WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.280 There's a certain magic to the combination of the iPad and the Pencil. 00:00:09.280 --> 00:00:12.560 With the right apps, it's like you're working with the real thing. 00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:18.760 It's not cheap. Depending on the iPad you have, a Pencil could cost you $130. 00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:24.400 And if you buy one for the base iPad, a Pencil is almost a third of the cost. 00:00:24.400 --> 00:00:28.000 But the Pencil isn't the only stylus that works with the iPad. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:31.720 There are alternatives, which could be worthy. 00:00:31.720 --> 00:00:36.200 So today I'm meeting up with a local artist to compare them, with what up until now seem 00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:47.400 like the only option. 00:00:47.400 --> 00:00:53.480 Vancouver based Audrey Lemon will be helping me out. A predominantly digital artist, the Pixel is her medium. 00:00:53.480 --> 00:01:01.400 And her work, you might have already seen. So I work right now as a background artist at a studio called Bardell. 00:01:01.400 --> 00:01:05.400 Most recently I was working on season five of Rick and Morty. 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:15.440 I would say I'm a mostly digital artist. I use a lot of Photoshop, some Procreate. 00:01:15.440 --> 00:01:19.440 When it comes to alternatives to the Apple Pencil, what you want to look for is an active 00:01:19.440 --> 00:01:27.040 stylus, ideally with tilt support. Audrey and I are going to try four good options on the market, which are similarly priced. 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:31.520 There's the official Logitech Crayon, which was the first active iPad stylus option to 00:01:31.520 --> 00:01:37.160 become available. The Zag Pro stylus has a passive capacitive end. 00:01:37.160 --> 00:01:42.640 Or there's this Adonit Note Plus, which has two buttons and pressure sensitivity, but 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:47.680 not system wide. And then there's this one from Amazon, which is cheap. 00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:53.400 Now back to Audrey. For most of her career, she's been drawing in a Wakeham Cintiq, but she added an iPad 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:57.640 and pencil to her toolbox when her boyfriend bought her both last Valentine's Day. 00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:04.320 I mostly use Photoshop and my Cintiq to do more final pieces that I want to take to like 00:02:04.320 --> 00:02:13.880 a really polished level. And then on the iPad, I use it mainly for sketching or anything like line work, inking. 00:02:13.880 --> 00:02:17.960 Definitely does have a very traditional feel like you're using like your pen on actual 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:25.320 paper. Because you can have it in your lap physically. So it feels way more like, oh yeah, I'm like drawing, you know. 00:02:25.320 --> 00:02:31.040 But what are you most curious about with these alternative styluses that we're going to try? 00:02:31.040 --> 00:02:37.040 I'm really excited to see how it feels and how that compares to the Apple Pencil, which 00:02:37.040 --> 00:02:41.280 I'm used to, which has the really hard, you know, kind of like tick, tick, tick feel. 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:44.280 Are you ready to try a pencil case full of style? 00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:45.480 Let's go do it. 00:02:50.720 --> 00:02:58.040 So here are the options again, laid out. And to evaluate them, Audrey and I will both draw something in Procreate, switching between 00:02:58.040 --> 00:03:06.040 each stylus after a couple of minutes or so. And to get us started, we're using the Apple Pencil first, which Audrey has come to appreciate. 00:03:06.040 --> 00:03:12.520 The reactivity of the original like Apple Pencil, it's really nice, really fast. 00:03:12.520 --> 00:03:16.840 It's very sensitive, like any sort of even small move that I make. 00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:23.320 Okay, so let's, you know what the pencil is like, but I wanted you to try now this Logitech 00:03:23.320 --> 00:03:28.160 crayon. Let's give it a go. Let's give it a go. 00:03:28.160 --> 00:03:31.240 So how do these active styluses work? 00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:36.680 When you touch a capacitive screen, it senses your finger drawing energy from the digitizer 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:44.280 and registers that location. However, an active stylus does the opposite, sending energy to the digitizer. 