Reviewed by: Greg Gaub

Visit STINGERstylus.com

What is it?

The Stinger Stylus is a single, injection molded, piece of plastic that fits on the tip of your finger, providing a stylus tip at the end of your finger. There is a "strap" that goes around your fingertip to hold it to your finger and provide stability during use. The strap functions exactly like the plastic straps on ball caps, where little nibs of plastic on one half snap into holes on the other half. To fit the Stinger to your finger, you simply experiment with the snugness of the strap until it feels comfortable, then cut off the excess strap. I scanned the instructions.

Well, is it a good stylus?

Actually, I find it to be exceptional when in use. Although it takes a little getting used to (a few minutes, only), it's just as easy to use as your unadorned fingertip, but much more accurate. It takes a couple extra minutes to get used to using it to enter graffiti text when you normally use a pen stylus. I found that I tended to brace my thumb on my fingertip as if it were a pen stylus, but that in no way hindered its use. The plastic used is soft enough to prevent scratching the screen on the device, yet hard enough to maintain it's shape and function as a stylus.

What about cost?

Unless you're really pinching your pennies, this is super-affordable. At just under $5 for THREE of them, you can get a pack just for the heck of it! It never hurts to have an extra stylus around when you need one. ;-)

But, do you use it?

Well, I carried it with me for several days, and tried to use it every time I used my PalmV. "Tried" is the operative word of that sentence, though. I found that it's simply not as convenient as the pen stylus that resides right there in my PalmV. When I remember to test the Stinger, I had to (put my stylus back, then) dig it out of my shirt or jeans pocket, stick it on my finger, and then use it. There simply isn't a convenient place or way to carry it with you on the go. It's not big, mind you, but it's not flat enough to stick in a wallet, even when it's little strap is unsnapped. It *has* to go in a pocket somewhere, which means it has to be dug out of that pocket. I found myself simply leaving it on when I thought I might be using my Palm more frequently. The problem with that is everything else. Although it's not sharp enough to seriously hurt someone, I had to be careful when picking up my son. Although typing with it on is do-able, it's not very efficient. In the end, I'll probably keep it on my desk and use it when the mood strikes, or if I find a particularly useful application for it... like Race Fever. hehe. ;-)

Anything else?

The three pack comes with three brightly colored Stingers, red, blue, and yellow (almost day-glow). The brightly colored Stingers have the benefit of being highly visible. Where the grey one is as hard to see on the screen as any other dark-tipped stylus, these bright colors provide a high-contrast view of your screen and stylus tip, making fine-tapping easier on the eyes. Also, I did notice that a whole different set of hand muscles come into play when using it. If you get cramps from using those tiny pen styli, but don't have or want a BIG stylus (or multi-function pen), then this might be what you need. It's like having a prosthetic fingernail, or even like finger painting.

Likes

1. Comfortable to use and wear
2. Easy to size, with many possible sizes
3. VERY affordable
4. Bright colors are highly visible

Dislikes

1. Impractical as default stylus

Rating: 4 needles (out of five).

If you would like to add any comments or corrections to my review, please contact me at flux@snapbag.com