4 Best Apple Pencil Alternatives

The Logitech Crayon is one of the best alternatives to the Apple Pencil. It has many of the same features that the Apple Pencil had but does so at a much more affordable price, and besides, Logitech has been making a lot of great licensed accessories for Apple products, so we do have some reputation and reliability in play here.

Let’s start with design and build quality, which does not disappoint, it has a body made with aluminum, and it has several rubber pieces covering the tip, the power button, and the charging port. While we’re on the topic of the charging port, yes, it is a lighting port, not a male plug, which means you get to charge it with a normal lighting cable instead of jamming your stylus into the iPad’s lightning port (I’m looking at you Apple designers!).

Going further, the Logitech Crayon has a weird flattened shape instead of a round one, it’s just an oddity though, depending on how you hold your pencil, this is actually comfortable to hold, and it also doesn’t roll (much like a carpenter’s pencil), so losing it is much harder.

I won’t recommend the Logitech Crayon for people that’ll do intensive graphic and artistic work, while it has tilt-sensitivity, palm rejection, good precision, and minimal lag, it’s lacking pressure sensitivity, unfortunately.

Instead, the arguably more comfortable shape of the Logitech Crayon makes it more suitable to be a stylus for note-takers.

Am I bothered that this doesn’t have pressure sensitivity? Not at all! It’s perfect as it is for handwriting, and for the price, it’s hard to complain!

Did you break or lose your Apple Pencil and you wouldn’t want to reinvest a lot of money yet? Or perhaps you’re preparing for that situation? Well, the JamJake stylus might be the one for you.

With a price point that’s less than half of the original Apple Pencil, the JamJake is definitely one of the most cheapest alternatives out there.

But don’t be mistaken, “cheap” doesn’t mean bad in this situation, because the JamJake is almost as good as its more expensive counterpart. I say almost because of course, it will be losing some features, but I can tell you that this one has 80% of the functionality for less than half of the price.

It has tilt sensitivity and palm rejection, although as you might expect there’s no pressure sensitivity on this one. But here’s the best part, while the Logitech Crayon failed to be as fast and accurate as the Apple Pencil, the JamJake K10 is a bit closer to the Apple Pencil in terms of responsiveness and accuracy, which does improve the feel of use by a lot; note taking and sketching feels much better.

While the JamJake looks a lot better than the Logitech Crayon on paper, the JamJake suffers from some issues.

One of those issues is quality control. According to customer reviews, and not from my experiences, the JamJake can be prone to malfunctions ranging from little glitches to not working at all. Another one is the build quality, it has a plastic body, and it even has magnets to attach to the iPad, but its durability is questionable at most.

In the end, we come back to its unbeatable price, it’s so affordable that losing or breaking one just meant buying a new one, and with its great performance, I think it’s still a great buy and a must-try if you’re looking for a backup stylus.

Do you want something that won’t make your hands sore after just a few minutes of writing or drawing? Do you want something that just works? The Zagg Pro Stylus might be for you!

I say that this Pencil alternative is the most comfortable one for multiple reasons, for instance, it has a simple design that’s very reminiscent of the Apple Pencil which is already comfortable to hold as it is. And of course, there’s also the main reason why this is comfortable and that is the capacitive stylus at the other end of the stylus.

A capacitive stylus works by replicating a finger or at least making the iPad think that it’s being touched by a finger. Now, how would that be useful? On some apps like Procreate, you can set different actions for different inputs, for example, a pen for the stylus and an eraser for the capacitive stylus. If you do that, with the Zagg Pro Stylus, you can go on with drawing or writing, and if you made a mistake you can just flip the stylus and erase it like a normal pencil!

Other than that, the Zagg Pro Stylus has tilt sensitivity and great palm rejection, but no pressure sensitivity. Accuracy and responsiveness are also on point, and as a bonus, the pen is also magnetic so if you ever got tired of this comfortable stylus, you can just attach it to your iPad, although it doesn’t wirelessly charge, keep that in mind.

In the end, I think the Zagg Pro Stylus is one of the best ones, although I just couldn’t put it as the best Apple Pencil alternative for one reason; there are no replacement tips, or at least they’re very hard to find in stock or at all.

Next, if you’re looking for a stylus that’s better suited for graphic or creative work, the Adonit Note Plus is a great choice!

For starters, it has a sleek design that not only looks great, but also feels great to hold, and it actually looks like a nice pen, it even has a clip that I’m sure a lot of note-takers will love to have when they’re not using the pencil.

This pen has shortcut buttons on the side that you can reprogram to different actions, and just beside that is an LED indicator. At one end of the pen, you’ll find the charging port which is unfortunately still Micro-USB, but I think it’s fine since this pen will last you up to 10 hours of continuous use (I’d like to think of it as a trade-off; crappy charging but good battery life).

The Adonit Note Plus is extremely responsive and accurate, it has great palm rejection, and tilt sensitivity, and finally, it’s the only Apple Pencil alternative on this list that has pressure sensitivity.

But there’s a catch with the pressure sensitivity, it only works on specific apps, and unfortunately, the most popular drawing app on iPad, Procreate, doesn’t support this pen’s pressure sensitivity.

Going further, the tip on this stylus is smooth and provides satisfying feedback especially if you have a matte screen protector on your iPad. Although the tip on this stylus is a bit smaller than the Apple Pencil and other alternatives, it can raise concerns about wearing out more quickly, but luckily, Adonit does sell three-pack tip replacements for around $15.

Overall, the Adonit Note Plus is a fine Apple Pencil alternative, it’s a shame that the pressure sensitivity doesn’t work with a lot of apps though, but when you use an app that supports it, it works fantastic!