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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. You also have access to a radial menu—the top Express Key on the left, by default, calls up the radial menu onscreen. In fact, there are two radial menus—one called Radial, the other called Express. Both pull up similar-looking wheels of useful commands and options, and each option can be swapped out for something else. The wheel is useful for accessing commonly needed actions, like Save or Tab, that might not quite warrant their own physical Express Key. When it appears onscreen, its circular interface hovers over whatever app you have open, taking up little space, with its options easily selectable.
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. Maybe that’s not ideal, from a space-saving standpoint, but to be that close to a high-res screen when editing video is a distinct advantage. Tasks that sometimes have me leaning forward and squinting at my iMac require no such effort on the Cintiq Pro 27. And to those who feel that 27 inches seems like a downgrade from the previous 32-inch model, it’s really hard for me to imagine more screen space being practical—this is a massive work surface as is. At some point, you’re simply sacrificing desk space. Setting the tablet up is a straightforward 'plug and play' process, and optional accessories such as a pen holder are easily attachable to the sides of the display. There are a number of mount holes around the display’s exterior, which are designed for workspace customization through the ability to mount devices such as cameras, microphones or lights. The cabinet has built-in cable management cinches, and some Velcro cable-management ties are also included. According to Wacom, the system ships with a USB-C-to-USB-C cable (5.9 feet), a USB-C-to-USB-A cable (5.9 feet), an HDMI cable (5.9 feet), and a mini DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort cable. (Our review unit came with only the cables necessary for the iMac we tested the display with.) 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.
Ideas jump off the screen
The Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 works out of the box with preloaded gestures for both your fingers and the included Wacom Pro Pen 3, and these will be familiar and feel intuitive to anyone used to working with other tablets such as an iPad. 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. 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.
The Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 is heavy, but no more bulky than a typical PC monitor. (Image credit: Future) 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.The display is only Full HD, not QHD or 4K as is increasingly standard on drawing tablets these days. Realistically, for the majority of users, this is going to be absolutely fine – more than enough pixels. However, it’s the same resolution as the smaller Wacom Cintiq 16, so if you don’t mind sacrificing a bit of drawing space in favour of a clearer image, that’s a compelling alternative. The Cintiq Pro 27's price is prohibitively high for many of us, who will have to keep our fingers crossed for a less expensive model that includes these new improvements in, perhaps, a smaller size. But for those who can fit the Cintiq Pro 27 into their budget, it’s an excellent centerpiece for any digital workstation for video, photography, and/or graphics.
Like most other modern tablets, the Cintiq Pro 27 Pro Pen 3 can recognize the degree of tilt and pressure up to 8,192 levels using Wacom’s Electro-Magnetic Resonance technology. Messing with it by drawing (poorly as you’ll see below) some lines and shapes and testing pressure levels, speed and angles, the pen was perfectly responsive and accurate. 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.In recent years there have been an impressive number of new competitors in the graphics tablet market, giving a constantly growing list of alternatives for you to choose from. 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. On its own, the Cintiq Pro 27 weighs a healthy 15.9 pounds, but that stat is not terribly useful—the stand, at 23.6 by 14.1 by 12.6 inches, weighs another 19.8 pounds, so the total weight of the system is nearly 36 pounds. Unless you have a VESA mount you plan to use instead of the stand, you’ll be adding some substantial weight to whatever flat surface you place this on. 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 Cintiq Pro 27’s screen was a little dimmer than I expected which resulted in colors appearing to be a bit muted, but the display still has incredibly great resolution and color accuracy. The grip and control buttons on the sides are pretty useful — if for nothing else other than repositioning the screen — and the Pro Pen 3, while not the most impressive looking, was incredibly accurate and handled exceptionally well, especially since the nib didn’t have the trademark “wobble” that’s present in nearly every other pen on the market. Finally, the entire surface supports multi-touch, so you can leverage the entire screen as a touchpad for hand gestures for additional workflow enhancements should you desire. The experience is the best I’ve tested to date. While retouching photos, it was super easy to get even single-pixel accuracy when zoomed in which is wildly impressive considering how shakey and inaccurate my coffee-fueled body tends to be. The company says the screen features no parallax or latency and in my testing, I can pretty much confirm this to be accurate. The feeling of the pen-to-screen was incredibly smooth and natural and after a week of long days of testing, there were barely even any fingerprint smudges on the screen, which tells me it combats the side effects of daily use very well. Wacom Cintiq Pro 27: The PenAt its size, however, the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 can be uncomfortable to sit close to for longer lengths of time. This is an issue to be aware of, as creating and drawing with any pen display will almost always involve you having to sit as close as possible to its screen. Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 review: performance
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