The leap from Wacom’s Intuos (a ~$300 graphics tablet) to its Cintiq (a $1200 pen-sensitive display) was always too much for me to make: a big investment in a new way of working that I’m not sure I’d benefit from. The likelihood of me forking out receded further when the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil came along, offering better latency for less dough. That said, you don’t get Creative Suite and you’re stuck with Apple’s cursor-less way of doing things—so I might well give the new $649 Cintiq 16 [Wacom] a try.
The first “entry-level” Cintiq, it has a 1080-line 15.6-inch display with 8,192 pressure levels, and ditches the physical buttons and touch support found on the high-res Cintiq Pro models.
Now, $649 is nothing to sneer at. But for students and working artists who use cheap knockoffs and are sick of fooling around with them, it’s a useful ramp to the industry standard.