SmudgeGuards don’t retain as much dust as normal cotton gloves though, so it could be a good long-term investment over buying new gloves every month…
April 25th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Where abouts did you order it form? Direct from wacom?
Great review btw.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:55 am
From Amazon.com via one of their electronic shop retailers. Can’t remember which one unfortunately!
May 21st, 2008 at 5:29 pm
I don’t know if this is true for 21″ but I was caught by all those reviews on 12″ one and I tell you - this is a piece of equipment - useless is the lightest word I can find. Doesn’t calibrate right, at the edges the trembling of cursor literally prevents you from being able to choose the right menu item etc. Wouldn’t recommend even if I am offered money for that. I literally going to dump it.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:10 am
Linbs: that’s probably only true for the 12″. I haven’t had any such problems myself. the edges can be hard to get a accurate clicks with but it’s a very marginal issue on the 20″.
June 1st, 2008 at 6:20 am
I try to the review on 20″ tablet, and bump to your blog.
Btw nice website and blog.
I just return my 12″ version.
The real estate of the 12″ make me think of the 20″ version.
and, as Linbs describe the trembling of the right lower corner make one hard to use the menu. but one can some how calibrate with the Pen preference but the distance from pen tip to the pointer really isn’t working.
And I was thinking 12″ were portable but it is not.
Thank you for give me some serious thought about buying one.
June 9th, 2008 at 2:59 am
Hi,
did you have to pay fee or toll payment to import the tablet in Norway ?
I’m looking for the same purchase for Belgium. I’m just worry about the toll.
Intersting review btw.
June 9th, 2008 at 3:12 am
Hi Harald,
Yes I did have to pay 25% tax for the import (the normal norwegian sales tax). I have no idea what the toll or tax is in Belgium though. Electronic wares is only taxable and not subject to toll fees for import in Norway.
June 16th, 2008 at 11:12 am
INTUOS is seplled I N T U O S. I thnik yuo may be dyslxeis.
Thnaks
June 26th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Based on your glowing review, as well as others, I had one of these shipped to me. I yanked an old VGA card out of an used Mac G4 and stuck it in my current Mac and now have the Cintiq plus two 20in Apple displays — so far, so good.
I’m still struggling with the pen calibration and getting used to the lag time between pen movement and stroke. I suspect my Intuos 3 had this same lag, but wasn’t noticeable because of the visual disconnect between tablet and monitor.
The fact the Cintiq uses the Intuos 3 pens is very important to me, since I already have two, and I think Wacom ought to make a bigger point of this.
June 26th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
That should have been *unused* G4… but you get the idea.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Great review!
I’m in norway too and are about to place an order for a cintiq myself, but I haven’t yet decided wether it’s gonna be 20wsx or 21ux. Maya, PS, zbrush are my weapon of choice… any suggestions? Even though it is almost 1/3 of the price in Norway, it’s still a big amount of money. the (in)decision is overwhelming!
You wrote:
“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.”
“They run of a standard power adapter that also works in Europe, all you do is change the plug at the end”
Did you use an adapter, a generic cord or an converter? Is it included in the package?
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:56 am
Placed an order for 20wsx…the tiebreaker was the ability to toggle between displays with my existing dell 24″. And of course your review.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:56 am
hey panumme,
The 20wsx is the ideal choice in my book, you’d get more real-estate with a 20″, but the 4:3 format doesn’t seem right anymore to me. Personally it feels better with a widescreen canvas as it’s more like a sketchbook. For Zbrush it’s awesome, ditto for PS and Illustrator. Maya can be a bit cumbersome as you have to keep one hand on the keyboard. I solved the issue by getting the supersmall Apple wireless keyboard.
The voltage is not a problem at all, you can take a typical generic computer power cord from any other appliance and just plug it right in. I bought a giant US converter at Clas Olson that ended up being useless as I had a generic cord lying around already. Obviously they may have changed things around since I got mine, so check the power box for the typical Scandinavian markings before you let it rip…
Best of luck with your new Cintiq! I think you’ll be very happy with it!
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:01 am
Mcarp:
I don’t know why your Cintiq has a lag, but I can’t for the life of me understand that. Neither my Intuos or my Cintiq have had any lag problems. Sounds more to me like your G4 needs to be replaced… Have you tried taking your Wacom’s to another computer to test on? Might be worth a go…
August 25th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Yo man, nice review (it solved my doubts about buying one 20wsx from US!)
