Apple Pencil (1st generation) review, is it worth buying?

When we first reviewed the Apple Pencil in 2015, it was hailed as a breakthrough product: It was by far the best Bluetooth stylus we'd seen, designed specifically for the iPad Pro. More than two years later, the Pencil ($99; $89 for students) now works with the $329 sixth-generation iPad, but not much has changed. The stylus is still very useful for artists and professionals who do professional work on the iPad. However, it also has some quirks that become increasingly unsatisfying over time. While it's still the best stylus for the iPad and iPad Pro and our Editors' top pick, we'd like to see some design improvements.

Pros

Tested extremely accurately
Easy to pair
Reliable

Design, Pairing, and Charging

Pencil ($89.00 at Amazon ) is 6.875 inches long and weighs only 0.64 ounces. It's a sleek white plastic cylinder with a matte gray plastic tip and a removable back cover with a Lightning jack underneath. The tip unscrews for replacement, revealing a small metal post.

The pencil is round, but luckily because it's weighted, it doesn't roll as easily as it looks. That said, it rolls much easier than we thought. When we asked a sixth grader to use a pencil, she knocked it off the desk and it rolled into an awkward spot under the desk. As an avid capacitive stylus user, she also complained that the pencil was too long for her small hands.

In the box, you get the Pencil itself, an adapter that lets you charge it via a standard Lightning cable (rather than directly through the iPad), and a replacement nib.

The pencil is round, but luckily because it's weighted, it doesn't roll as easily as it looks. That said, it rolls much easier than we thought. When we asked a sixth grader to use a pencil, she knocked it off the desk and it rolled into an awkward spot under the desk. As an avid capacitive stylus user, she also complained that the pencil was too long for her small hands.

In the box, you get the Pencil itself, an adapter that lets you charge it via a standard Lightning cable (rather than directly through the iPad), and a replacement nib.

Pairing is effortless: Simply plug Pencil into your iPad’s Lightning port briefly to pair. It must be paired to work; it's not a standard capacitive stylus.

The Pencil itself doesn’t have a battery life indicator; you can find that information on the iPad screen. To charge the Pencil, you remove the back cover and plug it into the Lightning port on the bottom of your iPad. This creates a very awkward scene with the pencil sticking out of the iPad at a right angle. Luckily, you can also charge it via a standard Lightning cable using the included adapter. However, there's no place to store the cap on the back of the pencil while charging, making it easy to lose.

Apple says it can be used for 15 minutes after 30 seconds of charging, and 12 hours of use after a full charge. In testing, the battery reached about 25% in 5 minutes of charging. I got it fully charged in about 25 minutes.

Performance

As a true Apple accessory, the Pencil’s broad compatibility is one of its strengths. Nearly every major creativity and note-taking app on iPad now works with Pencil, including Apple's iWork suite of apps. Unlike third-party styluses, you don't need to set up apps or dig into settings menus: it just works.

The matte tip has a little resistance against the iPad screen, but not much. In an ideal world, you would have different tips with different amounts of resistance. I also wish the back end of the pencil would work like an eraser, like the Fifty-Third Pencil does. The pencil is not only pressure-sensitive but also tilt-sensitive, so you can make thick strokes just like you would with a real pencil. This works really well in the sketching app Procreate.

The Apple Pencil proved to be more accurate than the FiftyThree Pencil in Procreate, Evernote, and Sketches, especially for making more precise, detailed edits and changes. It also feels better balanced and more comfortable to hold than the Microsoft Surface Pen.

While the Pencil is a no-brainer for artists, it's also worth buying if you plan on taking notes on your iPad. In Evernote and OneNote, the Pencil allows me to take extremely small and detailed notes, has perfect palm rejection (important for such a large surface), and its balance means my hands don't Feeling tired.

in conclusion

Apple Pencil remains the most accurate tablet stylus available and is an invaluable aid for artists and note-takers using a sixth-generation iPad or iPad Pro. But I can't help but feel that Apple has lost some opportunities by not updating it in more than two years. A rubber ring connecting the back cover to the pencil; a female instead of a male lightning jack for charging; and maybe even the eraser function are just minor physical changes that would definitely improve the pencil's usability.

The upcoming Logitech Crayon ($49) may be the answer. It uses the same pencil technology and the same fine tip, but it's wider and flatter, so it's less likely to roll. It also features a non-lost lid and female charging jack. In fact, I don't see any advantages to the Pencil over the Crayon, which is probably why Apple limits the Crayon to schools only (although you can find it on eBay).

For now, though, the Pencil is the best stylus if your iPad is pen-compatible and you can afford it. Nothing else can really match it. If you're short on cash, try picking up a Crayon, or check out the $29.99 Adonit Jot Pro, an unpowered but very accurate and comfortable stylus.

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