gizmodo.com: Artists, illustrators, and designers of all kinds rely on Wacom's line of drawing tablets. Up until now, the devices only worked as peripherals. But Wacom's new line of fully self-contained tablets are the only devices you need to make art just about anywhere.
The Cintiq Companion is Wacom's attempt to integrate its own powerful stylus & tablet technology into a fully-featured mobile device. It comes in two different varieties.
8 comments:
This just another tablet. So many companies these days are trying to produce the next big thing and make their product more successful than their competitors. Personally this article doesn't sell the product too well, saying, "the Companion Hybrid particularly could be a hard sell if the Android experience is too limited due to proprietary software and lack of horsepower." I guess I can't wrap my mind around the fact that these things cost a minimum of $1500 and can get up to $2000. That is just an unreasonable appraisal for a tablet. I'll stick to my ipad, which is still expensive, but not that terrible.
These tablets look really cool. "Wacom Pro-Pen with 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity" - that's incredible.
However it sort of reminds me of the new trend of of turning things into electronics.
For example the electronic instruments like a keyboard or a violin. Or electronic books like the Kindle.
It's a cool trend but then a lot of these things lose their heart. For instance, I found that reading a book on a kindle is much less fun that reading a "real" book.
So I feel that it might be the same with these tablets... they're cool but probably not as great as the real thing.
Never having used a tablet like this myself it's hard to judge how useful or popular this might be but unless it really is the next big thing and revolutionizes digital art, I think the price point will be its downfall.
Similar to what Philip said, I can't make too many judgements about this new tablet never having used one myself, but I do see its potential usefulness and room for creativity. Also, dharan brings up a great point regarding our new era of melding conventional means of doing activities into electronic alternatives. Could this tablet and others like it be the downfall of art as we know it? Or could it be the spark of a new modem of art that will soon revolutionize it all?
Products like this are in my opinion just another step in furthering along this electronic and inter web era. I'm not opposed to the technological advancements being made, I am however concerned with the traditions that are being left behind. What the hell happened to crayons? And paint? I realize the selling point for this item, "make art anywhere" and "electronic alternatives". But that's kind of the point. There alternatives, and not the real thing. I'm not discounting the artistic merit of media or other forms of primarily electronic. But I am opposed to the loss of centuries of traditions and wonder for something with a screen and neat apps.
As someone who is very interested in tablets, I find that this one seems pretty high quality. Though I will agree with Keith that the pricing for any tablet, including this one, is unreasonably high. Of course the large display and the "life-like drawing experience" are something I'm sure any artist would love, I just don't think that the features justify the price.
Although everyone has brought up many good points about the technology and electric era front, this does seem like a great step forward for Wacom. Wacom tablets were out there super early and are used everywhere, especially in the graphics industry. Making it into a tablet just allow the graphics industry to be more mobile and see and do at the same time. iPads are great, but they probably would be anywhere near as good as a Wacom tablet for graphic design. If Wacom does come out with the pen for the iPad and it works just as well as their tablet, then they may have an issue.
Christina brings up a valid point of losing the old "traditions", but I guess I have to say that we always do. There are still artists who use tangible media today, and there are artists who are all electronic. It just depends what you need. Graphic/electronic artists need something like this. But I dont think we will completely kill those artists with a pen and paper.
I feel that with any new technology, there is going to be push-back from people who are greatly invested in whatever the product is trying to change. I am sure there are people who are deeply against creating art with anything other than paint or other "traditional" methods.However, I feel that with many new technologies like this, instead of replacing the traditional methods, new technology creates a new category of product- for example, the electric guitar did not bring an end to acoustic music, it just expanded the music industry to new sounds. Of course any art created on this tablet would not look the same, but is that necessarily a bad thing?
If the technology advances enough, it could even be a great gift to those who have less resources to spend on supplies. Yes, $1000 is expensive, but you only have to spend it once. When high quality paint is nearly $10 a tube, it is difficult for anyone on a limited budget to do "traditional" art. Prices on technology always go down as improvements are made- in a few years this could be affordable for many. Or imagine a kind of "art library," where people could go to use these tablets and create art for free, and then share it with the world. I feel this technology has great potential, both in the realm of the possibilities of art that can be produced and in that it could level the playing field for the creators of art.
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