Not even a full year after its release, the Google Pixel Tablet is one of the best Android tablets on the market right now. A combination of a really decent price, great specs and clean, quick software makes for an incredible device, worthy of consideration whether you’re in the market for an awesome Android tablet, or even as a great competitor for the best iPads around.
Need a stylus for your tablet? Here’s how to choose the right one
You can give your penmanship a boost or up your art game with a stylus, but you need to be extra careful when choosing one.
One feature that most of the best tablets have is the ability to use them with a stylus. It’s an awesome input method, whether you’re a designer, you enjoy drawing, or even if you’re into written notes.
Fortunately, the Pixel Tablet supports one of the most popular stylus standards, USI 2.0. This means you can get yourself an excellent stylus pen for the device, and you’re not limited to only first-party accessories. Since it’ll also work with older styluses (just with fewer features), we’ve gathered the very best options for you right here, both with support for the USI 2.0 standard, and the older (and generally cheaper) USI 1.0 pens.
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Penoval USI 2.0 Stylus Pen
Best overall stylus
Penoval is a household name when it comes to third-party styli, and not without reason. The USI 2.0 stylus offers excellent pressure sensitivity and palm rejection, and all that with great ergonomics, superb battery life and USB-C charging. It’s the best pick overall, even if it does cost more than the competition.
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Penoval USI 2.0 Lite
Best battery-powered stylus
The Penoval USI 2.0 Lite takes the feature-packed recipe of the Penoval USI 2.0 Stylus and switches things up with its AAAA battery-powered design. It’s a bit thicker than the non-Lite version, but if you prefer having the ability to swap batteries on the go, that’s the one to pick up.
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Lenovo USI Pen 2
Best value stylus
The Lenovo USI Pen 2 has excellent ergonomics and can sense over 4000 pressure levels, making it an excellent choice for both note-taking and drawing. Moreover, with a fine tip, it’s also a great choice for works that need really precise input. It’s also powered by a AAAA battery if that’s your preference.
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Metapen G1 Air
Best budget stylus
The Metapen G1 Air is an excellent choice if you’re looking for an inexpensive, but still very ergonomic stylus. It’s not rechargable, but instead you’ll need to stock up on AAAA batteries — though you shouldn’t go through them very fast. It’s smooth and very precise, making it a great budget pick.
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Metapen G1
Best USI 1.0 stylus
A pen that uses the older USI 1.0 standard, but is still great to use and has really impressive battery life, which is a key factor for day-to-day use. Moreover, it charges with USB-C, so even when it runs out, it’s extremely convenient to fill up.
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Alogic USI Active Stylus
Best stylus with a clip
Alogic’s excellent stylus is a bit expensive, especially considering the USi 1.0 standard, but with good reason. It has great build quality and some really excellent features, plus solid battery life. It also comes with a handy clip and a very small tip, ideal for some precise drawing.
Bottom line: What’s the best stylus for your Pixel Tablet?
Right now, the best stylus pen to pick up overall is the Penoval USI 2.0 pen. It offers the best feature set, excellent palm reaction, and great build quality, making for a superb choice that goes well with the extensive features of the Google Pixel Tablet.
That being said, if you’d prefer a battery-powered option, the Penoval USI 2.0 Lite is essentially the same stylus, but it trades UBS-C charging for an external AAAA battery that you can easily swap on the go. It’s also a bit thicker, but it also might be an advantage if you prefer something a bit bigger.
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How we chose the best stylus for Google Pixel Tablets
Google’s Pixel Tablet is an excellent device, and thanks to its support of the USI 2.0 stylus standard, it can work really well with a range of different devices — that’s a big advantage, especially when Google doesn’t offer its own first-party pen.
That being said, even if the USI 2.0 standard makes the feature set of every compatible stylus quite similar, some of them work a tad better than others with the tablet, making for a bit better or worse pairings. That’s why we’ve scoured not only the specs of the styli themselves, but also buyers’ opinions, gauging the compatibility with the Pixel Tablet.
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FAQ
Q: What are important features for a stylus?
Of course, even our top pick will not always be the perfect stylus for you, as everyone has their own needs and preferences for their writing devices. Here are some of the most important stylus features that you need to keep in mind when picking the best pen for you:
- Pressure sensitivity – It’s a measure of how well the stylus translates the pressure you put on the screen into the width of the line you’re drawing. It’s important both when you’re writing, as well as drawing.
- Tilt sensitivity – Similarly to the pressure sensitivity, it translates the tilt of the pen into the width of the line. It’s especially important for drawing, when tilting is a natural part of the process.
- Palm rejection – Thanks to software palm rejection, you can forget about specialized gloves for writing, instead relying on the screen to recognize your palm and not register it as an input when you’re using your stylus.
- Battery life and batteries – Battery life is an extremely important quality of life feature, which essentially means how often you’ll have to charge your stylus. Moreover, a type of battery is also important, as some people prefer built-in lithium batteries with USB-C charging, while others opt for AAAA-powered styli.
- Ergonomics – Essentially, how well the pen fits in your palm and how comfortable it is. It’s not only about its shape, as the weight is equally important – so if you can, try the stylus out before you make a purchase.
- Additional features – Everything else that you might find useful, such as a clip, a sepcific tip that you prefer, or additional functional buttons on the pen.
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