Stylus pens

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10 Sep

Stylus pens

Cool Kuel gets my vote – a great stylus for iPhone and iPad

by Nicki FitzGerald

Let's face it, fingers on iPhones can be tantamount to using a bunch of bananas when you're working on the details or trying to type quickly.

There are a wide range of "styluses" or styli for using with tablets on the market but the one I have always used is my trusty companion, the Kuel H10, a beautiful little lightweight smart stylus that I use with both my iPhone and iPad.

The pen itself is beautifully designed in equally smart packaging with a range of colours. Measuring only 8cm (3in) long and being very light, it is easily carried around in purse or pocket.

But…let's skip to the important bit…how does it work? Popping the little silver cap off reveals a soft rubber top. Despite being a few millimetres thick, this little rubber end is perfectly capable of getting in to the tiniest spaces with minimal pressure being applied, perfect fore fine art work as well as typing emails. As well as accuracy, the other great benefit of using this great little stylus is visibility. When I'm working on an image using my fingers, it's difficult to see what my fingers are doing. With this little pen, you can get a much better view of the actual marks or edits your pen is making.

More than meets the eye…

The Kuel H10 has some surprises; Extend one end of the pen gives you a longer pen to hold and feels perfectly weighted in your hand. I always use mine with the extension fully out. Also the cap has an optional attachment to clip straight into your iPhone headset socket, the idea being that you can clip the pen straight into the cap (when you're finished with it). This is great in theory but if you're a street photographer and like to have your camera ready to shoot at all times, you won't want a stylus dangling in front of the lens. For this reason, I always keep mine in my pocket or purse.

Bottom line

I don't go anywhere without my Kuel H10 now. The design is cool and discreet and feels so effortless in your hand; a very intuitive little stylus. However, being small is also it's worst enemy – I confess to having lost a couple over the year or so that I've been using them but in the Kuel's favour, I am a bit scatty and I do not use the handy attachment to keep it on my iPhone at all times. So, overall, it gets the thumbs up for me for doing exactly what I bought it for which is detailed photo editing and being able to see what I am working on – and at £8/$12.99 a pen, I think it's pretty good value too!

To find out about more details about the Kuel H10 and other products, please visit http://www.spigen.com/etc-accesories/kuel-series.html

KUEL extra – I also have the Rolls Royce model of a Kuel, the Kuel H12. My partner has accosted it for use with his iPad (probably because it looks impressive in the meeting room) but actually he loves it. He both draws, makes notes and types with the pen and finds it better to handle then the smaller Kuel 10 because it feels like a real pen in the hand. The sensitivity to the screen is amazing, needing very little pressure to make a mark and it's swivel action, pop-up up pen-tip means no removable lid to lose.