Wacom Cintiq 12WX 12-Inch Pen Display

by Wacom

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 16 x 0.7 inches ; 4.4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00115OFJK
• Item model number: Cintiq12WX
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #30 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Computer Accessories > Keyboards, Mice & Input Devices > Graphics Tablets
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Experience all the advantages of direct pen-on-screen input in a low profile, lightweight design! At just 4.4 pounds, Wacom's new Cintiq 12WX combines the advantages of a wide-format LCD monitor with Wacom's patented, professional pen technology to give you the perfect companion for your Mac or PC. 

Thin and light, the new Cintiq 12WX gives you the flexibility to work on screen the way you want. Easily rotate the 12.1" TFT display when working flat on your desktop to find the right position for your hand, or stand the Cintiq 12WX upright on your desktop and adjust the integrated stand to a comfortable angle. With a flexible 6.5 foot cord, you can even use it on your lap.

No matter how you choose to use it, the Cintiq 12WX allows you to combine the advantages of natural hand-eye coordination and the intuitive pen-on-paper feel of traditional media with the benefits of digital workflow.

The Cintiq 12WX integrates seamlessly into multi-monitor environments to supplement a primary display or to control other displays. Alternatively, you can use the Cintiq 12WX as a stand-alone display. Its ergonomic design and lightweight profile make it easy to add it to your laptop, desktop, or high performance workstation.

The Cintiq 12WX delivers a highly sensitive pen-on-screen experience so you can work directly on your images and applications in the most natural way possible. With "pen-point" accuracy, fast cursor control, and 1,024 levels of pressure-sensitivity on the pen tip and eraser, the Cintiq 12WX gives you increased control, comfort, and productivity.

Additional Features

• Using the pen directly on screen takes advantage of natural hand-eye coordination and provides the feel of natural media, but with all the benefits of a completely digital workflow.


• With "pen-point" accuracy, fast cursor control, and 1,024 levels of pressure-sensitivity on the pen tip and eraser, Wacom pen technology gives you superior control over your workflow.


• The Display Toggle offers increased flexibility in multiple-monitor environments allowing you to easily switch between screens or maximize pen control on different displays.


• Ten programmable ExpressKeys provide quick access to modifier keys, keyboard shortcuts, and pop-up menus.

• Two finger-sensitive Touch Strips serve as natural ways to zoom, scroll, or change brush size.

• The Grip Pen has a contoured, cushioned barrel to reduce grip effort by 40 percent.

• A smooth, flat surface allows your hand to glide easily over the display while a sloped bezel on the front and sides provides a comfortable rest for your palm.

• Thin, light, and durable, the Cintiq 12WX offers a pen-on-screen experience that rivals a pen-on-paper experience..
  

Included in the Cintiq 12WX package:

1. Cintiq 12WX Pen Display
2. Video Control Unit
3. Grip Pen
4. Pen Stand
5. Five Replacement Pen Nibs (three standard nibs, one felt nib and one stroke nib)
6. Video Control Unit
7. DVI, VGA, USB, and Power Cables
8. Power Adapter
9. User Manual
10. Installation CD (includes Wacom driver software and electronic software manual)
11. Application DVD (includes application software)

Product Description

The Cintiq family of interactive pen displays enables creative professionals to work naturally and intuitively, by using Wacom's patented, professional pen technology directly on the surface of an LCD display.Wacom offers three options for working directly on screen: the all new high definition Cintiq 24HD, the popular large-format, second-generation Cintiq 21UX and the low-profile Cintiq 12WX. These high-quality displays, combined with the Cintiq pressure- and tilt-sensitive Grip Pens, offer world-class levels of precision, control and comfort for editing digital images, applying effects and filters, sketching, painting and modeling. The amazingly responsive pen-on-screen performance closely replicates the experience of working with traditional brushes and markers while offering all the benefits of a digital workflow. The Cintiq's scratch-resistant glass surface is completely flat from edge to edge, allowing the hand to glide easily over the entire surface. Both Cintiqs offer adjustments that allow them to be set up in different working positions and at different viewing angles. They also come equipped with finger-sensitive Touch Strips and ExpressKeys that can be customized to execute commonly-used shortcuts and modifiers to speed and simplify any workflow. The Cintiq pen controls the cursor in any application and provides pressure- and tilt-sensitive effects in supporting applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk SketchBook Pro, Corel Painter and hundreds of other applications. Cintiqs are compatible with both Mac and PC platforms.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

