Wacom has launched the Cintiq 12WX, their first hybrid product combining a Cintiq interactive pen display with the portability of a traditional Intuos3 pen tablet, aimed at professional digital content creators undertaking tasks including storyboarding, finishing, retouching and compositing.

Offering slimline dimensions (405 x 270 x 17mm) comparable to an Intuos3 A5 Wide, Wacom says the Cintiq 12WX mixes a 12.1-inch TFT display for direct pen-on-screen drawing, painting and sketching, with the features and performance consistent with the Cintiq 21UX and Intuos3 range.

Like the Cintiq 21UX, users can work with the pressure sensitive pen directly on the high quality screen, which
provides a WXGA resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels with 24-bit colour depth and a viewing angle of 170 degrees.

Cintiq 21UX and Intuos3 functionality is integrated into the Cintiq 12WX, which includes the ExpressKeys and Touch Strips. The ExpressKeys are two programmable, five-button keypads that are preconfigured with frequently used modifier keys, such as CTRL, ALT, SHIFT, SPACE or to initiate functions such as the Display Toggle function.

The Touch Strip acts like a scroll bar with presets to allow zooming and scrolling in various applications.

The Grip Pen is cordless, battery-free and ergonomically designed. Wacom claims it provides precise advanced control and realistic results due to the 5080lpi resolution and 1024 pressure levels in both the pen tip and eraser.

The Cintiq 12WX supports all Intuos3 input devices. In supported applications, all input devices offer Tool ID, where the tablet automatically recognises the relevant tool with its individual settings when the device is brought into contact with the tablet.

The display comes profiled out of the box and can be calibrated with most colour measurement solutions on the market from companies including Datacolor, X-Rite and basicolour.

Complete with a stand, the Cintiq 12WX is bundled with Corel Painter Essentials a special edition of the natural media drawing application Corel Painter and will be available from November 2007 in the UK from Computers Unlimited and is priced at £829.99.