I think it’s widely accepted that designers and engineers love a good pen and paper combination.
Whether you talk to lead industrial designers at large audio manufacturers about their love for the multi-colour pen or an engineer that prefers the whiteboard and pen to sketch out an idea, drawing is where it’s at. That said, some are more advanced in their use of drawing tools.
The use of tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, CorelDraw and the more recent apps for iPad (such as Autodesk SketchBook series of products) and others, mean that digital sketching is something that many are doing.
If you’re a pro at it, creating assets for customer presentation, for management review and want to go all out at it, then there’s very little in this world more exciting than Wacom’s Cintiq products.
Combining a high-res digital display with Wacom’s technology mastery of pen-based input (you want 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity and tilt recognition, you got it), then they’re things to behold. They’re also REALLY bloody expensive. That said, the last few years have seen those costs lowered, but still, until this morning, the entry level was around the couple of grand mark for the larger versions.
So, it’s with some excitement that I was just emailed details about Wacom’s new entry level 13HD device. This brings all the bells and whistles you’d expect. 1920 x 1080 HD screen, adjustable positions, 17.8 Million colours and a metric tonne of awesome. All yours for an RRP of £749.99 – so one hell of a lot cheaper once you knock the VAT off.
This is a pretty nice solution, more reasonably priced. It’s not going to impact the “iPad as sketchbook sales” much, but for those that are in front of their machines, want something that’s got a little more interactivity than a standard tablet, then it’s a nice deal.
