Wacom Cintiq 12WX review

Whether you wear an artist’s beret or the floppy hat of a digital doodler, the Wacom Cintiq 12WX is the daddy of dinky graphics tablets designed to inject extra pizazz into your pictures. A full-blown screen-toting scribbler, with an Autumn-crisp 12-inch LCD, the lap-happy 12WX is designed to enable you to turn your mind’s eye imaginings into something quite superb (and in our case, surreal). Read our Wacom Cintiq 12WX for our impressions.

The fiddliest bit is getting the Wacom Cintiq 12WX set up for the first time – if you’re on a new Mac you’ll need a Mini DVI (male) to VGA (female) adapter as well as a  Dvi (male) To VGA (male) cable – but once you’re hooked up, with pen neatly calibrated, and have your graphics software of choice up and running, it’s simply a case of poking pen to screen to get swish results.

The Wacom Cintiq 12WX’s pen is brilliantly accurate and responsive, enabling you to angle your brush strokes and apply pressure as you would a regular paint-soaked broom. Multiple nib attachments allow for heaps of arty experimentation, but for the most part we found the standard single-point nib did the business. The pen also boasts a pair of handy custom shortcut buttons that you can easily access with a quick jab of your index finger for making swift on-the-fly changes. Flick it upside-down and the reverse end naturally plays the role of rubber extraordinaire, meaning you can easily scrub out mistakes, nil fuss.

Read our Wacom tablet second generation review now

We went to work on the Electricpig logo within a matter of moments of getting the 12WX out of the box, and happily tinkered and toyed with the many easy-to-personalise settings, and a couple of hours later had created the marvelous monstrosity you’ll see documented in the gallery due north.

The Wacom Cintiq 12WX, with its clear 16:10 widescreen, is super light and can comfortably sit on your lap for hours without fear of thigh-burn or crotch-ache – we’ve sketched countless times with it perched on our hams. It also comes toting a neat rock-solid kickstand for more precision desktop drawing (pictured).

Those buttons you spy either side of the 12-inch screen are dubbed the ExpressKeys – these can be customised so your most-used functions are made instantly available. Plus, there’s a responsive vertical trackpad nestled next to the buttons for speedy and convenient zooming in and out.

Unlike many digital art and design tools the Wacom Cintiq 12WX doesn’t require you to learn countless new skills, but rather amplifies the talents you already possess. More sketchbook than science book the 12WX feels natural, intuitive and sits alongside your paint pots, pens, craft knives and sharpeners as a loyal companion tool that will only make you a better craftsman.