I was reading about lag and calibration problems, have you tried to set the screen res to the native resolution of the hardware?
August 25th, 2008 at 4:13 am
My pleasure Hitsu!
I wouldn’t ever run an LCD anything on anything but native, so I I can’t vouch for it at any other res. Basically I don’t have any lag on my Cintiq. There are some issues when your cursor is at the far end of the screen where it doesn’t quite reach, but it’s rarely an issue. Your drawing is done in the middle of the screen anyway…
August 25th, 2008 at 5:22 am
That’s right, even if not, is quite a pain to draw in a corner of the screen lol. By the way did you know when the c20″wsx is schedule to be released in europe? (i want to know how much time i have to order one…)
August 25th, 2008 at 6:04 am
hehe exactly!
ah i didn’t know that… well, Wacom’s pricing in Europe is astronomical, so I wouldn’t wait for that if you have the opportunity to get it from the States safely…
August 25th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Oh ehm i was wondering how much time i have left to buy one before it ships in Europe hehe…
I was searching over the net to find a place to order one but it’s not that simple, you say that you bought your’s by an amazon.com seller, there is none left right now… the only one that i can found who ships in EU is on Ebay… uhm…
August 29th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Hi, I’m from Singapore and just ordered one from bhphotovideo.com (now out of stock)
Thanks a lot for your highly informative review!
It made me decide to choose the 20″ widescreen over the older 21UX model.
Hopefully my cintiq will arrive safe and sound next week!
September 5th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Hi i live in bulgaria(part of the EU) I really whant to get one of those sexy things but there are some problems. First i can only get it via online-shops or from a friend that lives in the USa .Second the tax. In each online shop its the same -tax pay after delivery- I dont whant to end up paing X2 the prise for the shipment. Where can i find the tax prices and can you plz tell me where did you order yours. I will be so happy if you reply .Sorry for the long letter
bb
September 5th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Hi marti:
Well, you will either need a friend in the US who can send it on to you, you can find a seller on eBay or you can get a mailbox in the US with various provides. I know JetCarrier does one in Norway and there’s lots of others out there. They will give you a US address and ship the product onto you. As for taxes, if you buy from another state than the one you’re receiving the package in, there’s no state sales tax as far as I can gather. The best thing is to have a good friend in the US though
September 7th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Hi! Thank You for review! I want buy one for myself, I’m in Latvia now and will go to NY next month for 3 days, how do You think, can I take this box to aircraft with me, or take cintiq out of box, because I don’t want to take it to checked baggage… Its very big?
Thank You!
September 7th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Hi Alex, It’s a very BIG box indeed! however the Cintiq is reasonably small as you can see from the specs. Basically you could easily take it out of the box, but you would have to wrap it up extremely well for it to survive the trip, I’ve seen how airport personnel treat bags and it really ain’t pretty
it should be possible though, just a bit risky!
September 7th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Thank You, Bard!
about airport personnel is true! therefore I want take Cintiq with me to aircraft,
will try carry it without box
September 14th, 2008 at 1:47 am
hey thanks for the review but can you tell me why i can’t buy the cintiq 20wsx anymore? I’ve looked everywhere and they are all out of stock and i can’t findout when more is coming back into stock.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Bella - The best I’ve been able to determine is that there seems to be a worldwide shortage, and no word regarding why. A handful of sites are still taking backorders. Most other sites simply do not offer the 20WSX right now. Perhaps they are revamping, upgrading, fixing, or something along those lines. Or, maybe they’ve run into a shortage from a manufacturer of one of the parts. It has only been available for 10 months, so I seriously that it will be discontinued. It has been a wildly successful product from what I gather.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:45 pm
yup, special part, no supply.
wacom: “the Cintiq20WSx is currently not in production because we cannot find a supplier of a unique component…”
October 11th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
still a few 20’s left. leave a note here if you want to know where. Just got one, love it.
October 11th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
better yet, email me at dstace (at) netscape (dot) net. hurry, only a couple left as of 4 days ago.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:34 am
still some left, could you please tell us where you saw 20WSX’s in stock?
March 2nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Anybody know is there are anymore out there?
If wacom are going to replace this model with another why haven’t they done so by now?
August 30th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
This is stupid!!! I want 2 speak 2 Wacom’s leading product manager…WHY they don’t let us enthusiasts know what the hell is going on. They would earn a fortune!!