The Cosmonaut stylus

I’ll admit it, I somehow ended up hooked on Draw Something and then, mysteriously, sucked in by Paper. This means I have a lot of horrible stick figures to draw and only my finger to do it with. This simply will not do so I ordered the Cosmonaut by Studio Neat.

I’m going to take a real quick break here and point you at this great stylus comparison by The Verge. If you can’t find a stylus you like from that bunch, keep using your finger.

Let’s get back to the Cosmonaut. This is a different kind of stylus, it’s fat and rubbery and looks nothing like a pen. In fact, the Studio Neat guys modeled it after a dry erase marker, something a bit different from most of the styli you might encounter. I’m sure the size might turn a lot of people away but for me, it’s perfect.

The Cosmonaut is machined from a solid piece of aluminum, coated in rubber, and fitted with a tip that glides over the screen with ease. If you heard “coated in rubber” and thought “I bet that gathers lint”, you are correct. A minor complaint, but a legitimate one nonetheless. At the same time, the rubber coating ensures you keep a good grip at all times, something I can’t say about the other skinny metal styli I’ve used in the past.

As you can imagine, the size + a solid aluminum core results in some heft although nothing major. I do prefer the weight to say the cheap iHome stylus my wife owns even if the Cosmonaut was 5x the price. The tip isn’t as squishy as others and, while not perfectly accurate, it works well enough for my needs. I can see this stylus being more useful in less precision work.

Even with my fancy new Cosmonaut, I can’t draw anything more than stick figures but I still think it was well worth it. For $25, it’s on par with most other styli and it’s made in America. I give the Cosmonaut two poorly drawn thumbs up.