The HTC HD2, which features a massive 4.3″ capacitive screen, has been reviewed a few months ago in the article:  “HTC HD2 review – A new era in Windows Phones’ history“.

The new era in Windows Mobile history is reflected in the use of capacitive screen technology and the resulting absense of a stylus which has dominated the mobile market for many years. Those among us who worked with the Palm III, Palm V, Compaq iPAQ 3650 or any later Windows Mobile PocketPC do exactly know what I’m talking about !

Since the launch of the first generation iPhone back in 2007 (which also featured a capacitive screen), the complete mobile market is trending towards this “touch control” with you fingers.

However …. on the DAGi website you can read the following announcement, which includes a lot of recent smartphones:

“Dagi Corporation Ltd. announced the first patent protected transparent capacitive touch panel stylus for Apple all generation iPhone 3GS / 3G / 2G, iPod Touch, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, HTC Google Phone G1 G2, HTC HD2, HTC Droid Eris, RIM Blackberry Storm 1 / Storm2, Android Phones, LG KM900 Arena, LG GC900 Viewty Smart, LG GD900 Crystal, Motorola Droid Verizon, Nokia X6, Samsung i7500 Galaxy, etc.”

Handwritten notes and sketches – A practical engineering example

In order to illustrate why there is still a market for a stylus, despite that the majority of the market seems to be heading towards touch control, I will give you a practical personal example.

You probably know the proverd “A picture is worth a thousand words“, and I personally think that this applies to engineers. With a mechanical engineering background I always use (and used) sketches or models to explain a certain technical problem, and I would suggest that construction drawings are a kind of language for mechanical engineers.

A Windows Mobile PocketPC of Windows Phone can be a powerful tool for that use, especially when you are -for example- working on a construction site for trouble shooting. The massive 4.3″ capacitive screen of the HTC HD2, combined with the DAGI capacitive stylus is perfectly suited for this kind of mobile use on location.

Furthermore it is great to capture ideas, and have them with you in a central place. As you can see in the screenshots above I use Phatware PhatPad 4.7 for a few reasons.

At first Phatware PhatPad provides six different penmodes, and a lot of options to create and edit notes (different pen colors, etc.), which are not present in the standard notes application on the HTC HD2. In other words it is a more complete and specialized solution, where you can even run text recognition, or structure notes over different pages.

Second Phatware PhatPad is feels far more accurate than the standard notes application, both when I write with my finger and with th DAGi capcitive stylus. The main point is that the fine locomotion for handwriting is far more accurate with the DAGi capacitive stylus (remark the red dot). Especially at the points where lines connect, for example in case of the capital A or the sketch of the house. When you try to write or sketch it with your finger, the lines don’t connect but are offset which makes the notes less usable.

Concluding thoughts and wrap-up

While Devicewire reported this week to have the official HTC HD2 capacitive stylus in stock, the DAGi capacitive stylus looks identical. I personally think they even come from the same factory, especially if the capacitive stylus is patent protect as you could read in the introductary announcement.

On the DAGi website you can furthermore see there are a few different  models available. In the review I used the P001-Black model/type of the DAGi capacitive stylus. The clip on the back makes it easy to carry in the front pocket of your blouse (if you like).

In practice there are still a lot of situations in practice where the stylus is a helpful tool. In addition to my personal example outlined above, you can see screenshots of people playing a minesweeper or chess game on their smartphone with help of the “more accurate” DAGi capacitive stylus.

If you want to learn more about capacitive screen technology, I want to recommend the article “Resistive vs Capacitive: the invisible tech war in which both opponents can win?” of Steve Litchfield, Editor on All About Symbian.com, and the article “How do touch-screen monitors know where you’re touching?” on the How Stuff Works website.

To wrap-up I hope that the practical example above gives you an idea of a realistic scenario where the DAGi capacitive stylus is really helpful. I’m using this stylus for a few weeks now, it has earned a default place in my Crumpler BeanCounter L bag, and I must admit I use it frequently.

Are you a curious HTC HD2 owner, please head over to Brando Workshop and order you DAGi Capacitive Stylus !!

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