Using a stylus for for precision work

[paulsiu]

On my smart phone, I find that I have issue selecting passage of text because my finger is big in relationship to the screen. I also have a desire to do take some notes. Obviously, getting a smartphone with a active stylus digitizer would be best, but I like to know if there is a way to get a usable option since I don't really need to draw or need palm rejection.

A standard stylus with the big rubber tip won't work. The tips is too big and is no better than using my finger. I notice that they also sell another version with a tiny tip with a clear disk. Example of this would be the Adonit Jot Pro. When you press the stylus on the screen, does it actually register as the small tip or does it register as the entire disk?

Or should I go with one of the more expensive active stylus which appears to use battery power to register with the screen. Are these more precise or less precise than the disk stylus? I notice that most of them have problems with diagonal lines, but since I will only use it for writing and selecting text, it should not be too much of an issue.

Paul

 

[anon(238680)]

What kind of phone do you have Paul? If we move your question to an appropriate forum you'll get more visibility for an answer.

 

[paulsiu]

I have a Honor 8 phone, but the question is not specific to that phone but to all phones without an active digitizer. For example, if I have a Galaxy S8, I probably have the same questiion.

Paul

 

[L0n3N1nja]

I've got a Jot Pro, it selects the center of the disk, works much better than the big rubber tips on most stylus.

With that said, it doesn't have pressure sensitivity and still won't be as accurate as a stylus with digitizer like the Samsung S Pen.

 

[afblangley]

No capacitive stylus is going to approach the effeciency of an S Pen device. I'm so much faster and more accurate with it that its my exclusive means of input, even though I don't do any drawing. Most of the time I use a swiping gesture on the keypad, but handwriting is also fairly efficient. The times I've used a capacitive stylus I've found it more frustrating than my finger because it obstructed visibility of the keypad.

Another option worth considering (especially if you're attached to your phone) is buying a tablet that uses a stylus as a secondary device, and using that when you have input heavy tasks.

 

[paulsiu]

Thanks.

If I need heavy input, I'll just use my desktop/laptop. While SPEN would be ideal, I actually don't need a pressure sensitivity and even complete accuracy, just enough to select text and write.

Anyone know how the active stylus work (not the SPEN version, the one that works on capactive screen). So a capacitive screen works by detecting a disruption when the screen is touch, but in order for that to occur, you need a large enough object like a finger. The OS then calculate the center of that field disruption. Does an active stylus generate a narrower field disruption than say one of the stylus with a disk at the end or is it essentially the same? My point is if there is a reason to get the active one over the disk.

By the way, on the disk stylus, the disk is not fixed. Do you ever have problem with the disk tilted the wrong way when you write?

Paul