Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
Along the top right (rear) corner of the Cintiq, you’ll find a series of buttons for powering the device on and off, toggling the touch features, and activating the Cintiq System Menu which can be further navigated by using the “grip” buttons on either side of the device. The Cintiq Pro 27 showed good brightness at 344 nits, and its 991:1 contrast ratio effectively matched its 1,000:1 rating by Wacom. Like the Apple Pencil for iPads, the Pro Pen 3 can be customized—its three buttons can host a far wider range of commands than the Pencil’s double-tap, however, which is fairly limited in scope. The display will begin to recognize the stylus at about 5mm away from the screen’s surface, so any shortcuts you program on the buttons will only work from that distance as well. This is notable for those who are transitioning from a keyboard-and-mouse setup. If you assign a keyboard shortcut (Command+Z for undo, say) to a Pro Pen 3 button, it might take a minute to get used to the fact that the Pro Pen 3’s “undo” will work only when your pen is very close to the screen. For some, this will take a bit of time to become second nature—or, you could assign functions to the stylus buttons that, typically, would only be handled by a mouse, and save keyboard shortcuts for the Express Keys on the display itself. For me, this proved the fastest way to work, at least in the early phases of testing. The possibilities for setting up a hyper-efficient workspace in the Wacom Center app seem pretty wide open, as we’ll discuss next. As mentioned, the Cintiq does support touch but I could take or leave them. For the most part, I left them. After some initial testing of the touch capabilities, which do work, I never felt there was a scenario where using them instead of the programmable buttons or my nearby keyboard was a better option.
The screen is warm when used all day, but it’s not hot. Then again, I tested the display in a climate-controlled room, and in late autumn into winter, at that. If your studio gets warm, especially on hot summer days, your results may vary, but at least in a typical 72-degree F “room temperature” setting, the display and fan don't present problems. I even tried to pump up the brightness and make it a little warmer than usual in my testing space, but the fan never got distractingly loud, nor did the screen heat up too much. Wacom confirms a new fan design was used for this model, and the ventilation panels are also substantially redesigned—in both cases, it worked. For instance, the touch features are the one time I felt the Cintiq Pro 27 was a bit laggy and unlike using the pen and keyboard, I couldn’t pan and zoom at the same time when using touch controls. So while there is usefulness to the touch features, I think this is an area where Wacom still has some room to improve and could take some notes from the functionality and performance of something like an Apple iPad Pro. During our time with the Cintiq Pro 27, we worked primarily with three software programs – Clip Studio Paint, Adobe Photoshop and 3D-modelling program Blender – and the display made working with each of these programs comfortable and enjoyable, as well as helping workflow feel more fluid and faster than usual. Arguably placing it along the side of your dominant hand shouldn’t be an issue as you won’t be using that hand to access the buttons behind the grip anyway since it will be occupied holding the pen, but since I was planning on messing with positions a lot while using the device, I opted to leave the mount on the top left side of the screen. The premium Pro Pen 2, supplied with the tablet, is one of the best styluses around (save of course for the recent Pro Pen 3 that comes with the new Cintiq Pro tablets), and it never needs charging. With pressure and tilt sensitivity, it gives you real drawing flexibility, and the level of “bite” on the stylus is just right.The Apple Pencil may seem hyper-futuristic as it charges via induction while it rests on the edge of an iPad display magnetically, but consider this: The Pro Pen 3 has no battery or cord, and it requires no charging at all. It uses Electromagnetic Resonance (EMR)—a technology Wacom developed in the 1980s—to work with the screen, as pen pressure and button presses are converted to electromagnetic waves. Furthermore, the Pro Pen 3 has a 10ms rated response time, versus the Apple Pencil’s 20ms. This, paired with a 120Hz refresh rate on the screen, equates to extremely low latency. The Pro Pen 3 has 8,192 pressure levels and supports 60 degrees of pen tilt angle. Pressure sensitivity for the Wacom Pro Pen 3 is very much on the higher end at 8,192 levels, which is great for anyone who expects to work with more specific details in their design. Of course, some softwares you might use will have different level caps, so it isn’t necessarily guaranteed that you’ll always be working with the pen’s peak sensitivity. The Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 is probably the most accurate and responsive tablet I’ve tested in the last few years. The system has a whole set of customization tools available to adjust the pen sensitivity, angle, tilt, and more through the Wacom Center app that even allows you to draw on a “blank surface” while testing out all of the various settings. However, we did find that not all of the Cintiq Pro 27’s gestures would translate to every program. This isn’t necessarily a problem that can be blamed on the display itself, but it’s something to be aware of when preparing to work with it.
Naturally, as a multi-touch display, the Cintiq Pro 27 is very responsive when using either the pen or your fingers to work on designs. At times, these levels of sensitivity can actually be a frustration when in use – if you’re drawing with the pen while multi-touch is enabled, for example, it’s not uncommon to start a pen stroke and then have it evaporate because you’ve accidentally grazed the display with your finger.
A display that looks and feels totally natural
The Cintiq Pro 27 boasts a 30-bit color gamut, with 98% DCI-P3 and 99% Adobe RGB, as well as HDR Gamma support. As with other Wacom Cintiq models, the Pro 27’s parallax is generally very minimal, regardless of the angle you’re working with.
Great Deal 
New Comment