Review: Adonit Note 2 stylus for iPad (2018 or newer)

Adonit Note 2 is a stylus designed for note taking on iPads. This is an upgrade over Adonit Note (1st gen) in two ways, it's now IP65 waterproof and charging is now via USB-C.

The iPads supported are the following:

• iPad Pro (3rd and 4th gen 11" and 12.9")
• iPad Air (3rd and 4th gen)
• iPad (6, 7, 8th gen)
• iPad mini (5th gen)

If you have a newer iPad than those listed above, it should work too. But do check out the compatibility list before you buy. I wasn't able to get the pen to work with my iPad Pro 2018 (3rd gen), but it works with M1 iPad Pro (2021).

Even though it's supposed to be waterproof, I probably won't want to get any water into the exposed USB-C port.

The only things included in the box are the stylus and a short USB-C to USB-C cable. No replacement tips are included but they can be purchased from Adonit.

This stylus does not use Bluetooth and no pairing is required. There are no shortcut buttons. The side button is for power only. Battery life is rated to last for 24 hours which is good. It can last 3 days with 8 hours of continuous writing daily.

This is a fine tip so it doesn't block the lines or whatever you're writing.

The tip has a matte texture and there's a good amount of friction when writing on a glass surface. For comparison purposes, the hard tip of Apple Pencil will glide along more easily.

Overall writing and note taking performance is excellent.

Most note taking apps are able to capture my handwriting accurately.

The pen tracking is accurate and responsive. There's no misalignment.

The stylus supports palm rejection. However to get perfect palm rejection, you'll need to use an app that also supports palm rejection, more specifically the app can be set to allow only pen input.

Wacom Bamboo Paper on iPadOS unfortunately doesn't support palm rejection. When resting your palm on the display, it's likely to introduce stray strokes. Interestingly, the Android version of this app actually supports palm rejection.

You can certainly use this stylus to draw, but there is no support for tilt and pressure sensitivity. When writing, all lines will have uniform widths. Interestingly in Concepts app, when I had a pressure sensitive brush selected, sometimes the lines will be much thinner even though it should not be that way.

The overall writing and note taking experience is excellent so this is a stylus I can recommend very easily. Official retail price is US $54.99. It's worth the money. Apple Pencil cost more than twice.

The first generation also has excellent writing experience and at the time of this review is selling at US $39.99. That's actually more worth the money because it's much cheaper. Charging via microUSB to USB-A isn't really a big downside.

Availability

Check out more review for Adonit Note 2 on Amazon.

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