Even though MobileFun’s advertising is currently focused on iPhone 5 cases, they nevertheless sent our reviewer Oliver W Leibenguth a sample of one of their styli. He has performed an accurate review – let’s see if the thing stacks up!
First we have to talk about the technical background behind all this:
In earlier days (the time before the first iPhone) all manufacturers used resistive Touchscreens in their PDAs and Smartphones. They offered a high resolution but had to be used with a stylus and lacked multitouch-capabilities.
Now we all use smartphones with capacitive Touchscreens: they offer multitouch capabilities and can be used with your fingers… or better said: they *have* to be used with your fingers. Stylus-Operation is, by design, not possible (Unless you own a Galaxy Note or a HTC Flyer that have that feature due to a modified digitizer and a special stylus). That means that you can’t do drawings or handwritten notes like you used to do – drawing and writing with your finger just doesn’t work right (unless you are a master with finger paint…)
But there are stylii available for capacitive Touchscreens: Most of them have big tips made out of a sponge-like material or rubber that simulate the user’s finger. The results are quite disillusioning: Ok, you’ve got a pen… that is exactly as inaccurate as your fingers are.
But now we’re looking at someting I’d like to call the „second generation of capacitive stylii“:
Actually, this looks like an ordinary ballpoint-pen with a protective cap.
But the tip looks totally different…
Dagi has built a stylus with a sharp tip that has a transparent disc attached to it. The disc has the diameter needed for the touchscreen to register its touch – and you can actually see, where and what you are drawing.
The disc itself is attached with a small spring that lets you tilt the pen in almost every possible angle without loosing contact to the touchscreen.
I’m not an artist but with this pen I can draw and write almost as I would do with a regular ballpoint-pen on paper. There are some issues with certain apps that make use of multitouch-features that can lead to unwanted effects when you rest your hand on the touchscreen while using the pen.
What‘s in the box?
- the stylus 
- a replacement tip
- 5 replacement glide-pads that reduce the friction of the disc (one is already attached)
- a (very) small piece of paper with instructions on how to replace the tip
The pen (30 EUR) is quite pricey compared to those with rubber tips, but if you need a stylus that actually works, this pen is worth every cent. Thanks to mobilefun UK for supplying the sample used in this review.
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