As an increasing number of precision pressure-sensitive capacitive pens and corresponding applications arrive for iOS, iPad users are faced with a lot of considerations... now including whether or not to splurge for walnut wood. While it doesn't sport pressure-sensitivity, FiftyThree's new Pencil stylus, designed to work the Paper app, does showcase a few unique features that casual (or even more serious) iPad artists may be into.

It's got an ergonomic shape akin to those beefy pencils carpenters use, plus an internal battery that charges via USB and a second eraser tip. When paired with the Moleskin-like Paper app via "kiss" functionality (you just touch the tip to a button on the screen for a spell), the stylus kicks into gear and supports helpful features like palm-rejection.

The Paper app is freemium and comes with a dip pen style brush, with other tools like paint brushes and such available to buy separately. It runs smooth, but as of yet its functionality supports sketching and illustrating better than making full comic book pages from scratch. If you've used Wacom's Bamboo app on iOS, Paper will feel familiar.

The Pencil tip appears to be designed with serious sturdiness in mind, but the stylus still comes with a spare since all of these rubber tips can't help but eventually wear out over time.

Like luxury car interiors, the graphite-bodied $50 Pencil stylus can seem a little hoity-toity with its optional $60 walnut upgrade, but given that the cheaper entry-level model is on par with comparable capacitive pens on the market, it's easy to forgive -- especially since the built-in battery will save you money on AAA's. The pen's lack of extra buttons is a bit of a bummer, but that may not bother those who aren't used to using things like Intuos or Cintiq pens. Traditional wooden pencils don't have buttons either, after all. Of course, they also don't use Bluetooth.

You can see the Pencil stylus in action with the Paper app below.

 

 

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