0:00 so in this video I'm going to test the apple pencil against some of the much cheaper alternatives to see whether you really need to invest in the full official apple pencil or whether the other options are actually will do just as good for you the first apple pencil the apple pencil one came out with the first iPad Pro and it really took the use of a stylus and creating art on the iPad to the next level having said that I used to use before the apple pencil one I used to use a Wacom stylus now I did have a large rubber tip so it kind of didn't feel super precise but it did have pressure sensitivity but it required a battery and it was a really unusual size battery and just yeah it was possible to create really refined pieces of work using that stylus but when the apple pencil one came out it
0:45 was just a game changer I gave up using things like Photoshop it just wasn't necessary you could draw with super accuracy straight onto the screen so it's been brilliant but not everyone's need in a stylus is going to be equal or the same now I've done comparisons between the apple pencil one and pencil 2 which you can see Linked In terms of how they draw and paint they are the same tilt accuracy of line or whether it's pressure sensitivity the apple pencil one and the apple pencil 2 are going to be the same but they're not cheap it has to be stated that they are not cheap now I've broken a couple I've lost a couple more so when I really start totting up the overall cost that I've had to endure because of Apple pencils yeah I don't even like to think about it too much but it's been a lot currently the apple pencil 2 is 139
1:32 pound in the UK and 129 if you buy it brand new from Apple there are deals out there I'm sure you can get it cheaper you could even buy it secondhand by used and maybe you can save yourself a little bit of money too and for the apple pencil one it's 99 and 109 pound so even the apple pencil one is quite steep really it's quite an investment so I guess the question the point of this video is to look at some of the other options are there any options that can actually stand up to the tasks to the requirements that you may have for a stylus and if it's not entirely the same if it doesn't offer all of the same features how good are they and could they be a good alternative for you so the first option you might consider is the Logitech crayon now it is officially
2:18 kind of recommended and approved by Apple is on the Apple site as are a lot of Logitech products it's pitched as a cheaper alternative now say cheaper it's 69 pound 95 in the UK and it's actually 69.95 as well in the US now it's quite you know solid design it feels nice in the hand it's a good weight it fits quite ergonomic it feels comfortable and it's something you can imagine shipping in a bag and being a good alternative in terms of the physicality of it now it says it's on the box it's good for taking notes for signing documents sketching and drawing good for traveling and it's also suitable for younger people says kids of over five five plus but I don't think that means that you're limited to only using this for writing
3:05 or children's drawing now it doesn't necessarily come with all the same features now first thing to note is that it by default it will be off so there is a power button you have to switch it on and off so unlike the apple pencil which for example in the apple pencil too just magnetically connects on the top and just lift it off and it's good to go straight away this has to be charged and this is the the original version of the Logitech crayon which requires a lightning plug there is an updated version that uses USBC but otherwise it looks pretty much exactly the same but yeah by default it's switched off so you have to long press and then a little light will appear a little green yellow light and then you're good to go so you do need to have a charger in order to charge it up and that might be a layer of complexity and irritation that puts you off it straight away it's not
3:51 necessarily something that would bother me depending how I would want to use it I suppose an advantage in a way is that it doesn't need to be paired and connected via Bluetooth in that sense it requires a battery but yes it doesn't need pairing now in terms of the accuracy it's as good and as accurate as the iPad or sorry the apple pencil you know you really feel like it's coming straight out of the the end of the nib and it's exactly as you'd want and yeah it's really good so if what you're wanting to do is just Line work and maybe some sketching so for example I'm on the 6B pencil I've set my size and maybe turn it back dial it back from the 100 put it a little lower down and I want to go over and over and over an area I can build up the darkness with like cross hatching and I can still get shading techniques just because it doesn't have pressure sensitivity that
4:38 you get on the apple pencil doesn't mean that you can't build up tone and shade now that's fine with something like a pencil but that won't necessarily be as good if you use something like the soft brush so put it on soft brush turn it back down to 50 ish again and you can see it's pretty full on a 50 and I can certainly double it up and I can make these kind of effects but it's not going to be quite as good and I guess if you can turn it down maybe a little lower on the opacity you know you can start to build up a kind of sketching look but it's not going to be quite as effective I'd say as one of the pencil brushes so yes it doesn't come with pressure sensitivity which I guess is the big reason why you might want to get the apple pencil over this but it is accurate and if we go back to something
