Rathores blog

                                                       




These handy tools have a stylus for drawing on your iPad - plus a normal ink pen for writing on paper, too.

1. Kensington Virtuoso Metro Stylus And Pen For Tablets

Price: £15 - Manufacturer: Kensington – Website: kensington.com
While most pen-styluses seem to be styluses that someone's hollowed-out and jammed a standard ballpoint cartridge in, what makes us love the Virtuoso Metro so much is that it's first and foremost a really comfortable pen to use. You don't feel like you're gripping a stunted little twig; it's a proper, chunky pen that's pleasant to write with.
It does depend on how much time you'll spend using each end of the pen, though; using it as a pen is a joy, but flip it around and its chubbiness starts to feel like a drawback. The nib is fat - okay for the iPad, annoying on an iPhone - and it feels ungainly next to the Adonit.
Verdict: This stylus by kensington is one of the best here and is also one of the cheapest.

2. Wacom Bamboo Stylus Duo

Price: £30 – Manufacturer: Wacom – Website: wacom.com
We're not sure either company would like the comparison, but to us this feels like a posher, better-made and all-round nicer version of the Griffin Stylus + Pen. It feels "premium" - arguably even more so than the Adonit Jot Flip - and the cap is held onto either end with a couple of small, friction-ey rubber rings. It's a small thing, but because you don't get a cheap-sounding click when you put the cap on, it makes using the Bamboo Stylus Duo much nicer.
The stylus nib is still fat compared to the Jot Flip's, but it feels more precise than the others here that use the same rubber nipple design. £30 feels like a lot for something so simple, but it's well-made and nice to use.

3. Incipio Inscribe Dual Ink

Price: £18 – Manufacturer: Incipio – Website: incipio.com
This little left-fielder delighted us. It's short and slim -both things that make it feel a little odd compared to most normal pens - but its metal construction gives it a nice heft that comes as a bit of a surprise given its diminutive size.
But there's a twist - literally. Twist the barrel one way and you get a black pen; twist it the other and you get red. (It squeaks a bit when you twist it, mind you.) We really like that this handy, pocketable gadget packs in, essentially, two pens and a stylus. The stylus is okay, though it lacks the Jot Flip's precision, and you can get the pen itself in black, red or silver finishes.

4. Griffin Stylus + Pen

Price: £12- Manufacturer: Griffin Technology – Website: griffintechnology.com
This is typical of the kind of stylus pen you usually find as soon as you start looking for one. A slim barrel - too slim, perhaps, for some - with a simple rubber nipple at one end and a standard ballpoint at the other.
And that's pretty much it, to be honest. It functions perfectly decently, and it's the cheapest one here - a third the price of the Adonit Jot Flip, for example - but unless you're really counting the pennies, we'd recommend you buy something else.
There's nothing actively bad here - as our three-star rating attests - but it's pretty basic and we didn't find it especially comfortable or pleasant to use.

5. Adonit Jot Flip

Price: £35 - Manufacturer: Adonit – Website: adonit.net
We love the normal Adonit Jot - its clever and surprisingly robust ball-mounted plastic disc at the tip of a fine point gives a kind of precision that we don't see with any other styluses. And so we should love the Jot Flip; it looks and feels just like the normal Jot -wonderfully heavy, and pleasant to use as a stylus - and yet when you twist the barrel, a ballpoint pen slides out. The movement - oddly reminiscent of a hypodermic syringe - is delightful.
For our tastes, though, the nib on the pen is actually too fine. It feels scratchy to us; you may prefer it of course, and you can always replace the pen cartridge with a thicker nib.