Review: Lenovo Active Pen 2

I have been drawing illustrations for this blog for a while now. The 3-year old Lenovo Flex 5 (a.k.a Yoga 520) that I use has a pretty nice touch screen that I could use my finger to draw directly. The illustrations were decent but generally lack line weight distinction. Feeling like I should up my drawing game a bit, I decided to purchase a fine-point stylus.

My research advised me that there are two different types of stylus available on the market. In a nutshell they are:

1) Passive stylus

Pros: No battery required. No need for paring. Cheap!

Cons: No shortcut function. No palm rejection.

2) Active stylus

Pros: Support software-based technologies like palm rejection and shortcuts

Cons: Requires pairing. More expensive

Since I really needed palm rejection function, passive stylus is immediately out of the question. Enters the  Lenovo Active Pen 2. This is a Bluetooth-enabled active capacity pen that has three buttons for customized function. I have been testing it out for two weeks now. The pen’s nib is semi-firm, offers good, smooth strokes in moderate drawing speed, and so far does not scratch my laptop screen. Compare to drawing with my finger alone, the pen allows for more nuanced use of stroke pressure and varying line weight. The experience has been much closer to hand-drawing. 

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