• $14

• Improves Graffiti recognition
• Looks great

• None

Design:
Cost/benefit:
Coolness:
Overall:

Writing Tip
Clearly, the most important part of the part of the Floating Point stylus is the writing tip. This is a small pin that, instead of being solidly attached to the rest of the stylus, rides on a small spring inside the rest of the plastic tip. This means when you write on the screen, there is some give to the tip instead of being rigid like most styli.

The Benefits
The spring loaded tip evens out the pressure from the stylus on the digitizer. If you push down harder, the spring absorbs a bit of the force. This is supposed to improve Graffiti recognition. I'll have to admit I was a bit skeptical about the claim of improving character recognition so I ran some tests, admittedly non-scientific.

I wrote a series of sentences twice with both my regular stylus and with the Floating Point, varying which one I used to write the sentence first. Frankly, I was a bit surprised with the result. The Floating Point one consistently gave me fewer errors.

Many people have also said that using the Floating Point stylus is more like writing on paper than a regular stylus. In my opinion, the process of writing on the Palm is so different from writing on paper that this is too tough a comparison for me to make. It is almost impossible for me to find much in common between the typical writing I do in paper, on a large sheet lying on a desk, to writing on my Palm, in a small box I'm holding in my left hand, no matter what stylus I'm using.

The even pressure of the spring-loaded tip should also save wear and tear on your screen. The tip will help prevent you from pushing down too hard on the stylus, which should help prevent scratches.

The Rest of the Story...
Lest I neglect the rest of the stylus, the shaft of the Floating Point is silver metal and has three grooves to keep your fingers from slipping on the slick metal. Printed on it in very light letters is the name of the product and LandWare's URL.

The top is plastic and unscrews to reveal a reset pin.

The combination of the black top and tip with the silver shaft looks very professional. I like the looks of this stylus a lot. The metal shaft means it is a bit heavier than many plastic styli but not by much.

I am using the new version for the m500 series and this stylus fits well in the right channel. Of course, it suffers from the m500 series overly tight hold on anything in this channel. On either side of the Floating Point's top are two small lumps designed to hold it in its slot. I ended up having to take some sandpaper to these in order to make the stylus loose enough in the slot to remove without resorting to tools. But I don't blame LandWare for this; all peripherals that use either channel on the m500 end up being this tight.

LandWare also makes versions that work with the Palm III, V, and VII series, and the TRGpro and HandEra 330.

Conclusion
I have to give LandWare credit for coming up with a unique design that actually improves on the standard stylus. If your Graffiti recognition rate is poor, the Floating Point stylus could be just the thing you need to improve it.