5:23 like the sketching 6B pencil we've got the accuracy but we also have a tilt so if you tilt your Logitech crayon and maybe turn the strength up tilt it on its side and you get a completely different look and shading than you do when you hold it more upright so maybe the combination of the two will enable you to kind of soften transitions again there might be another way that you can create a gradient so yeah it's a pretty good stylus to be honest I mean I guess at nearly 70.70 pound you're getting towards the same kind of cost as the apple pencil and although it's really durable and straightforward to use I think there's a couple of drawbacks as in the fact you know to charge it you need to plug it into a wall adapter I
6:09 guess you could get a connector from your iPad to fit there to the lightning or the new one the USB but it's not quite as convenient as just clicking onto the top of the iPad so it definitely loses some points in terms of ease of charging and it doesn't have pressure sensitivity which is a big factor of the apple pencil but yes it's a good stylus so if you are predominantly doing line work and you're doing sketching drawing like this and the pressure sensitivity isn't that much of a factor and you could work around it then it might be a really good option where you're saving sixty dollars and kind of roughly almost half the price in the US and yeah it might be a good option for you personally I still would always get the apple pencil even if I had to get a used one I think I would
6:55 prefer that option now in doing the research and looking at all the possible options I'm looking at a full range of alternatives to the apple pencil and one of the options that I found was really super cheap and just a totally different take on what you might require is the pen year now I guess one of the selling points of this particular stylus or pen option is that it has multiple uses So within the box we have a little protective case which is quite Pleasant it's got like a leather feel and it's got an engraved penier on it and then we have the instructions that tell you about all the different nibs and the ways that you can alternate the different uses and then we have some of the different nibs here that you can actually use on it and then
7:41 a replacement ink cartridge there too because that brings us to one of the main advantages of this is that it has a traditional ink pen a rollerball ink pen so it just screws in there and that brings me to one of the the real advantages of this I suppose is that it is a quite a nice feeling pen and to write with is quite Pleasant and it comes with its own protective case that you could simply just slot it in there drop it in the bottom of your bag or pocket and because it's in here it's not going to leak any of the ink into a pocket when you get warmer yeah it's just quite nice quite a nice item to carry around with you but what are the advantages and it isn't the little Diamond effect on the end of the pen that's not what would sell it to me but
8:26 we have other things so for example we have a fiber tip on the end which without any charging Works straight away now you need to have it set so your iPad will respond to finger gestures which you may have noticed have been accidentally sort of marking the screen now it's generally something when I'm using the apple pencil I'll disable but for the use of something like this which is purely capacitive then you need that ability to use your pen your finger rather switched on and it's a really it's almost like a microphone it's metallic so anywhere that it makes contact it will enable you to make marks it really is able to Glide over the screen and it responds very easily and very rapidly to any gestures that you
9:12 make and again you know you could I guess build up shading this way with a pencil cross hatching of some sort you can build up the sketching effect like that but it offers more than that too because there is an another screw Point here and it's got a little disc now there used to be the adonit styler where they would have this feature too and it just allows you to see it a bit more accurately excuse me it allows you to see a little bit more accurately you can see it's transparent you've got a sharper point it's almost like using this end of the pen but with a little disc to protect the screen so you're not scratching it obviously but it just allows you to feel you being a bit more accurate now let's be clear this is not as accurate as it could be so if I draw a small circle and you aim for the
9:58 middle it it doesn't go in the area that you would expect it it kind of offsets it quite predictably quite a lot and if I actually aim for the center it's not easy to get it quite as accurate as I would like it's inconsistent but again you can screw the pen back together in a different form and maybe for writing this is a bit more comfortable or just a feeling that you're being a bit more precise with the nib and definitely you're going to be a bit more precise with this rather than this fiber tip so it really does give you some options now as well as those you've got a rubber tip two different shapes one more rounded one with a slight more point on it and then you've got like a microphone furry one which I
