The first secret to all "modern" touchscreens is in how you address the stylus. What? You mean I have to say "Pretty please to it?". No, but understand that due to the non-durable nature of the capacitive touchscreen (iPad, smartphones, etc.) the tip has to be soft. Treat the stylus like a small, soft-tipped paint brush and stroke the screen versus pushing down to try to write. If someone is complaining that the tip is collapsing or they tore the tip off quickly, they are trying to write with the stylus versus stroking the screen. Try this now. Look at your hand holding a pen. Now hold the pen with the back pointing to your left or right as you would when you stroke paint brush so you can see what you are painting. That is the secret in addressing the stylus.The second secret is not obvious until you purchase a stylus and then it is too late. Let my mistakes with previous purchases benefit you as no stylus maker will tell you this, BUT this Cosmos stylus has the second secret. Most styli (is that the plural?) have a shiny and smooth tip. These grip your touchscreen and are fine for navigation or playing games. If you want to draw/paint the screen you need the stylus to glide. This stylus set has a mat finish that very nicely glides across the screen with smooth strokes and no skipping.
Not a secret, but I will part with my last bit of advice. Soft tip styli do not last. Three to six months of daily use and they are done. Not much use in spending a lot of money on a product that is disposable if it does not work any better than these.
This three pack for a few dollars gets my vote for one of the best deals on Amazon.
UPDATE 06/10/2012 I have been asked which vendor I bought these stylus from as the list of vendors appears long. It is hard to tell if they are selling the same stylus.
I bought from COSMOS Tech & Leisure (aka COSMOS) and they were imprinted with the Cosmos logo on the stylus.
UPDATE 10/13/2012 With all of the kind words and amazingly high number of "Useful" votes I am truly humbled. I also find myself in a place to share a recent failure so you too don't go down this road. As I use these styli often I saw two other sizes offered under the COSMOS name. They did not turn out to be the same quality, have the COSMOS name on them, or really even work.
I will not purchase these products again:
COSMOS ® 5 PCS Clip Design Stylus + 5 PCS Baseball Bat Pattern Universal Stylus/styli Black/Blue/Gold/Hot Pink/Purple Touch Screen Pen for iPhone 4 4s 3 3Gs iPod Touch iPad 2 Kindle Fire HD Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy, BlackBerry Playbook AMM0101US, B...
Cosmos Black/Silver/Red Mini 2in1 anti-dust Earphone jack Stylus/Styli Touch Pen/Plug for iPhone 3GS/4/4S iPad 2 3 SONY PLAYSTATION PSP PS VITA + Cosmos Cable Tie
I am placing another order for this set of three.
Much cheaper than from a store
Nice and soft
Stop your iPad getting finger smudges
Work on iPad and iPhone
Excellent Value
Cons:
Durability is an issue
Will only last a few months
Swipes are sometimes missed
Tips can come off
Shipping can be slow if from Hong Kong
Buy 3 pcs Aqua Blue/Black/Red Capacitive Stylus/styli Touch Screen Cellphone Tablet Pen Now
It is a good stylus but the tips are pretty soft compared to the better (more expensive) models. I am not sure how long the tip will last and would be concerned about a potential tear causing any scratches on screen. So far so good. These work OK most of the time but sometimes skip a swipe. Then again so do my fingers. I tried a more expensive one with a stiffer tip but it started giving me some debris on screen like an eraser does after only 2 weeks. It was not worth the cost so I tried these cheaper ones on my Motorola Xoom and they are well worth the cost. I would just monitor the condition of tips to prevent any problems down the road. If they made these with stiffer tips, it would help accuracy and I would rate 5 stars for sure.I bought a stylus at Best Buy for $15.00 when I bought my IPAD a year ago. It worked fine. I bought these three for $6.00 and they work even better.Want 3 pcs Aqua Blue/Black/Red Capacitive Stylus/styli Touch Screen Cellphone Tablet Pen Discount?
This stylus works really good on my ipad2. It's very responsive and it writes really good on my writing apps. I'm glad I ordered the 3 piece set, so that way I have extras. It also arrived on time with the correct colors and amount of pens.Save 76% off
