My first honest response to reading your question was that if you don’t already know how having the ability to draw/sculpt directly on your screen would provide a far superior sculpting experience to using a mouse… I suspect you don’t do much drawing.
The quality of your mouse is completely irrelevant (Incidentally I use a $10 mouse and have never felt the need for anything more in one) - no mouse is designed to provide the kind of user interaction that a tablet monitor provides. To suggest otherwise is almost like comparing a hammer to a scalpel - sure, you can break skin with either but one is far better suited to the task, and so it goes with mouse and tablet - at least for most sculpting activities in Zbrush or similar packages, which, given the forum we are in, and some of what you’ve said, I have assumed is your intended task - but it is certainly true that poly modeling in Maya for example would not require a tablet, and perhaps this is true of Zmodeler (I don’t know - I haven’t delved much into that yet). So, consider what you intend to do…
Getting to your actual question:
I’ve worked with Cintiq’s at several studios, I own a Huion GT 220 and have likewise researched all the Wacom competitors (one you did not mention that you should look at is the Ugee-2150 - From what I’ve read it sounds like an improvement over the Huion). The simple is this:
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If you believe that getting the best quality product is important and money is no object, get a Wacom. Which size you should go for depends a great deal on personal preference and what kind of work you intend to do, but considering what you have said thus far I’d get the 22inch model, and I’d put it on a good monitor arm as that makes it really easy to move in and out of drawing position according to your needs (the same would go for any other brand).
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If saving $1000+ is important or simply attractive to you then I suggest considering either the Huion GT 220 or the Ugee-2150, but be aware that there are caveats, which I will explain below:
Caveat 1 - Tilt and Color:
In all the Cintiq competitor products that I am aware of you are losing tilt sensitivity and getting a monitor with a smaller color range, however, these losses may not matter.
Zbrush for example does not read tilt information from a wacom pen (I think - correct me if I’m wrong somebody), so you don’t have that feature anyway if you are only sculpting. Where you might miss that feature is when painting with tilt-sensitive brushes in Photoshop or Painter, but even many professional full-time 2D artist’s would not miss this feature so I very much doubt that you would.
A Cintiq has a wider color gamut (can show more colors), but this is only essential for color-critical work such as compositing, grading, and anything that is being output as a print format where color fidelity is considered critical, such as magazine page layout, professional photography, and illustration. At most studios I’ve worked at I’ve had two monitors. A normal one for work that is not color critical, and a second one for work that is, or at least for checking work that is, and frankly you may still want to do that even if you have a Cintiq(Before you go crazy thinking you need to spend $2000 on such a monitor be aware that a lot of work, even color work, does not necessarily “need” that kind of monitor. You can often make-do with lesser hardware if you follow this advice: Get the best monitor you can afford (do your research) and CALIBRATE it! Preferably with a good calibration device. I use the i1Display Pro). If you have a calibrated non-Cintiq tablet monitor combined with one that is appropriate for color-critical work on which you can check anything you do elsewhere this will suffice even for most production work, but even the non-cintiq models alone, if calibrated, will be sufficient for most personal work and even professional work, depending on what it is - just be aware of what the color needs of your particular work are before choosing a tablet monitor. I suspect that in your case you wont need the wider color gamut in your tablet monitor.
Caveat 2 - Pen range:
The following note applies to the Huion, but I do not know about the Ugee as they each use different digitizer technology (Ugee uses the UC-Logic digitizer, whereas Huion is a company which broke off from UC-Logic and now develops their own version of that technology, at least this is what I have read elsewhere).
The Huion pen responds very nicely, providing excellent pressure sensitivity and tracking - here’s the caveat - as long as the pen is within about 1cm of the monitor surface. Unfortunately, if the pen exits this 1 cm space, when it is returned to the screen there is a very noticeable period of lag while the monitor finds the pen’s new location. In my experience Cintiq’s are much faster at this process. Please note that this is my experience with the specific tablet monitor that I possess and my computer system, I cannot be certain that the same performance issue is experienced by others. In all the reviews I’ve read I have never heard anyone else mention this issue. This issue was a real dissapointment for me to discover but in time I adapted to it such that I’m generally good at keeping the pen within this distance, know what to expect when I exit it and have been able to use my device productively without thinking about this issue for quite some time.
Caveat 3 - Integration:
Again, here I can only speak to my experience with the Huion option:
Wacom driver’s are much more fluidly integrated into windows (I believe this is true of Mac’s as well, and from what I’ve seen this is true in relation to all the Cintiq competitors). The most persistent aspect of this is how you have to manually switch the “Support Tablet Monitor” setting depending on the software that you are working in. In Zbrush and Mudbox for example, you want this setting turned off, while in Photoshop and Mari you want it on. You can usually change this setting on the fly without restarting your software though.
Other than this issue you will occasionally loose pressure sensitivity for no apparent reason. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does you may need to restart the application you are working in, the tablet monitor driver software or even the computer to resolve the issue.
In short - the driver integration of all the Cintiq competitors is a little more flaky. However, Huion at least has seemed to have done a good job of quickly addressing problems brought up by the community. I personally use it regularly in Photoshop, Mari, Zbrush and Maya, and have successfully used it in… well, all the software I use actually, including Mudbox btw.
Caveat 4 - Hardware Design:
Actually, the Huion is built pretty nicely. The biggest problem you’ll find with it is one that is mentioned in most reviews of it, namely the position of the buttons. They are on the bottom right of the monitor, which means that if you are using it with the stand you have to actually lift the monitor in order to push the buttons. It’s such an obviously stupid design flaw that it boggles the mind that it got through. However, if you put it on a monitor arm that problem goes away. Interestingly, it turns out that Ugee and Huion both get their hardware from the same place so, except for the stands which are unique to each, the monitors look identical, right down to the badly placed buttons.
Conclusion:
For my needs the Huion was a worthwhile purchase that is serving me well, though if I were in the market today I think I’d go for the Ugee. In the future I might buy a Cintiq one day.
