Wacom Cintiq 21UX

This is the Wacom Cintiq. It’s a 21 inch monitor that has a display resolution of 1600*1200.

In addition this piece of kit is also a graphics tablet. It has programmable keys on both the left and the right side. Two programmable “sliders”, as you slide it’s like pressing a key lots of times. The monitor had a metal stand that has four feet. the rear two have rollers.

The tablet comes with a stylus, but I’m lucky enough to have 2 more in addition, one is like an airbrush, and the other like a marker pen.

It connects to the computer via a DVI cable, this is a DVI-i cable, which supports with analouge or digital signals. I have a DVI to display port adapter for my Macbook pro. In addition the tablet requires a USB connection so that it perform the tablet functions.

A single thick cable comes out of the back of the monitor, this can be routed behind the desk. It splits to three, one for a power cable (with transformer), the second for the monitor cable, and the third is a USB cable.

The monitor is going to need to be placed so that I can use it comfortably with my left hand. I’ll need to be able to access the laptop for the keyboard. It’s important to note at this point that this will be acting as a second monitor as my laptop’s display will be the primary screen.

The tablet part of this display is like an Wacom Intuos3. That is 1024 levels of pressure and support for tilt. I really don’t know what this means at this point. But it sounds to me like it’ll act like a real pen/brush. The tools have RFID chips in them, so the tablet can tell which tool is which, this means that with a product like Photoshop you are able to assign brushes direct to the tool. So if you had enough of these, you could setup several brushes and assign each to a different physical tool. Sounds impressive to me.