Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Interactive Displays
Review: Wacom Cintiq 12WX
The high-end interactive display goes mobile for around $1,000
12/12/2007
As a display designed specifically for visual artists, its quality is far superior to that of any notebook display I've seen. It has true 24-bit color depth (as opposed to the fudged "millions of colors" on standard notebook displays). Colors, brightness, and contrast are even across the face of the screen. And the device calibrates up nicely using a colorimeter. (The factory settings on my review unit were a bit dark, but that was fixed easily enough.)
It has a wide viewing angle (±85 degrees horizontal and vertical, which is slightly less than the higher-end models in the Cintiq lineup). At factory settings, it does have a discernable sweet spot of (very roughly) 45 degrees on the vertical and maybe 70 degrees on the horizontal. Proper calibration with contrast boosted all the way up took care of this problem.
In terms of tablet functionality, the Cintiq 12WX has a resolution of 5,080 lines per inch, 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, and support for pen tilt (up to 60 degrees). The tablet also supports Wacom's 6D Art Pen and Airbrush. So essentially it's an Intuos with a screen. And that's pretty much all I need to know.
The Cintiq uses a cord-free, battery-free grip pen that has a pressure-sensitive tip and eraser and two side switches with user-assignable functions (right click, click lock, display toggle, application-specific commands, etc.) The pen also includes a variety of interchangeable nibs: standard, spring-loaded, and pressed-felt nibs, the last two providing for greater tactile interaction. (I'm partial to the spring-loaded nib, but I've been known to swap it out for the pressed-felt nib at times.)
The bezel on the unit also sports 10 customizable keys, along with two touch strips (for scrolling, zooming, scrubbing, etc.). These are in two banks on either side of the display--five buttons and one touch strip per side.
The tablet also has an integrated pop-out stand so that it can either lie flat on your lap or be propped up for use on a desktop.
In terms of connectivity, the Cintiq 12WX includes everything you need for pretty much any situation. A single cable comes out of the unit, connecting up to an external hub (included). This hub has both a USB port and a DVI-I port. Included in the packages are all of the necessary cables, including the USB cable, a DVI cable, and a VGA cable. Cable length is generous at more than 6 feet, allowing for easy placement. (Note for MacBook users: a mini-DVI adapter is needed, as it would be to connect to any external display. The mini-DVI adapter is included with MacBook Pro notebooks, but it's an optional accessory for standard MacBooks. These adapters run about $20 to $25 for the "mini-DVI to VGA" adapter or the "mini-DVI to DVI-D" adapter. I tested both, and they both worked fine.)
One final note on the hardware. I've been using graphics tablets in my work (and for the heck of it) since the late 1980s. In all that time, with more than a dozen tablets, not a single one has ever gone bad or stopped functioning properly in any way.
Recommended Reading
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today.
- The Quilt Coalition Rolls Out XO Communications for High-Capacity Network Services
The Quilt, a coalition of 28 regional network organizations, has added XO Communications Services to its authorized vendor list. The Quilt represents 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions across the United States. With this new relationship, Quilt members can purchase XO's high-speed IP transit and network transport services at competitive rates.
- Wimba Classroom 5.2 Expands Classroom Capture Support, Adds MP3 Downloads
At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features.
- Automation Chimera: Education Is Not Management
The lure of automating workflow online so human intervention is minimized is continually reinforced in the minds of higher education administrators by examples of automated campus systems such as financials, student information systems, and other enterprise systems. But what's good for management is not always good for learning.
- Cognos Releases BI Software for Linux-based IBM System z Mainframe
Cognos, which IBM acquired in January, has released an update to its business intelligence software that will run on the Linux operating system on IBM System z mainframes. IBM Cognos 8 BI was being developed by the two companies prior to the acquisition, but assimilation of Cognos into IBM accelerated development.
- Facebook and Collegiality: A Serendipitous Social Niche
Facebook is a way to greet a colleague as if she or he is on your own campus: a wave at a distance, a hello at the corner burrito place, a honk as you both leave the campus parking lot. Informal collegiality has been extended over the miles.