00:03:44.280 --> 00:03:49.800 It's why these things need to be charged and it's how palm rejection works. 00:03:49.800 --> 00:03:52.840 You've been using that, have you noticed anything different? 00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:57.800 I would say that the sensitivity isn't as nice as the Apple Pencil. 00:03:57.800 --> 00:04:04.760 I noticed that it's not too bad, but if you do any sort of like swirl or thing like that, 00:04:04.760 --> 00:04:08.600 you get kind of a bad jitter, which kind of sucks. 00:04:08.600 --> 00:04:12.120 But overall, like it's not unworkable. Okay. 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:15.160 Like so, I could draw with this. You could. 00:04:15.160 --> 00:04:20.040 Oh, okay. Well, that's good. Now, there is one thing I should let you know about. 00:04:20.040 --> 00:04:27.280 You see, the one thing about all these alternatives is they don't support pressure sensitivity. 00:04:27.880 --> 00:04:28.880 Which is... 00:04:30.880 --> 00:04:34.480 Ah, this is what I was a little worried about. 00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:37.280 Because for artists, that's important. 00:04:38.880 --> 00:04:43.680 In terms of defining sensitivity, is it like the latency between like when you put it down 00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:48.600 and how quickly it draws or is it... It's sort of hard to describe. 00:04:48.600 --> 00:04:54.600 It's, that is part of it, so using, putting your pencil down and having it be really responsive. 00:04:54.600 --> 00:05:00.320 But it's also like if you shift your hand and it starts to do almost like you're sliding 00:05:00.320 --> 00:05:06.760 the side of the pencil and you get a larger, more softer stroke, which I know Photoshop 00:05:06.760 --> 00:05:14.200 does have and like Sintiqs do have. But I found it was way more sensitive on the iPad than... 00:05:14.200 --> 00:05:17.400 So the tilt's more sensitive. Yeah. That's the tilt sensing. 00:05:17.400 --> 00:05:20.880 And then, you know, the pressure is the other one that the pencil does. 00:05:20.880 --> 00:05:27.640 Pressure, yeah. Pressure is good. Well, why don't we switch to the next one and see if you can tell. 00:05:27.640 --> 00:05:31.840 But they still support tilt. Let's try this one. 00:05:31.840 --> 00:05:34.840 Where's this? That's the Adonit note. Oh. 00:05:34.840 --> 00:05:39.640 And I will use the Logitech pencil. Do you use layers a lot in Procreate? 00:05:39.640 --> 00:05:44.720 Yeah, I really like to use layers. I'm kind of used to using layers. 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:50.040 Now since I do so much digital art, that going without them sometimes feels so scary. 00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:53.920 But... That's interesting. Yeah, normally I do. 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:58.520 I wish I'd done layers. Can I still do a back layer? 00:05:58.520 --> 00:06:01.520 What was it like when you first got the iPad? 00:06:01.520 --> 00:06:05.880 Like, what was that experience? It was kind of overwhelming. I was like, ah, this is so many. 00:06:05.880 --> 00:06:10.600 It's very minimal and they don't throw a bunch of stuff in your face. 00:06:10.600 --> 00:06:14.920 So you kind of have to go through and discover kind of the different functions. 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:19.240 Thankfully, they've made it quite easy if you're familiar with digital painting. 00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:23.600 So you've had some time to use both of these. How is the tilt sensitivity? 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:31.320 It's pretty nice. If I'm being honest, I don't really notice that big of a difference with the apple pencil 00:06:31.320 --> 00:06:36.000 as far as tilt goes. Oh yeah, that's pretty good. 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:40.120 Yeah. The tilt sensitivity is pretty neat too. 00:06:40.120 --> 00:06:45.120 These styluses output two signals down onto the iPad screen and then the iPad can actually 00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:52.200 from that calculate just how deep the angle is of your pen. 00:06:52.200 --> 00:06:57.440 This is honestly not too bad. I don't mind the adonit. 00:06:57.440 --> 00:07:04.040 I was expecting it to be somehow worse just because of the lack of pen pressure and I 00:07:04.040 --> 00:07:10.240 love pen pressure. But for drawing like this, it's not terrible. 00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:14.440 You do have to kind of work around it by using opacity and stuff. 00:07:14.440 --> 00:07:19.880 And you can work around it. I'm not hating it. 00:07:19.880 --> 00:07:23.380 What about the tip? The tip? I actually quite like the tip. 00:07:23.380 --> 00:07:26.560 I prefer it to the apple pencil. 