Cintiq 22 2019 Review (DTK2260K0A), an affordable large Cintiq with Pro Pen 2

Cintiq 22 Review In Few Words (Mini Review)

With the release of Cintiq 22, almost all Cintiq Pro models will have a chapter alternative with a similar size. While I have no issue recommending other Wacom alternatives, like Huion, XP-Pen and the other (I use a Huion myself), some prefer to get a brand like Wacom.

While it’s a good cheap alternative to the Cintiq Pro 24, it lacks some of the features it could have came up with. Like a higher resolution, laminated display, express keys (or having the express keys remote included). That doesn’t make it a bad pen display, but giving how the competitors offer these features, it would have been nice to see them on Cintiq 22.

This review will be updated to reflect issues that may come up & as more things come up.

Buy Cintiq 22 or check the price in the following Amazon & eBay links:-

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Pros Of Cintiq 22

It’s Nice to see a cheaper 21.5-inch pen display for those who don’t need the Cinitq Pro 22, but still need a large drawing area.
The stand is included, which wasn’t the case with Cintiq 16.
Supports HDMI out of the box.

Cons Of Cintiq 22

May still be pricy for what it offers.
Has no express keys out of the box (the Citniq Remote is sold separately).
The screen is not laminated, something Wacom’s competitors managed to achieve at a lower price point.
It would have been nice if it had a higher screen resolution.

Cintiq 22’S Technical Specifications

Model Number:- DTK2260K0A
Screen size:- 21.5 inch
Screen resolution:- 1920 x 1080
Drawing Area 476 x 268 mm (18.7 x 10.55 inch)
Size:- 570 x 359 x 40 mm (22.4 x 14.1 x 1.6 inch)
Weight:- 5.6 kg with stand
Maximum Displayable Colors:- 16.7 million
Color Gamut:- 72% NTSC (CIE1931)
Screen Viewing Angle 178/178°
Screen Contrast Ratio 1000:1
Response time:- 25 ms
Screen Aspect Ratio 16:9
Screen brightness:- 210 cd/m² (typ) (including glass)
Color Temperature:- 9300K, 6500K, 5000K
Comes with Pro Pen 2, which doesn’t require battery to work.
The Pro Pen 2 has 2 customizable side switches.
Pressure sensitivity:- 8,192 levels (both sides of the pen)
Pen Tilt sensitivity:- ±60 level
Supports the optional ExpressKey Remote, which has 17 customizable keys, as well as a touch ring,
Comes with Wacom Adjustable Stand included
Supported operating system (Windows):- Windows® 7 or later (with latest service pack/build)
Supported operating system (Mac):- Mac OS® X 10.12 or later (latest update)
Comes with 3 standard replacement nibs inside the pen holder, as well as nib removal tool.

The Screen

Let’s take a closer look at Cintiq 22’s screen. As that’s the part you will be drawing on all the time. It has a 21.5-Inch screen, which is considered large to draw on, and probably too big for some artists. The screen resolution 1920 x 1080 (full HD), which has been the standard for many pen displays, although it’s lower than the 4K displays Wacom has been offering on their higher-end displays for over 2 years. This is not a bad resolution to draw at, but for a screen with this size, it may be considered low. It would have been nice if Wacom offered 2K screen instead. Specially with the fact that their competitors also offer a full HD screen as well

Color Gamut

The color gamut for the screen is 72% NTSC, which is the average we see in many computer monitors. If colors are important to you, you may need to have a separate monitor with higher gamut to test the colors of your artworks. To help lowering the price, I guess Wacom lowered the gamut used in the Cintiq Pro 24, which used to be about 94% NTSC (99% Adobe RGB, to be precise).

Not A Laminated Display

Unlike the Cintiq Pro 24, which had a laminated screen, Cintiq 22’s screen is not laminated. In case you’re wondering what that means, laminated screen is the screen where the screen glass, digitizer, and the display are made of one piece. This makes the screen thinner, prevent dust to come below the screen glass, which happens at times in pen displays, and more importantly, it reduces parallax, which is an offset between the mouse cursor and the tip of the pen. Parallax is usually caused by the distance between the pen tip and the digitizer, and laminated display reduces this distance.

Not having a laminated display on Cintiq 22 doesn’t mean you can’t draw with it. Even with the presence of parallax, you can draw very well & create awesome artworks. Despite that, I still wonder why Wacom didn’t include a laminated display. Something many of their competitors actually did.

Screen Coating

The screen itself has matte Anti-glare coating. Unlike reflective screens, this kind of screens doesn’t reflect light much, so it doesn’t appear like a mirror when used outside, or when placed in a location close to a window. This is neither good nor bad, as some artists may prefer the reflective one to display colors better. While the screen is not glossy, it also doesn’t have the same level of grains that was in Cintiq 22HD, that was something many artists didn’t like back in the day.

