Adonit Jot Pro review: Adonit Jot Pro

Adonit's Jot Pro stylus differs from most of the styluses you will find in stores — they have a fine metal tip, rather than the usual rounded rubber one. They're designed this way for activities that require high precision, such as making handwritten notes or adding fine detail in art apps.

8.9

Adonit Jot Pro

The Good

Protective metal cap Clear disc vastly improves visibility Comfortable to use at any angle thanks to swivelling head Rubberised grip Magnetised barrel makes it easier to keep track of.

The Bad

Grit trapped between stylus and screen more likely to scratch Takes a little getting used to.

The Bottom Line

If you do a lot of handwriting or sketching that requires high visibility and precision, the Adonit Jot Pro works a treat.

The Adonit Jot Pro is the higher-end stylus of the range. And it's handsome: an aluminium and steel body wrapped with a black rubber grip, and a screw-top lid that you can put at the other end of the stylus while you're using it. This keeps the cap safe (how many times have you lost pen caps?) and lengthens the barrel of the stylus, comfortably.

The metal nib is set within a swivelling plastic disc, so it is a flat surface that meets the surface of your screen. The disc feels a little delicate, but it serves a couple of purposes: it provides stabilisation, while its flexibility means that the stylus responds well to the natural movement of your hand; and the fact that it's clear means you can see what you're doing much better than if you were using a rubber-tipped stylus. The visibility is fantastic.

As for the metal tip itself, it works really well, giving smooth, clean lines, and the metal screw cap protects it when not in use.

It's not as intuitive as a rubber-tipped stylus, though, mainly because of the surfaces involved. When you write with a hard pen, you are used to encountering a slightly yielding surface (paper), so metal on glass naturally feels ... well, different. Less natural. It took more getting used to than a rubber tip, especially since (the one area where it does differ from a regular pen) you have to lift it quite clear off the screen in order to stop sending the capacitive signal. You can get away with less distance when using a pen and paper. This isn't bad, mind you; it's just a curve, and a shallow one, at that.

Its precision seemed dependent on line thickness — there's no point aiming for hair-thin precision when your line looks more like a strand of spaghetti, but it did feel more precise than a rubber stylus. We can see where it could be absolutely more useful — fine art and sketchbook apps, for instance, and image editing that requires you to get as close as you can to the pixels.

One reservation we did have is that if there's any grit between the stylus and your screen, it's probably more likely to scratch up the screen than a rubber stylus. Invisible particles did occasionally make using the stylus feel gritty.

One other stand-out feature is the rubberised grip. It not only makes the stylus more comfortable to hold, but it is also magnetised — you can stick it to your metal-bodied tablet or phone. Sounds simple, but, if you can stick your stylus to things you're less likely to lose, then you're less likely to lose the stylus, too.

Conclusion

If you do a lot of handwriting or sketching that requires high visibility and precision, the Adonit Jot Pro works a treat.

The Adonit Jot Pro was kindly supplied by The Stylus Company.