Artist Review of Adonit Jot Dash Stylus for Drawing

Video review is above if you want to skip the text.

Jot Dash

Adonit released the Jot Dash stylus in September 2015 to join their already huge family of styluses. I've already reviewed several of them before and will make some slight comparisons in this review.

By the way, I'm reviewing this stylus from the perspective of an artist.

In the box

Inside the box are the stylus and USB charger. There are no replaceable nibs.

Design

Jot Dash is a digital stylus designed to work like a normal capacitive stylus that can be used on most touchscreen devices, Android, iOS or Windows.

Capacitive styluses usually have bigger nibs, e.g. those rubber ones. The highlight of Jot Dash is its 1.9mm nib. Adonit has managed to minimise the size of the nib, but in order to do so had to make the stylus digital (battery powered) so as to enable tablets to detect that smaller point of contact on the screen.

One important thing to note is it requires power to work, and you must switch it on before it can work. It powers on very quickly compared to other Bluetooth styluses because it does not need to search for devices to be paired with.

This is not a Bluetooth stylus does not require Bluetooth to work.

Build quality

The body is sturdy and feels like metal throughout. The diameter is quite similar to typical ballpoint pens. It has a nice weight and good to hold.

There are two colour options to choose from, black and silver.

A clip is included and at the bottom is the power switch that doubles as a charging port.

The stylus is charged by a USB charger provided. Be careful not to lose the charger because it's small — I've lost one from another Adonit stylus before.

The tip is plastic polymer and makes a slight tapping sound against glass surfaces. It's not really irritating so it's much of an issue.

Functionality

The 1.9mm nib glides smoothly on the iPad that I use it with. However, I still feel that the Jot Pro Fine Point has a slight edge to being smooth on screen.

There is little to no noticeable lag for most of the drawing apps that I tested it with, e.g. Wacom Bamboo Paper, Procreate, Paper from FiftyThree, Adobe Draw & Sketch.

The stylus functions like a normal stylus. There are no extra features such as shortcut buttons on the side, pressure sensitivity or palm rejection.

Offset

As with all digital styluses, I'm concerned about the nib offset, which is the distance where the line appears compared to where your nib is.

Jot Dash handles offset well. As long as you hold the stylus roughly at 45 degrees tilt, offset is not a problem. I'm right handed and can hold the stylus in various other positions and the stylus is still quite accurate when it comes to putting down lines where I want it to be.

Quirk

Jot Dash can draw horizontal, straight and quick strokes well.

However, when it comes to drawing diagonal strokes slowly, the lines will become wavy.

Quick diagonal strokes are fine but not if you draw them slow.

If you are an artist, sometimes you need to draw slowly and carefully, such as when drawing a portrait. In the drawing above, I'm very sure you will be able to differentiate the quick from slow strokes quite easily.

If you only draw quick strokes, like this quick sketch above, then you are not going to be affected by diagonal wavy lines. However, I do not use quick strokes all the time.

When it comes to writing, it's an excellent stylus. The fine point lets you see what's beneath the nice and strokes appear instantly.

Battery

Since this stylus is battery powered, it needs to be switched on before using. Battery life is around 10 hours or so.

I'm wary about how durable the battery is. I've three other Adonit styluses that are also battery powered and they all went fail after months. One was out of warranty and I wasn't able to exchange it. The other two have been replaced. All three are different models. So this Jot Dash is my fourth stylus that's battery powered. 3 out of 4 stylus that failed because of the battery is not a good track record.

On the plus side, customer service for Adonit is very responsive. If your stylus is still under warranty, you can provide them with proof of purchase and serial number and can get your replacement fast. Their styluses are expensive and good customer service is something I expect, especially where there are so many complaints from others, including me, about battery problems.

Conclusion

It's a good stylus for writing but not so much for drawing.

The problem with diagonal wavy lines is not limited to this stylus but also to a lot of digital styluses, including Wacom's. And it happens in all the different drawing apps that I use. It's just the way the iPad is designed to detect fingers. Many digital styluses are just trying to work around the problem and in many cases still can't quite get there yet.

I would consider this a pricey stylus. Its selling point is the fine tip which other cheaper styluses do not have. So maybe that's worth the markup in price alone.

For artists, look elsewhere, actually check out the Jot Pro Fine Point.

Availability

Check out more reviews for the Adonit Jot Dash on these direct Amazon product pages below:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de