HDMI Support

Cintiq 22 requires HDMI port to be connected your computer, this is good, because it means you can connect it to almost any modern computer (you may need an cheap adapter if your computer doesn’t have one). I still remember the day Wacom kinda tried to ditch the HDMI port when they released their Cintiq Pro 13 & Cintiq Pro 16 models, it was much harder to connect them to a computer with only HDMI port prior to the release of Wacom Link plus. I guess that Wacom learned from their lesson, and started supporting HDMI all the models that came after that.

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Drawing Experience

When it comes to the drawing experience. Cintiq 22 is very similar to the other Cintiq models I have been writing about lately. It supports a pressure sensitivity of 8192, which is way more than enough.

What is pressure sensitivity? Pressure sensitivity is a feature that allows you to create thinner or thicker lines based on the amount of pressure you place on the pen while drawing. It can also be used to control brush opacity and other things, depending on your art program. You can read more about it in my post here.

Cintiq 22 also supports tilt sensitivity, which allows you to vary your brush strokes by tilting your pen. It’s similar to what you can do with traditional pencils.

As I mentioned when I talked about the screen, the screen is not laminated, but that won’t prevent you from being able to draw well with it, but it’s something to wish it has been there.

The screen surface itself is not exactly glossy, thanks to the coating it has on it. The kind of surface is a matter of preference between different artists.

Monitor Stand

Cintiq 22 comes with an adjustable stand. Which allows you to tilt it forward & backward. It’s quite sturdy, and once you adjust it to the angle you want, it stays in place.

If you are familiar with Cintiq Alternative, then you have a good idea on how it looks like.

Unlike the Cintiq 16, where you had to purchase the stand separately, the stands comes include with Cintiq 22.

Supports Mount Support VESA

If you want more flexibility, you can remove Cintiq 22’s stand, which reveals a VESA mount at the back of it. This mount allows you to mount it to a monitor arm. This can make drawing with it a bless, as you could move it around & adjust it to your liking. This is an advantage over the Cintiq Pro 24, which had its own custom mount, where you had to either buy Wacom’s expensive stand, or get a custom adapter to convert it to VESA.

You can take a look at the various arms here on Amazon & eBay:-
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No Express Keys

Cintiq 22 has no hot keys build-in(Wacom calls them Express Keys, which is what I will use for the rest of this review). Instead, Wacom offers you the Cintiq Remote, which is sold separately. It includes 17 customizable express keys, as well as a touch ring, which you can use for resizing the brush, zooming in & out, and any other things you want it to do (the ring supports 4 functions, which you can toggle between using the round button at the middle).

Gone are the days where Wacom used to offer Express Keys on the Cintiq itself. Here’s how the express keys used to look like on an older model:-

Artists that don’t use those keys will be happy, as some of them often complained about pressing them by mistake numerous of times. Overall, I think the lack of express keys out of the box can be good or bad depending on the artist. Some artists prefer to use the keyboard, especially those who need much more keys than any Cintiq model offers, those artist won’t care whether there are express keys or not. Despite the fact I no longer use these keys. I personally prefer to have them around, since they are useful when I am doing a task that doesn’t requires me to use many shortcuts, like sketching.

It’s worth noting that the Cintiq Remote is sold separately.

You can find Express Key Remote from the following Amazon & eBay links:-
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The Pro Pen

Like all the recent Cintiq models, Cintiq 22 comes with Pro Pen 2. The pen has 2 buttons in the side, which can be customized in all sorts of ways, just like the express keys.

Some of the things you could assign to these buttons are:-

- Mouse clicks
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Modifier keys (Shift, CTRL, Alt… etc).
- Open an application
- Toggle precision mode

Cintiq 22 comes with a loop you could attach to the side, you can place the pen inside that loop when you’re not using it, so that you won’t lose it the next time you want to draw or work on an artwork (trust me, this happens quite often to some artists).

The pen has an eraser on the back, which allows you to switch to the eraser tool quickly. Similar to how traditional pencils work.

The Pro Pen 2 comes with 3 replacement pen tips (called nibs) to replace the ones in your pen when it wears down, and becomes pointy. You do that to avoid scratching the screen of your Cintiq.

For more information about pen nibs, and how much they could last, you can refer to my detail post about them here:-

How much Wacom nibs lasts? And how to make your graphics tablet nibs last longer

A Final Word On Cintiq 22

It’s pretty clear that Cintiq 22 is targeted toward those who don’t need Cintiq Pro 22. Although some artists may still need a feature or two from that model, and particularly the 4K screen.

The fact you’re paying about double the price of Cintiq 16 for few more inches makes it more desirable to have some of those features.

I personally think the Citniq 16 is better for beginners, both from budget and value. You can buy Cinitq 16, as well as the stand for much chapter, but if screen size is important to you, you won’t go wrong by buying Cintiq 22.

If price is an issue, and you still want a pen display with a screen around 22-inch, then consider the Huion Kamvas Pro 22.

Despite everything I said, you won’t go wrong with this one if you can afford it, but I thought I should remind you of the other options right here.