264 of 281 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too flawed to be great, February 27, 2008

By 

Cosmo Kramer "The Real Peterman" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wacom Cintiq 12WX 12-Inch Pen Display (Personal Computers)

There are good things, many people have listed them. But for $1000, it should be much better. Here are a list of the shortcomings that are not excusable for this price:

-Poor viewing angles. Wacom says you should use the color profiles that come with the display as it has been properly calibrated at the factory. And yes, color is perfect. At least Hue and Saturation. Verified with ColorSync advanced setup. But if the brightness and contrast changes if you move your head, well, it isn't accurate, is it? I assumed that this 12.1" display was going to be higher quality than the crappy displays you get in a MacBook or thin Windows Laptop. Wrong. Same horrible viewing angles and hot spots. Basically a cheep laptop monitor in a Wacom case.

-Poor tracking. Wacom is the standard. Supposedly this is based on an Intuos pad. But Wacom gives 2 points of calibration. That's right, 2 points. Upper left, lower right. That means that if you move the pen along the line drawn between those points, it's calibrated. But not in the lower left of upper right. Not at all. Any professional product should have at minimum 5 points of calibration. 4 corners and center. 2 is what my GameBoy DS has, and frankly, it tracks better and faster. Wacom needs to improve their driver and they could accomplish this. And of course since you can't touch the bottom 5 pixels of the screen, good luck if you had your dock hidden down there (Mac only). I have to have the dock squished to the side, which makes it harder to use, especially with a dual monitor setup.

-Lots of cables and the brick. It works well, but still. With all that cabling and hardware, you'd think they could provide a DVI/VGA passthrough port.

-1st grader pen. The grip pen is just not logical. No artists tools I use have that shape. Pencils, pens, brushes, all are thinner. I am used to sketching with Colorase and drafting pencils, so I won't be using this grip pen. Can I get used to it? Sure, probably, but then it will be more awkward to switch back and forth between the Cintiq and real paper and pencil. I ordered the classic pen, which should arrive in a few days. But that's another $50 to spend, when it should have either been the default pen provided, or BOTH pens should have been provided.

-Software. They have been downgrading the bundles over time with their tablets, but at $1000, we should get more than Painter Light and Photoshop Light, since the vast, vast VAST majority of Cintiq customers already own Photoshop. I mean, you don't spend $1000 on a Cintiq without already owning a full version of Photoshop, so what value is Elements to anyone? Dump it and provide more brush plugins and the Classic pen instead. And a full version of Painter would be nice.

Everything I list is fixable after the fact except for the LCD quality. Bundle can be improved, driver can be upgraded to fix the tracking issues, classic pen can be included. And a "rev B" could include a higher quality LCD screen with a professional viewing angle, at least vertically. Or, if they don't want to fix these problems, cut the price by $400 and it's less offensive... ;)

All that said, there's still nothing like drawing directly on the screen with a pressure sensitive, high resolution pen. It's a great concept and a decent product that could be great.

91 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Hopefully 2nd generation will improve a lot, July 12, 2008

By 

b.Christopher "Chris" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wacom Cintiq 12WX 12-Inch Pen Display (Personal Computers)

At first glance, it's an amazing product. It's a great size, it's thin, bright, with nice buttons and a nice pen.
I just got mine and am using it to work with as a normal tablet (to control the cursor on my main screen), and also to work directly on and draw/paint.
I use a 21" Cintiq at work and also have a 6x8 Intuos 3 tablet that I used before getting this new 12" Cintiq.

The 12" Cintiq has a lot of flaws - so much so that I think I may have to return it, which is really disappointing.
First. Though it's a "12-inch" screen, I'd say it's more like a 10". Why? Because when you move the cursor to the edges of the screen - a little over an inch away from each border, the cursor starts to shake tremendously. This simply doesn't fly when you're trying to keep a steady hand and get a good line while drawing or painting. It's also very annoying when you're just trying to click on something in the menu bar at the top of the screen. The cursor looks like it's spazzing out and it's really hard to live with.
I think part of the reason for this may be because of the limited 2-point calibration, as someone else who reviewed on here talked about. The calibration is just nowhere near refined enough.
Like I said, I also have a 21" Cintiq and I don't have this problem with that. They just didn't do a good job with the 12".