10:45 can't imagine why you'd want to use that one but it's there anyway and then you've got a replacement for this disc as well now one of the main drawbacks I think with the pen year is that it doesn't have Palm rejection so if you put your palm on and you're trying to draw it just doesn't like it and you really have to just kind of hover it and Raw on it separately from your hand as soon as you place your arm down it starts glitching yeah and it's it's just doing all sorts of messy inconvenient things there which you know sometimes it'll work and then other times it'll glitch horribly so it's very inconsistent so there you go it doesn't have Palm rejection so yes it's not going to be for me anyway something that I would seriously consider as an
11:31 alternative to the apple pencil but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be that for you it depends really if you want to take notes on electronic devices and that is your use then this is probably going to do everything that you need it to if you're not an artist you're not looking for pressure sensitivity you're not looking for tilt and you don't want to have to charge it and you want to use it across maybe multiple devices then this is actually a really great I mean I mean I'm surprised that I'm saying it it is a surprise to me and I'm quite pleased with the product and it's something that I'm gonna perhaps even consider taking around with me and using is an additional item to the apple pencil but not for me as an artist not a replacement or a serious alternative but it's very cheap and if money is an issue
12:16 and you have a limited use really for what you need from an apple pencil this is is actually a pretty smart little purchase for your money it has limitations no pressure sensitivity no Palm rejection no tilt but it is an all-round great pen I would say and add a pinch a sketching device another stylus that I've looked at is the San font pencil for iPad now this is something that needs charging So within the case I just open it here you've got the user manual you've got the pencil itself and you have a couple of replacement nibs there as you can see and then within the packaging you also get in a charging cable which is a USBC to USB so that means that you will need to
13:03 charge it so yeah I guess this is convenient enough it's with a little adapter you could take this round and charge directly from your iPad now it does have a little power button here so if you press that you see a little blue light appears and then you should be good to go and again instantly straight off the bat we get that super nice interaction with the screen and straight away on this brush I can see it has tilt and quite nice actually quite a decent tilt responsiveness now just test that out thoroughly and see how much of a gradation it will give me so let's start it here I'm going to gradually increase the tilt but you know what that's pretty good so yes the Tilt is pretty good on this it feels quite similar to the official apple pencil it has a flattened Edge
13:50 which gives you the benefit of at least connecting it to your iPad now it won't pair it won't charge from there but it allows you to store it on the iPad but you will remember to you have to remember to switch it off obviously before you do that otherwise your battery is just going to run down so yeah it doesn't have pressure sensitivity this is going to be a very repetitive kind of theme as we run along these styluses now it is pretty responsive it almost has a sharper neighbor than the actual apple pencil so I guess in a way it exposes the fact that it has a slight lag but I'm not sure in reality it has any more lag than the actual official apple pencil it's pretty responsive it's just the fact that it has a very sharp nib just enables you to see the slight gap
14:35 between the line and the nib itself but it's so minimal you have to almost pirate it from an angle in order see that lag and delay and that Gap so yeah it feels a little bit lighter I dare say than the actual official apple pencil but very very similar in feel then you've got replacement nibs and it's quite a nice product now this product is 19.99 pounds and there's a link for that down in the description I'm not sure whether it's available in the US but you know you're going to find products that are almost identical to this in theme and in productivity so almost 20 pound 20 pound pretty much it's actually a pretty decent alternative I think that you could with the Tilt with the Palm rejection and the accuracy and the convenience of the USBC charging I think
15:22 that this is a really good alternative so in terms of the the saving of costs well the apple pencil 2 is 139 pound in the UK so this is almost 120 pound less and if I broke this if I lost this I'm not going to you know I'm not going to cry quite as much over the loss and having to you know incur the cost of replacing this it's not quite as catastrophic as losing the official and expensive apple pencil yeah it's a really nice alternative actually okay so this one is the laser or lesson and it says it's compatible with smartphones tablets and other touchscreen devices so let's see why that might be the case again we've got a very familiar feeling stylus it looks and feels very similar to the apple
