Wacom Mobilestudio Pro
PRICE £3,200 COMPANY Wacom WEBSITE wacom.com
Does the latest incarnation of the Mobilestudio Pro impress?
Almost three years ago I reviewed the original Mobilestudio Pro and, at the time, it impressed. It had a great screen, excellent build quality, Wacom’s famed user experience and decent specs, albeit slightly pricey.
Now, it’s early 2020 and I’m back with the latest incarnation and a dose of scepticism about what updates were possible, as the latest version is ostensibly the same. It turns out quite a few changes have been made.
Starting off with the physical product you’ll find a very familiar tablet computer. It’s heavy but smooth, good looking and is thinner than a similarly specced laptop. Modern devices have for the most part dropped old-style USB ports and that is evident
here, with three USB-C ports on one end, with the opposite housing the power, volume and an SD card slot.
The bezel is sized to allow a useable amount of palm contact, making for a comfortable experience, and best of all Wacom have included a three-position stand that can be left on or removed very simply. This was a sore point in early versions, so its inclusion here is very welcome. What’s more, the design is clever but strong, so you can happily lean on it when at your desk with every confidence it will support you.
The screen retains its 4K resolution, under a lovely etched screen. This is important as it minimises the distance between your stylus nib and the pixels, delivering very little parallax, the effect of an ‘air’ gap that can ruin a drawing experience. Of course there is also multi-touch support, which is switchable to prevent accidental input while using the Pro Pen 2 (Wacom’s finest standard stylus. There is also a version for 3D artists that has a different button layout).
The specification of the 16inch version is pretty high for a mobile device, driven by the Intel i7 chip and supported very well by a 4GB NVIDIA Quadro P1000 graphics card – plenty for heavy Photoshop sessions and 3D work on the move. I ran Blackmagic’s Resolve/fusion without any issues, even with pretty dense node setups, and Cinema 4D runs very smoothly indeed. One note here is that,
although a stylus is great and the pop-up software keyboard is fine, I would recommend a Bluetooth keyboard for extended work sessions. There really is no way around a good set of keyboard shortcuts for certain types of work.
One of the big changes to this release is the ‘backdoor’ accessory to the device’s internals, which allows for userupgradeable RAM and SSD. It ships with a 256GB M.2 drive and 16GB of RAM – a healthy amount, but there will be those who prefer more. I’d say this was a good amount for most users however, so don’t expect to need to upgrade soon. Just know you can and give thanks to Wacom for providing the opportunity, after quite a while.
Back to the display. While it retains its excellent clarity and brightness it also still has only 85% Adobe RGB accuracy. That might not seem great but for most users there will be no discernible difference. That said, it has to be mentioned, as if you are working in a colour-accurate pipeline it could be a decisive factor in your purchasing. I really think though, that if you are working in a colour-critical space, then you will have the appropriate hardware for it and a mobile workstation such as this will be an addition, not the core.
The surface of the glass is smooth, deals with glare very well and, most importantly for many, feels good. The way a stylus interacts with a surface can make or break the
“THE BEZEL ALLOWS A USEABLE AMOUNT OF PALM CONTACT, MAKING FOR A COMFORTABLE EXPERIENCE”
experience of digital drawing and painting and Wacom have almost always got this right. The Mobilestudio Pro carries this on, with a very slight texture that gives just the right amount of traction to the nib. As a touch interface it works very well too, so all bases are covered there.
One last note is the power supply. This is a wall wart, transformer-based unit, as you would expect, and powers the Wacom with a decent length of cable. It also provides enough power to both run the tablet and charge the batteries, which then give around 4-6 hours use on the move. In real terms this turned out to be an average 5.5 hours using Cinema 4D, although I did disable Wi-fi for this. Not bad at all.
All that remains is the cost. This isn’t a cheap device but if you are a working pro artist, who needs to work on the move or is looking for a versatile machine for their main computer, then this is worth exploring. The ability to upgrade adds a very welcome level of future proofing.
VERDICT