Ultra-slim, lightweight and robust

Osamu Nagase, head of the Mechanical Engineering Group and Maeda’s manager, described the project as "a joint undertaking that united the entire team with a common goal. ‘Taking up new challenges’ is a magic phrase that makes every engineer’s heart flutter. Our team members were extremely enthusiastic." He praises his team’s exceptional work ethic. The three characteristics of "slim", "lightweight" and "robust" were key to the design and development. These elements are inseparable and indispensable. If any of the three is missing, the portable device will fall short of Wacom’s expectations. In particular, the sleekness is much more susceptible to external factors than the others. The product specifications required a USB Type-C port to be incorporated into the display. Therefore, making the unit as thin as possible was the first objective. Maeda fondly recalled the team’s passionate quest for this goal.

“The bottleneck was the integration of a USB Type-C port while reducing the display’s thickness to its physical limit. A standard USB Type-C connector has a metal shell. We removed this shell from our product. The related parts then needed to be machine-processed and assembled with the utmost precision to compensate for the lack of the metal shell. When viewed from the side, the device is 6.6 mm thick at the top corner where the USB ports are located – this is actually the physical limit. From there downwards, the thickness is cut down to 4.0 mm. USB ports on both the left and right sides come in handy for creators. The cable is long enough to ensure effortless connectivity and is more flexible than any of Wacom’s other cables for image-signal transfer. Plus, the plug head is Wacom’s smallest. The glass panel of the device is one of the thinnest in the industry. Our efforts in pursuit of ultimate sleekness are evident throughout. Together, they all demonstrate our commitment to portability.”

Matching accessories to support maximum portability

Magnesium alloy is used for the housing of the Wacom Movink 13 to achieve its required “lightweight” and “robust” features. This is a material that Wacom has never used before for a device’s body. Magnesium alloy, a high-grade metal, helped to achieve a quality feel and calm, sophisticated look for the product’s exterior. Its fingerprint-proof finish is another example of its carefully considered design, which has been worked out down to the smallest detail. Why fingerprint-proof? Because portable models are often in and out of people’s hands as users carry them around. The exterior is an example of how Wacom achieved the very best of every component by clearing one hurdle after another. The exceptionally slim, lightweight, and robust device was made possible through the accumulation of these small steps.

Special care was also taken with the accessories, ensuring that they are reliable companions for the portable device. Newly developed accessories include a foldable stand that allows users to set their desired work angle, a sleeve for protecting the display’s glass surface, and a protective case for digital pens. Accessories dedicated to the portable use of the Wacom Movink 13 were designed from scratch.

“Please take a look at this roll-up pen case. Nibs for digital pens like the included Wacom Pro Pen 3 are sensitive to external shocks. Users carrying this portable device may accidentally damage the pen nibs in their bags. Nib protection is a new perspective that comes into play, especially in the development of portable devices,” says Maeda.

A foldable stand is particularly important as an accessory to provide creators with the best performance in any location. Thus, a great deal of R&D effort was put into its development. The stand supports the Wacom Movink 13 at a 20-degree angle to the working surface. When you place the device on this stand, it is instantly set up for the optimal creative condition – anytime and anywhere. When developing this stand, some issues that would have normally been discovered in the planning stage went undetected until the production stage due to the extremely limited lead time. What matters most for creators is the stand’s rattle-free stability in use. To this end, its components and parts need to be machine-processed and assembled with the highest precision.

Nagase explains, "Its structure looks quite simple. But, it incorporates a whole lot of our technology." The difficult part was to ensure the required material strength while reducing its weight for portable use. The stand’s width can be easily adjusted by stretching it out or pressing it together, using pressure which is optimized for comfortable handling. The level of tension needs to be just right – not too quick, not too slow. It should allow users to stop stretching out the stand when it reaches the desired position. Thinking back to those days of the challenging development work, Maeda also comments, "Every detail of the product is thoroughly examined and optimized. The more you use it, the more you love it. It is designed to provide creatives with exactly what they need. We put ourselves in creatives' shoes in our design work and took every aspect of creators’ needs into account – albeit with very little time to do so. I could go on talking about this stand all day long as we faced endless challenges.”