Archive for the ‘Stylus’ Category

Samsung Galaxy Note II voted best Android phone

Posted: February 12, 2013 by Troy Saxton-Getty in Android, ATT, Carrier, dropSKIP? What???, Handsets, Operating System, Personal HotSpot Devices, Phones, Samsung Galaxy Note, Stylus, Verizon, Windows Mobile 7
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Samsung Galaxy Note II, Android phone of the year as voted by our readers!!

By Troy Saxton-Getty

Those of us at dropSKIP that have a special place in our heart for Android love the Note II. Although truth be told, my daily drivers are iPhone 5′s, one from Verizon and the other from AT&T. We do however clearly agree on one thing, right now, this minute, the Samsung Galaxy Note II is by far the best Android phone on the market.

We are very cozy with HTC’s Sense UI on top of Android, fans since day one, we still feel Samsung has nailed it with the Galaxy Note II and the latest round of TouchWiz interface add-ons.

In the shop we have both a Verizon version and a few folks with AT&T versions. These are their daily phones and you couldn’t pry them away with anything else on the current market, even if you offered some incentive cash.

The Samsung Galaxy SIII is a close second and since we think the Blackberry Z10 is actually a Galaxy SIII with a different case, we suspect Blackberry might have a strong showing this year (thanks Samsung!!)

Take a hard look at the Note II, sure, it’s big but it does still fit in most front pockets or small fancy purses and you can ditch the additional tablet you most likely carry close by most of the time.

The included touch Pen and S-Pen apps are real contenders for daily work.

The phone comes with some carrier specific pre-loaded software but most of it is useful sans the $10 dollar a month Navigation, I still don’t know how that app ends up pre-loaded.

The phone also earns a 56/100 dropSKIP score for durability as long as you don’t put it in your back pocket and sit on it, it is one tough phone.

Our test phone took the 10 foot drop to standard office carpet without losing its battery or even its back shell.

If you have accessories left over from the Note I, the units are slightly different sizes so most won’t work, including the car mount kit.

Thanks to our readers for voting it was very clear the Note II then the Galaxy III ran neck and neck with Phone 5.
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If you are thinking Android, you can’t go wrong with the new Note II.

Share your thoughts current and prospective owners!

Pogo Sketch by Ten 1 – Unique Stylus.

Posted: December 4, 2011 by Gill Haus in Android, Blackberry Playbook, Blackberry Tablet OS, Fun Tech!, iOS, iPad, iPad2, Motorola Xoom realtime review, Samsung Tab, Stylus, Tablets, Windows Mobile 7
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We reviewed the Wacom Bamboo stylus a couple months ago and loved it.  At the time, we didn’t think we really need to look for another stylus.  Then we found the Pogo Sketch by Ten 1.  Why do we like this stylus (other than the great colors)?  For three main reasons:

1. It’s lighter.  It really feels a bit better when writing on the surface of an iPad.  It’s not heavy like those other styli so it feels good in your hand.

2. It’s thinner.  It just feels more natural when you use this stylus.

3. The tip is NOT the standard rubber cone that doesn’t seem to slide as easily.  This one has a different style tip that still works on iOS and glides across a surface (with the same accuracy as other styli).

These three things really made the difference for us and it’s become the stylus of choice (this week, of course).  Oh yeah, did we mention you can find it for under $20 on eBay?  Make it four reasons! :)

 

Wacom Bamboo Stylus (CS100K) – iPad Thoughts

Posted: October 8, 2011 by Gill Haus in iOS, iPad, iPad2, Stylus
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A colleague of ours has made the transition from laptop to iPad. In fact, it’s all he carries. No laptop. No pad of paper. Just an iPad. This may not seem that drastic to everyone, yet, we were impressed and wanted to see if we could do the same thing.

We faced two challenges in doing so: one, tasks and flagged emails aren’t supported on the current iOS and many of use this feature extensively; two, writing on the iPad is not as easy as using paper. The first challenge is to be addressed in the new iOS release. The second challenge is harder to address because writing on an iPad is just not close to writing on paper…or is it?

We asked ourselves if we could use just an iPad if we had the right tool and app. This is where the Wacom Bamboo Stylus entered the picture. Why? Because there are a good number of iPad apps that allow handwriting, but using ones finger just doesn’t seem to cut it. So, did the stylus help?

The short answer is yes (the long answer is you’ll need an app like Notes Plus to really make this work). The Bamboo stylus was our pick as most iPad ready styluses had wide round tips. This works well with the iPad displays but makes it hard to be precise. This stylus has a much smaller tip (about 25% smaller than most), though not pen fine by any means. The difference was noticeable and the stylus’ weight makes it easy to hold when writing.

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We also noticed that using the stylus to write takes practice. All of us learned to write with a pen and paper. The motions are the same. The pressure is different. Once we got used to this, we actually picked up speed and quality (yes, my handwriting is horrible normally, so there was only so much improvement to be had).

The Bamboo stylus did help. It felt comfortable in our hands and was closer to normal writing than a finger or thicker stylus. It does come at a price (~30 dollars) and you’ll still need a good note app.

At the end of the day, using the iPad instead of paper is doable but will take practice. Don’t expect it to feel normal at first. That said, typing on our iPhones after years of Blackberry keyboards seemed unusual, too. Amazing! :)