Wacom tablets and Cintiq Review, what to buy for new artists.

[Sockerfar]

Hello everyone! This is a little draft review I wrote down some time ago, and that I planned making a Youtube video of some time, some day. I have been using art tablets for a long period of time and would like to share that experience with new users who don't know what to buy and what to watch out for and so on, or maybe help a professional who just doesn't know if a Cintiq is worth the money or not. I have owned all of these products for several years, with the exception of the Bamboo and Cintiq, which I have owned for about 1.5 years. I hope you will find it useful :).

 

 

Intuos 3
 

I will start out where I started, with the Intuos 3. I won’t go too in depth on this one as it is an older model and not produced anymore, but if you are looking for a used tablet this might still be some valuable information.
 

This is where I started out, I bought the A4 size one and carried it to school every day which was a complete pain in the ass due to its size. It has ALOT of dead space which makes it practically impossible to fit in any kind of computer bag ever made. I carried it around in a big plastic A3 folder that got completely destroyed over time.

Even though I used this thing all the time and I carried it every single school day in a container that wasn’t designed for it and that was way less than ideal, it still looks fairly okay and works like it was new. It doesn’t have the same amount of pressure levels or DPI as the newer models but in all honesty, that doesn’t factor in all that much. At least not for me. It also comes with a feature the newer models doesn’t but really should have, a replaceable surface layer. That being said, mine still looks fairly okay and only has a small number of deeper scratches that interfere with the pen, and that is saying a lot because I am practically like living sandpaper when it comes to digital tools and wear everything down.
 

If you are curios about digital art and find one of these around for a good price, go for it! Just bare in mind that moving it from one place to another is a bit of a pain, as even the smaller ones have an odd format.
 

 

Intuos Pro Touch

 

I purchased this model when it was still called Intous 5, Wacom has since then re-branded this model with almost zero changes, the only notable one being that they switched the rubber coating over the buttons for an empty space with hard plastic buttons. This make practically no difference except make it more prone to failure if you spill something on it, which I have done with mine several times and just wiped it off without problems. If you are looking for a professional grade tablet, this is most likely the option you are looking at and for good reasons, it works very well and is highly customizeable.

 

When I purchased mine you could choose to buy the standard model or a touch enabled model for a higher price. I purchased the touch model, thinking the features might be useful for my work, but oh how wrong I was. Touch is now in all models and is no longer an option, but the touch features of the Intous5/Pro line tablets are just flat out shit. They always activate when you don’t want them to, zoom in and out randomly and the worst part, turn themselves on when you have disabled them because of driver bugs… If you are buying a new tablet, you have no choice but to get these features but if you are buying a used one and see a tablet without them, just trust me when I say you will be better off that way. I have left mine permanently disabled and only use them when they try to revive themselves to cause a bunch of problems.

 

The biggest drawback of this tablet is the drawing surface in my opinion. They have went for something more like a resistant surface compared to the older models, not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it wears off, very fast. And the end result is that you have a mirror polished area where you use it the most and a matt/resistant area where you use it less, making the surface inconsistent for larger strokes. This surface is also non-replaceable. My solution to this was to get a chrome polishing agent normally used for cars and just rub down the entire surface to a uniform gloss. It has several customizeable buttons on one side of the tablet and a touch wheal. I never use these and do nothing but hit them by accident, so I ended up permanently disabling all of them. This part is subjective and how usable you find these buttons depends on your workflow and applications. I personally need a keyboard to work because I can’t map all the commands I need to a small number of buttons, and using both the buttons and a keyboard just doesn’t make sense to me.

This is the the model to buy if you are going to work with it on-location, every day all day. But it doesn’t have the durability of the Intuos 3 and it is fairly expensive. The new drawing surface was a bad choice on Wacoms end if you ask me as it simply isn’t durable enough to keep a consistent drawing surface.

 

Intuos/Bamboo

 

The Intous line (formerly known as Bamboo) is probably the one product on this list that took my by the biggest surprise in terms of quality over price. I purchased an Intuos small as an entry level tablet for my girlfriend because she was curious about digital art, expecting something very average but usable. The interesting thing is that if you ask me, this is the tablet I will recommend in most cases. It is super light weight, doesn’t have all of those gimmicky buttons that just waste space and it works great. Sure, it doesn’t have the higher pressure sensitivity of the Pro line, and the pen doesn’t have an eraser on the other end but this tablet is easily good enough for professional work and even preferable over the more expensive options if you are going to travel around a lot with your tablet due to its light weight.

In conclusion: this tablet is great, and for the price it's fantastic! I can't speak for the older versions I haven't used them to any extent, but If you are starting out, need a light-weight portable tablet or if you are on a budget, this is the product for you. You will not need to replace it with a more expensive option if "you go serious about art".

 

 

Cintiq27 HD Touch
 

So, the question anybody that is interested in this product asks after a quick look at the price tag is: Is it worth it? The answers is that it depends, but most likely no.

Is it GREAT for painting? Yes.
Is it GREAT for sculpting? Yes.
Is It GREAT for 3D modelling in an application like Maya!? Sort of. In this case I actually prefer a standard tablet.

