One of the most popular replacement accessories for Palm handhelds are the so-called 3-in-1 styli combining a ballpoint pen, a PDA nib and a reset pin into a tiny thingy that fits into a handheld’s stylus silo. Boxwave gladly sent me a sample of their so-called Styra – let’s see how it stacks up!
Boxwave’s products ship via standard mail – the envelopes are rather unstuffed and don’t contain useless clutter:
The Styra itself ships in a small blister with ‘instructions’ on the back:
Congratulations go out to the product designer – the Styra looks very futuristic. The grey barrel and the transparent tip remind me of Belkin’s famous light stylus…
My E2′s stylus silo was heavily modified while it was customized – but the Styra still fits in perfectly:
Writing on a PDA is comfortable – I used a Boxwave UltraClear screen protector and was astonished by the smoothness (much smoother than Parker 45 on paper). Moving the nib over the Palm Tungsten E2′s screen takes next to no force.
Unscrewing the nib unveils the reset pin. The Styra is unique among styli for its metal pin – unneeded for Tungsten E2(can be reset with nib), but a must for TE… .
Pulling the black cap off the Styra’s should reveal the ballpoint pen – but the cap simply didn’t come off. Three people tried to pull it off..to no avail. It took me 5 minutes to pry it off the first time…
The pen can also be accessed by unscrewing the reset pin to gain access to Boxwave’s custom charge. Writing quality is very good for compacts:
Overall, the Styra is a great replacement stylus for the classic Tungsten E series – but it isn’t perfect. While Boxwave is the first vendor to get paper output quality to a superior level, their annoying cap makes writing a nuisance at first (it improves over time). If you have the time to play around with the cap a bit, you will be awarded with an excellent stylus for just 11.95$.
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