Cintiq 21 ux Review || Article

When I've fallen in love with my Cintiq at work, I relized that I need to write a review about it for you. As I mentioned before, my work station at CA studio has Cintiq 21 ux and additionally monitor for references and such.

I was surprised that there are so much differences between working on Intuos and Cintiq. Its completly different experience, you have a touch contact with glass, almost like drawing on very smooth paper. This glass becomes warmer as long as its turned on, and its very nice feeling :D

You can paint very dynamic lines and very precisly or very rough and loose ones and this is really feeling of real drawing. Especially its awesome if you work on very huge files, and if you working on a detail, you actually FEEL its a bigger area to paint. When I'm drawing on intuos, its size is always the same, you see zooming in or zooming out only on the screen. On Cintiq you have very natural feeling of working on very huge canvases. Its hard to describe :P

This glass is very reflectible, and this is a huge disadventage, because we have on studio very bright lamps above every desk, and when I sometimes customaise the angle of cintiq, and I stare at it, i see this lamp :P But this glass is very nice to touch, very smooth, and pen nibs will have for sure very long life there. I've been working on  it for over 3 months with only one pen nimb and it still looks like new one. So if you will have this cintiq, just ask someone to turn the light off or just customise the angle that way to unable cintiq reflect something bright, and its very important because of it I used to have a headache very frequently, and when I searched a reason of this headache, I relized that I'm staring at lamp, and its because of it.

On this Cintiq colors looks awesome, but again I realized that its brightness settings were too bright, and my beautiful colors were very dark on different computers. So just make sure that it has good brightness and contrast settings before you start working on it.

Photoshop and OpenGL. I love OpenGL because of dynamic zooming and rotating a canvas. I don't know why, but Cintiq has problems with OpenGL. If I have PS opened on Cintiq and create new file, this file wont use Open GL until I will move whole ps window to second monitor, and open a file there. Then I have to move the window to Cintiq and then Open GL is working. I don't know solution about such thing, i have installed the newest drivers for graphic card and for Cintiq, so if you have a solution, please tell me :P

Subpixels. Nightmare for everyone who works on Cintiqs. Mine first subpixels appeared on first week of using. Now I have 7 of them, they are purple, sometimes this annoys me, but generally I can't see them.They are most visible on backround with opposite color to this on which they are shining. Until 5 of them won't become >BLACK< (dead) we can't send this Cintiq to Wacom (it's funny but in fact this dont disturb me so much to complain about it)

Express Keys

Finally I have enough buttons to customize!! :> Its awesome, this cintiq has 16 buttons and 2 wheels , both have 4 options, and they are on two sides, so finally I dont need keyboard when I paint :> Its very comfortable and its a pleasure to work without keyboard :D

Comfort of working.

I found the Cintiq as very comfortable tool to work with. Its huge, very precise, and easy to customize. You can rotate him, change the angle, tilt it and work on it  with real pleasure. You just need to find good place to put him on it, wihout window/lamp reflections. In fact i think that it would be even better to work on it in very dark room, but in our open space its impossible i guess. :)

Others opinions...

Some 3d artists from CA also worked on Cintiq, but they almost always complained that its uncofrotable for them, bacause they need a keaboard anyway, and there is no space below the screen for the keyboard. But for guys like them, Wacom involved a new Cintiq, with free to plase, and above him is a place for keyboard :)

And guys who are wokring on 2d art, they always appreciate this hardware.

but

Don't buy smaller Cintiq. I've heard from some several sources that they are totaly pointles and really unconfortable. You need to have a huge area to place your hand. If you will buy this tinytiny Cintiq you probably will see nothing because you will cover all monitor with your hand :)

One guy from work also told me that he bought an older version of used Cintiq. And now focus people: this cintiq was totaly ruined, unable to use because of scratches on the working area. So just be careful when you will decide to buy it. Used ones could be much cheaper than the new one, but be sharp and check why its so cheap.

Am I going to buy it for myself?

Its one of very common question I received :D I think that the main adventage in working in CA studio is more fact that I have two monitors, than this I have a cintiq. It's more the possibility to have your wip OPENED all the time, so you can stare at it and think what the hell is wrong with it :) But on the other hand... if I will buy a second monitor (because I know thats very helpful, and for sure I will), and if I would like to buy a Eizo or another expensive monitor for graphics... why not buy a Cintiq? ;) In fact, I  already started to spare some monay for this purpose :D

I hope it was helpful for you guys :)
Cheers,
Telthona