 

So what's the problem? The price. Plain and simple. This product is INSANELY expensive. And yes, it is fantastic and in most cases it beats a standard tablet, but not by an amount that adds up for the difference in price and not to mention, the stand isn’t even included. I could produce the same quality work on a standard Intuos Pro, hell even an Intuos.

 

With that out of the way, lets get into a little more details about this tablet. The drawing surface is made of hardened glass, I was initially skeptical about how good this would hold up and asked Wacom about screen protectors and just got super slow and somewhat snarky answers back basically saying that they don’t give a single shit. (This is my usual experience with Wacoms support sadly, I haven’t contacted them many times but every time I have they have been slow, fairly clueless and borderline rude) the surface is however still spotless and appears to be virtually indestructible as long as you just draw on it with a plastic nib. Big plus for the surface. It comes with built in standoff legs that won’t do you any good at all, the tablet is simply too big to use at an angle that sharp unless you have an angled table to put it on, which brings me to another point.

You most likely need the stand. Without the before mentioned angled table there isn’t much of a point buying it without the stand. And when I bought mine they were out of stock in the EU store. They later got a single one back in stock, that got snagged immediately by another buyer and I had to wait a while before one was available. They should have one stand for every Cintiq in stock, and if not sell them together, at least have the option to include it within the same purchase.

 

The stand itself is great though. Fat rugged cables, sturdy hardware and adjustable for any position you may need. It's basically a fantastic piece of hardware, but should have been included.

Unlike the previous models which had the buttons built into the device, they come on a external controller. This is a significant upgrade over older Cintiq models in my opinion, making the buttons external and giving them the ability to be placed anywhere or removed was a great improvement over older generations. Again, how useful you find these kinds of buttons may vary on your style of work but after some initial tinkering, I threw that thing in a box and I haven’t looked at it ever since.

 

Another thing that has been improved over older models is the gap between the glass and the screen. There still is a gap, but it is much smaller compared to older models and most importantly, isn’t distracting.

 

So, I bought the touch version of this even after my initial experience with the Intuos 5. The reason being that they have a policy where you can return the Cintiq if you are unhappy, making the purchase fail safe and I also thought it might work better on an actual screen, where you see what you touch which might improve navigation and I was right! The touch on this is a must have, if you are going to spend the money on a Cintiq just add those extra coins and get the touch version. Navigating in Photoshop by just panning and zooming with the same move has made my life so much easier (until Adobe updated CC with that HORRIBLE swipe to undo feature you could not disable. Just downgrade if you have that, that’s what I did). It also works fantastic when navigating the web or just using the computer, not to mention, makes you feel kickass when playing Hearthstone.

Thanks for reading through this block of text and feel free to ask me anything, or weigh in with your own thoughts :). 

English isn't my first language, so please tell me if I phrased something weird and I'll fix it ^^.

[Frosty]

This is a lovely little write up! I've been looking to update my old bamboo with Intuos 5/Pro Touch and probably will once I get further into my studies. The Cintiqs in the upper level animation studios are mighty nice looking though

[Sockerfar]

Just now, Frosty said:

This is a lovely little write up! I've been looking to update my old bamboo with Intuos 5/Pro Touch and probably will once I get further into my studies. The Cintiqs in the upper level animation studios are mighty nice looking though

Thank you :)! I haven't had much experience with the older Bamboo series at all, are they also surprisingly nice? The Cintiqs sure do look good, and they are good. I have owned mine for about a year now and I love this thing, but in all honesty it's a little too expensive compared to what the actual output performance is compared to your standard tablet. At least if you have to showel up all the cash from your own pockets :).

[Frosty]

It works surprisingly well, yeah! The reason that I haven't pulled the trigger is maybe I can get a deal from my school, lol. You can usually find someone selling a 13HD or the like for a discounted price. The good old Wacom tax  What does interest me from time to time is Display tablets from other companies such as Bosto, Ugee, and Huion. A bit wary of things like driver support and the like, though.

[Sockerfar]

20 minutes ago, Frosty said:

It works surprisingly well, yeah! The reason that I haven't pulled the trigger is maybe I can get a deal from my school, lol. You can usually find someone selling a 13HD or the like for a discounted price. The good old Wacom tax  What does interest me from time to time is Display tablets from other companies such as Bosto, Ugee, and Huion. A bit wary of things like driver support and the like, though.

I haven't tried any non-Wacom tablets or drawing displays at all. The smaller Cintiqs look pretty good though, especially if you need something portable. I would still claim that they are way too pricey compared to what they do, in comparison to a standard tablet at retail price.

I do own a Surface Pro 3, which isn't a screen but a full-featured tablet laptop. This things works pretty well but leaves a lot of things to be desired, especially when it comes to drivers and any kind of customization. When I purchased this, Wacom had just released the first Companion, which by then had inferior hardware for a much higher price, especially considering the student discount I had on the Surface. I sort of recommend the Surface line, but without a student discount they are also very overpriced. The current Wacom Companion hasn't been updated in ages, but just having their features might be worth it if comparing the two at full prize.