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:31.480 I find it's kind of nice and like you get a little bit of squishiness. It has a suppleness to it. 00:07:31.480 --> 00:07:34.480 Yes. It's probably the best feeling. Yeah. 00:07:34.480 --> 00:07:37.480 For sure. I would think so. Okay. 00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:40.480 Do you want to switch now? I think we should switch. Yeah. 00:07:40.480 --> 00:07:43.480 Okay. So you're going to use the zag. Okay. 00:07:43.520 --> 00:07:47.160 I'll use the adonit. Yeah. I really do miss the pen pressure though. 00:07:47.160 --> 00:07:52.760 You're noticing it particularly with the zag? Yeah, I think so. 00:07:52.760 --> 00:07:59.440 I find the adonit, I found even because it doesn't have pressure sensitivity. 00:07:59.440 --> 00:08:06.720 Well not exactly. It actually does have pressure sensitivity, but it's not system wide. 00:08:06.720 --> 00:08:14.560 That's exclusive to the pencil. It's only in supported apps, which Procreate is not one of them. 00:08:14.560 --> 00:08:19.280 Well, why don't we switch now to the last option before we get to prices while you're 00:08:19.280 --> 00:08:24.280 drawing is really good. So you're going to use the Amazon one. 00:08:24.280 --> 00:08:33.080 So one of the interesting things I've noticed is the Amazon stylus and the zag pro stylus, 00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:36.600 they kind of look similar like in the way they're made. 00:08:36.600 --> 00:08:43.520 Oh they do. But the one thing these two stylus do do is they actually do magnetically attach to 00:08:43.520 --> 00:08:48.880 the side of the iPad. I mean that is the cheapest option. 00:08:48.880 --> 00:08:59.920 How is it compared to the other ones you've been using? I haven't noticed a huge difference between this one, the Amazon pencil, the Logitech 00:08:59.920 --> 00:09:05.400 one and the zag. I would say they're all very similar. 00:09:05.400 --> 00:09:10.040 Yeah. Okay, are you done? 00:09:10.040 --> 00:09:13.080 I mean, I think I'm as done as I'm gonna be. 00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:20.160 Alright, pencils down. Okay, so these three actually cost the exact same price. 00:09:20.160 --> 00:09:24.400 These are $70 and this is actually $30. 00:09:24.400 --> 00:09:27.440 Are these savings worth it? 00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:31.920 For someone like me, I would say no. 00:09:31.920 --> 00:09:38.040 If you're drawing and painting a lot and pen pressure and sensitivity is something 00:09:38.040 --> 00:09:45.560 that you're looking for, I think it's more worth it to buy something like the Apple Pencil 00:09:45.560 --> 00:09:48.040 and use a program like Procreate. 00:09:53.720 --> 00:10:00.720 So these aren't for artists, but a group of people who aren't artists, they might be 00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:06.040 engineers or students who need something for note-taking or doing math, but which is 00:10:06.040 --> 00:10:13.520 the one to recommend to them? If it were me, I would say go for the Adonit just because it feels really nice, but honestly 00:10:13.520 --> 00:10:17.360 you probably can't go wrong with any of them. I think I agree with you. 00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:20.640 I think the Adonit would be the one I'd recommend to non-artists. 00:10:20.640 --> 00:10:24.520 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you so much for all your help. 00:10:24.520 --> 00:10:28.040 Yeah. Now, you want to see what I drew and I want to see what you drew. 00:10:28.040 --> 00:10:32.000 Yeah, I want to see you here. Okay. Wow. 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:36.960 This is much better than mine. 00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:42.800 So for artists, it looks like the Apple Pencil is the only game in town. 00:10:42.800 --> 00:10:46.360 Pressure sensitivity is super important, but that doesn't mean the alternatives don't 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:51.800 have a place. If you're a student or an engineer working in a field full of math, you don't need pressure 00:10:51.800 --> 00:10:57.480 sensitivity and so you're much better off saving the money and going for one of these. 00:10:57.480 --> 00:11:01.800 And the one that Audrey and I recommend is the Adonit Note Plus. 00:11:01.800 --> 00:11:06.640 Thanks for drawing this Mac Address. If you're someone who loves the Apple Pencil, why not give this video a like? 00:11:06.640 --> 00:11:10.680 And if you're someone who just signs documents with a regular stylist, why not subscribe? 00:11:10.680 --> 00:11:14.840 Now, I'm curious how important something like pressure sensitivity is to you. 00:11:14.840 --> 00:11:15.880 Let me know in the comments below.