Sunday 10 July 2011

Stylus for iPad - Boxwave and Kit Universal compared

Whilst using apps on the iPad just with your fingers is great, there are times when holding a pen just feels more natural. This isn't just for those artists amongst us, but for anyone who needs to make a small sketch now and again.

For example, I regularly attend meetings and conferences where as well as taking notes, I need to visualize some idea with a little drawing. Whilst using your finger to do this works, to me it seem hard to get the accuracy you would expect when using a pen or pencil.

Hence I decided to buy a stylus for my iPad, and based on the reviews I found decided to buy a Boxwave and so ordered one from Amazon UK for just £12.31.  But it just so happened that the same day I was in our local Tesco grocery store and noticed they had a Kit Universal Tablet stylus on sale for just £2.47  (and who would have imagined that one day your local grocery store would be selling iPads? But that is another story).  At that price I couldn't resist and so decided to give it a go.

So, how do they compare?


First up, the Kit Universal Stylus. This is small slim steel design, with a retracting mechanism just like a regular ball pen.

This has a soft brush-like contact surface that can be retracted.




Whilst it works it feels odd trying to draw or write with this. If feels like a brush - not surprisingly as that it what is is. But you wouldn't use a brush to do line drawings, or to write. It just didn't feel natural to draw or write without applying any pressure. And when you did, then the brush would flatten out and you would lose visibility of where you are trying to draw.

In the retracted state, you can still use the brush and it is a little firmer but I became increasingly concerned that the metal surround, that you can see is visible beneath the rubber collar, might come into contact with the iPad's surface.

That said, anyone trying to paint with the brush will find it fine to use. It seems a lot of artists like the Nomad Brush which has a similar brush tip, and the Kit stylus can be used in the same way, albeit styled more like a ball-pen than an artists brush.

So, what about the Boxwave?

The Boxwave has a flexible rubber tip (it feels hollow).
This felt much more natural to write and draw with. As you can see, the tip is still quite large though in comparison to a regular pen. But unlike the Kit brush, it didn't deform when you apply any pressure and so it was easier to keep sight of where you were drawing.

The only negative I did find was that if you use the Boxwave at an angle as if using a regular pen, which most people would do, then the contact with the iPad will be made off-centre.

For some reason, even though neither the Boxwave or the Kit has a pointed end making a fine contact with the surface, the Kit actually seemed to be more accurate in terms of where I thought I was drawing as it seemed to make its contact in the centre regardless of the angle I was holding it at.

Even so, you could easily compensate for this, and in the end I much preferred using the Boxwave to the Kit for drawing or writing. The Kit might be a bit better for painting, but the apps I have been using the styli with are not painting apps and so I haven't really tried that in ernest.

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