16:09 pencil has a little replacement nibs and a protective cover which is quite nice so there's two nibs in there then whether you can see but there are two plus a protection plus a lead and it's a USB see there is a little it took me a while to figure out what this was longer than it probably should have done but it's a little protective cap and no doubt I'm going to lose that straight away but it enables you to just you know keep the dust out maybe it's just while it's being shipped because I'm not going to be able to keep track of that but there you go it's there anyway if this plugs in it feels nice doesn't work unless you switch it on oh so let me just see if there's a reason why this might not be as accurate as I'd expect but this is 15 pounds and 59 Pence and you know it's going to be roughly similar in dollars
16:55 but it's not accurate instantly it's just not putting the line where I imagine it too which is unfortunate it's not got any tilt and it very clearly doesn't have Palm rejection too it's glitching all over the place it is switched on but it's glitching it's not doing what it should in terms of palm rejection just to be clear it doesn't advertise that it has that but yes it isn't accurate it isn't lined up where I would expect it and I think in some ways it's even worse than the Pena which is purely capacitive I think that actually it's really irritatingly try and draw a circle for one thing it's just difficult to close the line and then line up I'm trying to do a dot in the center there you go kind of did it maybe at certain angles if you hold it certain ways trying to get a line a
17:42 dot in the center yeah basically this isn't working very glitchy no Palm rejection no tilt and it feels inaccurate and laggy I mean testing it now it feels a little bit better but you know based on my my experience of it just now it's it's clearly not consistently accurate so that's a no I'm afraid compared to all the other stylists that I've just tried I think and especially compared to the apple pencil it's very cheap but if it isn't doing the job properly then it doesn't matter how cheap something is not good I'm afraid not fit for purpose and I definitely would not recommend this okay this one is the quadrants Advanced stylus that's what it's called in the
18:28 box so let's have a look and see just how advanced this actually is we have the stylus nice rubber protection there there you go it doesn't have a flat Edge interestingly most of the other options that we've looked at have a flat Edge that enable it to magnetically connect not pair but make contact at least and attach whereas this doesn't have that in terms of the cable it has a micro USB not a fan but there you go and attached to the cable we have two replacement nibs which is good I suppose so let's have a look so it should work once we switch it on so here's a button a little blue light comes on and that's nice so accurate compared to the previous Styles I've just used that's doing exactly what I would wish putting the circles in the
19:15 dot in the putting the dots and the circles rather perfect so in terms of accuracy I like that it has tilt and let's test that yeah pretty good do more of a gradient gradually tilting that that's pretty nice so a nice tilt good accuracy feels quite nice it feels somewhere between the apple pencil one apple pencil two it's fully rounded but it's not quite as slippery it has a little bit more of a matte finish which is quite nice got replacement nibs apart from the micro USB which I'm not a fan of it's pretty good but the question is where does it charge because unlike the others that would charge from this point that has a button well it has a cap so in some ways it's quite similar to the apple pencil one except in reverse and you just need to plug in your micro USB
20:01 and then you can plug in the other end to any USB charging point and that's pretty good however there is an extra feature you may have noticed on the cap so let's say it's run out of charge no idea useless but not quite because we have the fiber tip kind of mesh on the other side and you can still be productive even when you run out of charge so it happens I remember this quite a lot with the apple pencil one now please bear in mind this end of the app of The Stylist doesn't have Palm rejection like the other side so you're going to have to hover this it definitely has limitations why it's not really meant as the main point but what's a great idea as a backup for when it's not charged if you're not near a plug and it's not convenient then at least you can still be productive in
20:47 some way now that's 19.99 pound so again you know it's it's very reasonable a good saving of 120 pound and not a bad little option quite nice feels nice nice little clicky button quite attractive really quite like the the backup option of the fiber mesh if that's something that you can imagine yourself needing then that's that is pretty cool it's accurate it has Palm rejection when it's switched on and charged it has tilt but obviously we're lacking pressure sensitivity and it cannot pair it doesn't need to pair I suppose is the argument there but it can't charge or pair and it doesn't have pressure sensitivity but it does all the other things pretty well so yeah I could recommend this stylus I think that's quite nice