Second. The excessive cables. They really need to figure out how to slim this down and simply it - and I think they could. Before you buy look at the manual online and see all that you have to do to get this thing working. If you're thinking about taking it with you on the go with your laptop, forget it. There's so much to have to deal with. I don't see why they can't just make a simple cable like Apple's Cinema displays - it plugs into the DVI port, a usb port for the pen to work, and then a power brick, which then plugs into the wall. That'd be so much simpler. The cintiq itself is very thin - so it lends itself to portability, but when you have to consider all the extra cables and connections you have to make, it doesn't work out so well.

Third. The quality of the screen. It is cheap. When I first plugged it in I wasn't disappointed - I saw my desktop background on this small 12" screen and it looked nice and bright. But then I started working with it. When you're actually drawing in Photoshop the line doesn't look nearly as crisp as on my Apple Cinema display. Text also suffers. Just reading through web pages it's quite noticeable. I think another review said that they just used a cheap laptop screen, and after working with it for a couple days, I think that person was right.

There are nice things about it. The design is nice and like I said before, it's nice and thin so it sits nicely on my desk (a problem I have with the bigger ones is that they are SO bulky).
It's easy to pick up and put in your lap. And the stand is nice too.
I really wish that it didn't have the problems that it does because I'd love it to work well.
My main problem has to be the cursor jumping around and shaking - it's really awful and I don't think I can stand it. It's worst at the edges of the screen, but you can't even click and drag to scroll down a web page without the cursor shaking. It's not only annoying, it's almost unusable. I'm used to using my Intous 3 and my goodness - what a difference. That one is SO much better at tracking your pin movement.

Worth $1000? Not at all. Hopefully they'll come out with a better updated one sometime soon - then it may be worth the price.

77 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Beta test, when is the REAL product coming out?, May 26, 2008

By 

Ramad Ash (Iowa City,IA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wacom Cintiq 12WX 12-Inch Pen Display (Personal Computers)

I believe that most of us got this product because we are heavily into animation or other digital arts. Anyone who tried this can tell you; nothing beats drawing directly on the screen.
However, when the CINTIQ 12WX costs as much as a loaded Tablet PC (at least it was at the time of this writing), and when you use this professionally all day for a couple of months the "WOW" effect fades out and reality sinks it...
It's HOT
The biggest problem I have with this product, the lower portion of the tablet (where you rest your hand) gets REALLY hot in only a couple of hours (I mean annoyingly hot, not lukewarm). I place a microfiber cloth under my hand when I have to work longer hours.
I know that the heat comes from the back lights for the screen, yet this seems like a design flaw, since the top of the tablet doesn't get hot, nor does my brighter, larger, LCD display.

This brings me to the screen :

The Monitor is very low res. compared to my DELL laptop's screen, this is soo unsharp, soo unbright, it is annoying, especially after working for longer hours. You also have to deal with Annoying reflections. And the screen smudges very easily (this happens with all LCD's and should be expected).
This means you will definitely need another screen to inspect your work.

Accuracy and calibration:

With only 2 calibration points, the tablet is only accurate in the middle part of the screen, and with the limited real estate, you are really limiting yourself. So if you think you are actually painting where the pen is, you are wrong except in the middle part of the screen.

Sensor bars: sometimes they are so sensitive, on other occasions they are not responsive. ( some drivers issues I presume!)

Portability??

"The Cintiq 12WX enables you to work wherever you feel inspired. It fits into everyday laptop bags ..."

Are they kidding? Nowhere in any of WACOM's advertisement for the CINTIQ do you see any cables, and although you know that this is not wireless, and you know that there must be communications between graphic card and screen, and computer and tablet portion, you will NEVER imagine the cable jungle this device creates! It is a big hassle just to take it from room to room!

The Grip Pen.

Although I have used the Grip Pen with Intuous3 and really liked the feel, working with the CINTIQ 12 WX you realize how BULKY it really is. It is like drawing on a regular paper using a very large dry eraser pen. You can't see what's under your pen tip. Drawing small details becomes a hassle, you constantly zoom in and out to make sure your are drawing details correctly.

As a WACOM fan, I believe they can make a great product out of this, they said they will release an update driver soon, we hope that should fix the inaccuracy issues.
The Heat issue, will probably be fixed in future releases, so, wait a bit before taking the plunge.

As someone who has been using WACOM tablets for the last 10+ years. This is a product I would expect MICROSOFT to introduce to the market not WACOM.