UPDATED

When images of Dell's smart desk concept leaked in November, it was assumed to be a Surface Studio-like all-in-one. But today's announcement at CES 2017 revealed that the product now known as the Dell Canvas is virtually identical to the Wacom Cintiq 27QHD Touch.

Brian Eun, (@Shogmaster at TabletPCReviews.com forums) who is attending CES, had time to get up close and personal with the device earlier today and has confirmed that the 27-inch Dell Canvas pen display uses Wacom EMR technology and will ship with a Wacom driver. It's not known whether the driver will be the Feel driver found on other tablet PCs or the fuller-featured tablet driver found on Wacom's Cintiq products.

According to the product specifications below, the Dell Canvas Pen will support 2048 pressure levels and tilt and feature two programmable buttons. The pen shown during the presentation does not appear to be a Wacom Pro Pen, but is closer to a typical low cost tablet PC pen. This may be the largest differentiator between the Canvas and the Cintiq. Eun brought along an Axiotron pen and confirmed that it worked (with no tilt in Photoshop).

The Dell Canvas displays a color gamut of 100% Adobe RGB vs. 95% for the Cintiq. Another major improvement is the touch 20 point touch panel, which means the display could accept input from more than one user at once.

The Canvas also has Surface Dial-like wheel accessories the company calls Totems. These are not battery powered according to Eun and do not require Bluetooth pairing. Each totem uses four touch points for location and a button for actuation. This means that it may be possible to use more than one totem at a time.

The Dell Canvas will be available for purchase in March, with shipments beginning in April, 2017, coinciding with the Windows 10 Creators Update. The price has been confirmed at $1799.

What do you think? Can the Dell Canvas dethrone the Wacom Cintiq? Does it quench some of your Surface Studio envy? Leave a comment below.