21:33 so this again is a slightly simpler version than the quadrons advanced stylus so it says um it's a slightly simpler version of that so let's have a look at it so again we've got a rounded stylus but this does interestingly have a flat Edge which means that you can at least connect it attach it so yeah I actually do quite like that little flat Edge it's a really good place for me personally to put my thumb and it just gives me a little bit of a better grip I would say now interestingly the charging cable is quite different quite unique so we have the typical USB but we don't have a little slot where we can plug in a USB C or a micro USB or even a lightning Port it's completely kind of
22:19 sealed but that's why we have this really quite interesting it just sits on there like a little cap and there you go it kind of Clicks in I quite like that in a way really quite strange if it breaks you're a bit stuck because yeah I think you'd have to go back to the manufacturer probably just replace the stylus if you break the cable I imagine but this is 15 pound 99 so at that point you know you know you might not want to have to replace it but if you're careful and look after the cable it's probably going to last you quite a while and that's that's not bad value really when you consider all things so how do you turn it on well it's got a nice little clicky thing at the top this metal bit it's a little clicky and you've got a blue light that comes on once you've pressed it moves the apple pencil and yeah it's it's a pretty consistent thing
23:05 really the ones that that actually do it as they should which is most of these I've actually looked at they do it really well really accurate do small shakes and the points in the middle of a circle go exactly where you'd expect them to so very accurate let's test the tilt very nice good tilt so it's got the accuracy it's got the tilt and let's test the Palm rejection yeah it's got the Palm rejection someone like the advanced one it doesn't have a fiber tip option so you're stuck with this and if it runs out of charge well it's tough look but it does what you'd kind of want it to pretty well actually and I think for the money if all you want is sketching and drawing with a pencil like
23:52 effect or writing taking notes you know you cut it a pinch with all of these switch to something like I don't know a textured brush so if you use a painting brush a wet acrylic choose a color brush size and an opacity that suits you know you can build up and you can use the opacity and keep going over things and you can probably build up gradients without pressure sensitivity you obviously won't get the changing brush size so something typically with an inking brush like the studio pen where are you there you are um usually with that brush you press on more and it gets bigger and wider and then it thins out at the end to a tape or a point but obviously without the pressure seven sensitivity you're not going to get that at all which you know if that's something that's important to
24:38 you then that's going to be a major problem but other than that it does it really well and at 15.99 pound it's a good little stylus but the drawbacks it doesn't charge very conveniently it's got a weird little cable it doesn't have pressure sensitivity so yeah it's limited but for what it does I think it does it quite nicely actually another option for 20 pound is the kxt so it's a hexagonal design so it's much like and it's much thicker than a standard kind of drawing pencil as you'll have a look but it has the the kind of old school feel of a pencil that you might actually sharpen with a sharpener so it has varied flat edges which feels quite nice it gives you a nice grip as you can see
25:24 in the Box it has a USBC which plugs in quite straightforwardly there has a power button a little blue light appears Let's test it nice let me go back to my sketching 6B yeah it's the accuracy I would expect it's no lag accurate you can draw circles put the points in it exactly where you'd expect I like it has good Palm rejection let's test the tilt pretty good tell yeah impressed you have a singular replacement nib but you know for 20 pound I still think it represents pretty good value overall so if Palm rejection accuracy and tilt are the things that you really care about but you don't care about pressure
26:10 sensitivity then this could be a good stylus a good option and another option we have is the xeron stylus pen in 1999 and well I was looking to review it and you can see I've just broken it and it's got a protection thing for the nib here and I think I've discovered why because literally I dropped it from here on the screen like that and now the nib just it just isn't working it's switched on the Tilt kind of works to a point but then it it just it's already broken so it's clear to me why they've got this on here but really disappointing that it takes as little as that to actually damage and break it I'm going to unscrew it try and put it back in let's see if
