This is another chapter in the book of digital note-taking.
After having tested an active fine tip stylus recently, which was quite alright, I wanted to see if a disc stylus would do the trick a bit better for me. I have heard a lot of negative stuff about the writing experience with a disc attached to the tip of a digital pen, so I just thought of getting one for myself in order to try that out. In the end I got a Musemee Notier V2 in a nice flashy red.
The stylus is also available in a bunch of other colors as well as with a rubber grip zone, then being the Musemee Notier Prime. I tested the metal version, though. The stylus costs about 15 $, which I think is a really good deal. Spare disc-tips are available in a double-pack for about 6 $, which is also fair enough. The stylus, however, already comes with a spare tip packed along in a capsule.
Changing the tip is easy – just drag the old one out and plug the new now in and you’re good to go. I didn’t have to change mine yet, though. Just wanted to try out how it works. Anyway, it seems like the tips quite last.
First thing I noticed when unpacking the stylus itself was the nice heavy weight of it, which sort of really gives it a quality feeling in your hand. The conical shape, in my opinion, makes it look really stylish.
Let’s have a closer look at the most important part that we actually use for writing and sketching – the disc tip:
As opposed to active stylus’ that work with a weak electric induction, the Notier V2 uses the disc-mechanism as a means of telling the iPad mini (in my case) to actually recognize the stylus as an input device. This means, nice enough, that it of course also does not need a battery, which I find great. You may well say that the disc simulates the tip of your finger. Of course, you want to have a more precise writing experience than with your finger, which is why you got yourself a stylus in the first place :-).
As you can see, the disc is transparent and has a black tip at it’s center. This black spot is where a drawing line will actually appear when using the stylus (see below). The transparent disc ensures that you will always see where your black “pen tip” is (i.e. where you are writing/drawing at the moment) while the disk effortlessly glides over the iPad’s surface.
The black spot (your “tip”) that you see, is actually sort of part of a rubber band that connects the disk through the silver tubule with the pen. This flexible rubber thread also means that you can hold the stylus in any angle that you are comfortable with when using it. Looks weird, but works very well :-).
I have used the Notier V2 for quite a while now and I must say that it really is an amazing stylus. I really like the way it feels when writing or sketching with it and it works extremely well. I have used it in a number of Apps by now – mostly with Notability, OneNote or Paper by 53. The stylus will of course work with any App you want to use it with.
I took some pictures while test-using it in the Paper-App. As you can see, the stylus is really precise, placing the line you write or draw exactly under where the black tip is, no matter the thickness of the stroke or how fast you draw.
Since the disc-tip-rubber-band-thingy might be a bit sensitive when you would want to take your stylus with you in a messy bag – and you will most likely wanna be mobile with the stylus – one thing that really comes in handy is that you can just unscrew the upper half of stylus, flip it around and screw it back to the bottom again, making it really easy and safe to stow the pen away. Off you roll.
All in all, I think the Musemee stylus is a really great product that I would definitely recommend. It has great quality and precision and a really good price. I’ll be most definitely be using mine a lot more in the time to come.