The good news is that the qualities you enjoy in your favorite pen or pencil are readily available in a stylus. Thick or thin, heavy or light, plain or fancy, they're all out there. More styli than you can shake a scrawny plastic stick at, so to speak, with non-scratch tips, better grips, even microchips. Let's look at three groups of styli: replacements, combinations, and oddballs.

Replacements
Replacement styli fit in the silo or slot of your Palm device or Visor, and most have reset pins. They also have improvements or extra features, like a colored tip for better visibility, more mass, or a ballpoint pen, to justify their added cost.

The Chameleon T11V
A good example is the Pilot Pentopia Chameleon series at http://www.pentopia.com/chameleon.htm. The Chameleon T11V is shown in Figure A.

FIGURE A


Pentopia's Chameleon T11V functions as a stylus, ball point pen, and reset pin. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The same size as the factory stylus, it has a unique spring-loaded tip that makes writing more comfortable. Chameleon, in this case, means it changes from a stylus on one end to a refillable ballpoint on the other end. For such a simple tool, this one is a mechanical marvel. What looks like a pocket clip is actually a tiny lug wrench to adjust the stylus tip tension and to unbolt the pen barrel/reset pin. It's truly a Tim Taylor tool. The Palm V version sports a bright orange tip, and a bright green tip comes on the Palm III version.

ttools SLIMpoint Stylus/Pen
Another clever replacement is the ttools SLIMpoint Stylus/Pen at http://safe1.access3000.net/Tango3.acgi$/Tango3/newttools/order.taf?_function=list&category=slimline&_start=1. It's shown in Figure B.

FIGURE B


ttools SLIMpoint Stylus/Pen docks with most Palm devices. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Push the plunger button on the top, and a ballpoint pen extrudes from under the stylus tip. An onboard ballpoint is perfect for Palm computing minimalists like me who like to travel light. I stick some Post-It notes on the back of my PalmVx so I can copy information from the screen and actually hand it to those beaming-challenged unfortunates still using paper organizers.

Custom PDA Stylus
Some of you may prefer the "nail" design of the Custom PDA Stylus from PDA Panache. The Palm V models can be found at http://www.pdapanache.com/catalog/2.cfm and are shown in Figure C.