Wacom Cintiq 24HD: a first look

Perhaps you’ve noticed me talking, over and over, about Wacom’s fabulous Cintiq 24HD. I guess if you talk about it long enough people (your parents) get so sick of you talking about it (or realise that you really really would like nothing better than to have one) that they decide, that since you’re turning 25, to give you one!

Oh yes, I have a Cintiq 24HD! It’s really really beautiful, and really really large (the screen itself is 24″, but along with the frame, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is 30″ total). I did not get to unbox it, as they say, because I was on holiday and when I got back, it was on my desk, all hooked up to the computer! My parents like to do this, surprise me with stuff after I’ve been away.

Right, so I should probably tell you what I think about it now, right? The first thing I noticed was how incredibly smooth the screen is. It feels almost liquid. Secondly, it uses the same pens as the Intuos 4- upward, which is really nice, since I have a few of those (pens, not multiple Intuoses (Intui?)). It has a lot of express buttons. I love express buttons, because you hardly have to leave your screen to do things you’d otherwise have to go into menus for. It also has two fabulous touch rings that can perform six different, fully customisable tasks. I think this is Wacom’s most flexible tablet yet. Same goes for the positions the screen can be put in. I tend to go for my usual only slightly tilted position, though. Also because I can’t change the position by myself because you need to use two hands for that (sheesh, Wacom). The only thing it doesn’t do, and the Wacom Cintiq 21UX did, is rotate. I didn’t use it that often, but that was pretty handy. I think I should now just digitally rotate the canvas. No biggie.

Another, really, really neat thing is the Cintiq’s perfect compatibility for multiple screens. You can set one of the express keys to ‘toggle screen’, which allows use to use the Cintiq across your other monitor, as a regular tablet. Really handy if you’re working with multiple programs at the same time. You only need one hand instead of two. Way to go Wacom!

I’m sure there are many many other cool things that I’ve yet missed, but I never have the patience to check out all the options as I always just want to create as fast as humanly possible.  I’ll write down more cool stuff when I come across them.