Review: Kensington stylus

• Company: Kensington
• Product: Virtuoso
• Model: Touch Screen Stylus and Pen (Gun-metal)
• Website: www.us.kensington.com
• Amazon: Kensington Virtuoso Stylus and Pen
• Price: $20
• Rating: 4/5

I use my iPad daily for taking notes in meetings as well as the occasional sketch sketchbook, using a keyboard just isn’t practical. I've managed to get by with my Griffin Stylus which has been the best Stylus I could find, however one of the biggest issues I had with the Griffin was the length. It’s just not quite long enough to be good for extended writing. At $20 it’s hardly a bank breaker with the ability to write as a pen make the price well worth it.

The pen comes in a see-through plastic tube. The quality of the pen is really great. It has a greyish finish called gun-metal and has a matt texture that looks and feels more professional than the Griffin which has a shiny black coating.It is also available in black as well. The extra length  makes it look a little more like a pen than a stylus. Overall, I’d definitely give the edge to the Kensington on looks and finish, it just seems like a much better package from a quality perspective. One of the big concerns has always been with the rubber on the tip os these styluses and how sticky they are. Countless people complain the stylus they have bought is almost unusable because the tip sticks to the screen making it nearly impossible to write so you have to be really careful because all styluses with rubber nibs are not the same. This was never really an issue with the Griffin because the type of rubber used in the tip is fairly smooth and slides across the screen quite easily. I personal could not tell the difference between the slide of the Kensington and stylus.

The pen in the Kensington uses Parker ink refills and comes with black ink. Pen works as expected the only criticism I have is the same as what make this stylus better than others is its length. The cap of the pen does not fit over the stylus end so ultimately you have a short pen and hope you don't loss the cap. This product is geared towards replacing 2 products a pen and a stylus if you plan on writing with the pen for long periods of time it may feel hard with a short pen. You may want to keep a real pen around for that. But works great for signing a quick check or other quick job's