Periphera
Styluses
Probably the single biggest drawback to using a Palm OS device is the stylus provided with the device. The stylus has to fit in the device, and the device is small: this means the stylus is small, certainly too small to be comfortable for most people. Using the device stylus is like writing with a pencil stub: it works well for small amounts of data, but becomes a real pain in the hand during extended use. There really is no way around it: to get the most out of your Palm OS device, you will have to get a real stylus.
I have tried using all sorts of things instead of styluses: chop sticks sharpened with a pencil sharpener, pens with a lump of plastic at the end, plastic finger tips with nubbins, and so forth. I have found there is no substitute for a good pen-like stylus. As a rule of thumb, a stylus should be as comfortable as a pen you would use to write several pages longhand.
One stylus I have found very comfortable for extended use is the Pilot
Pentopia combination pen, mechanical pencil, and stylus.
This is a substantial stylus, about 7/16 inches in diameter, 5 3/4
inches long, and weighing about an ounce.
This type of stylus is not the “Chameleon” stylus line,
which appears to be also using the Pentopia brand: the Chameleon
styluses are the same size as the PDA stylus, and therefore have the
same comfort problems.
Although these retail for about $30, they can often be found on eBay (new and in retail packaging) for about $15, including shipping. The Pilot Pentopia stylus has a “high visibility” orange tip: the “high visibility” aspect is not particularly useful (I, at least, do not watch the Graffiti entry area: I watch the screen where the text appears), but the plastic used is both smooth and durable. Other, cheaper, combination pens and styluses I have tried have used a hard plastic that rips the screen protector. (Screen protectors are covered later.)
Do not, however, let the comfort and feel of the stylus trick you into using it as if it were a pen. The pressure sensitive screen on your Palm OS device will be damaged by using the same pressure with a stylus as would be appropriate for a pen on paper. Instead, use pressure appropriate to an artist’s brush on canvass. See the page on Graffiti for details on this.
[ Previous page | Top of page | Next page ]
Copyright © 2002 Brian Hetrick
Page last updated 15 July 2003.