26:56 this changes anything but yeah not a good start switch it on no it seems to have completely destroyed it and you know I've not dropped it from a height I literally slipped out of my hand and fell on the screen like that so I will be recommending this stylus it's hard to now test whether it well it seems to have Palm rejection great you know I'm presuming it has had tilt because it's giving me the the effect but it's just not working now so yeah I won't be recommending that and this Stylus is called the greneric I'll move that and yeah basic stylus another hexagonal design very similar to the kxd one press it on little blue light
27:42 it works is accurate pretty much as you'd expect it follows the point of the stylus as you'd want it has tilt the Tilt is not brilliant on this actually let me give that a fair chance let me really push this and test it a bit more it goes from there it's very kind of rapidly almost goes from one to the other let me just try this a few more times so we've got the we're really kind of shading nib and then we'll try and drag that out and gradually tilt it differently okay yeah maybe then let's turn the opacity up it's really on its side and bring it over here the garage it gets more and more focused
28:32 no that's fine um so yeah the Tilt the Palm rejection great working the accuracy working now this is 23 pound 99 and yeah it's a it's a good stylus it's not as cheap as some of the others I think I prefer one or two of the others but it's you know it's within the same ballpark of cost let's have a look what else you get in the Box it's got a USBC singular nib it's okay it does the job you're not going to be disappointed if you spend you know you end up spending an extra four pound an extra four dollars or whatever on this compared to the others maybe you prefer the hexagonal design and maybe that's going to be something that works for you it's pretty basic it does the job
29:17 does everything that the others do just as well so yeah I could recommend this certainly but not over the others but yeah it's okay so in conclusion it's not really a fair contest because the apple pencil and I'll need to pair it now because I unpaired it before so I magnetically attach it wait for the little reading tells me what percentage it has another advantage that it has it gives me that exact percentage that's left it charges it from there it pairs it from there and it really has the advantage it's super accurate it has the Palm rejection the same but it's there's an instantly different feel as soon as you are able to just change the pressure
30:03 changes the brush and you change it back again it's just a different category of stylus really as soon as you have the pressure sensitivity but if that is not so crucial to you then my other options I have to say are this quadrants Advanced stylus simply for the fact it has a little cap it feels nice for one thing but it has a little cap that gives you a backup option just in case it runs out of charge and it's simply that alone because the majority of them apart from the one was really glitchy and the one that broke straight away the majority of them do the basics pretty well but this one simply won me over does the basics pretty well and it has a backup option
30:48 there and then you know I in that vein we also have the Pena which is very basic but it allows you to use it as simply a backup option so you can have your pen with your all times for your standard everyday writing on paper but then you have a variety of different options depending on your specific need at the moment very basic but actually it does quite a lot for that kind of 10 pound 12 region so yeah if the 130 140 pound is too steep for you even in the apple pencil one which is like 100. dollars if that's just too much and you don't need the pressure sensitivity then I would consider you know look at the reviews
31:34 the link for this is down in the description I don't know whether you can get it everywhere but I'll certainly put the links for this down in the description this is the quadrants sort of advanced stylus that you can get and then the pen year so depending on your level of need you know you're going to find a stylus that works but let's let's be clear the apple pencil does win hands down if you want the best experience of everything it's just convenient it attaches it charges it pairs it does everything you're ever going to want it to need to do not an easy answer is there an alternative it's better than it used to be there's a lot more Alternatives than they used to be but really I'd say the apple pencil both one and two are just really Head and Shoulders they're the best stylus out
32:22 there that I think you can use on a tablet I think they're really they have nailed it they have really got that down and got it perfected and not to say they weren't perfected even more they may be an apple pencil three and I shall definitely be looking out for that if and when that arrives but for now I think that's covered most of the things that I wanted to do in this video I hope that's been useful I hope that's given you an idea of whether you need an apple pencil or whether one of the cheaper alternatives might actually be useful for you please check out my other videos I'll do a ton of painting tutorials as well as kind of product reviews here and there hit the thumbs up and the Subscribe and the bell notification if you do want to catch future videos and I shall catch you back here soon bye for now
