Touch screen stylus pens for tablets, netbooks or iPad

Touch displays are a part of more and more gadgets around us everyday. They provide a great improvement in user experience and the way you communicate with your electronic device, but they do have a couple of conveniences.

Perhaps the most bothering ones are the fact that it’s sometimes difficult to click smaller buttons on non touch-optimized interfaces (like Windows 7 or Windows Mobile for instance) and also, the fact that the screens will get greasy and smudgy when wondering your fingers on them, especially during those hot summer days.

But there’s a solution to this problem: touch screens stylus pens.

Now, as you might already know, touchscreen devices use mostly two types of screen: resistive and capacitive.

Those with resistive displays are meant to work with a pressure pen, thus usually come with a stylus included, whether they are smartphones, tablet PC or GPS devices . This pen can be used for controlling the gadget, but also for drawing, hand-writing , etc. In fact, every type of pen will work on such screens, mainly because they are designed to sense pressure on their surface and act according to that pressure. It doesn’t really matter what you use to obtain that pressure, although specially designed stylus pens will be more precise.

Devices with resistive screen come with included stylus pens

On the other hand, those with capacitive displays are made to function with the help of your fingers and won’t work with an ordinary pen. Capacitive screens are more snappy and provide smoother control, but if you have as stylus from a device with a capacitive screen it will be no good. Thus, taking notes is not possible, unless you’ll get a special capacitive stylus (which is regularly bulky and uses batteries to charge it). With the help of one of these you will be able to draw or hand-write on a capacitive screen, or easier click certain areas or controls.

Devices with capacitive displays use special capacitive styluses

From all the devices launched lately, few still use resistive screens. They were common a couple of years ago on PDAs and tablet PCs. However, we can still find them on some modern devices, like on the Asus T101MT netbook and other convertible mini laptops designed for designers (who will use the screen for drawing, digitizing pics, etc).

Modern smartphones , notebooks or tablets equipped with a touch-display go for capacitive screens. And while these don’t come with a stylus pen, you can still get one for only a couple of bucks, like I’ve said. For instance , an iPad touch screen pen will go for around $10, but you can of course use it on any other capacitive display.

That’s about it with these touch accessories. I for one am a big fan of capacitive displays and not a particular stylus user. However, for resistive screens, they are a must. The good part is that they are small, light and quite comfortable, much like a slim regular pen, thus you will get used to them pretty fast.

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Tags: tablet netbook, touch tablet, touchscreen

Last updated: June 3, 2010 | Published: June 2nd, 2010 | See the comments or add yours!