Rotring Trio Pen
List price $25.00
StylusCentral.com sale price $15.99

The Trio Pen is a stylus/pen/mechanical pencil multi-pen from German pen manufacturer Rotring. As indicated by the packaging, which doesn't mention a stylus anywhere, this pen started life as a pen with black ink, red ink and a pencil. Just when I thought I had been shipped the wrong pen, I found that the red ink cartridge, which was now in the presentation case, had been replaced with a stylus from another German manufacturer, Lamy.

You use the gravity method to choose which nib you want. This means that you hold the pen horizontally and rotate it until the symbol for the nib you want is uppermost. Red dot is for stylus, white dot for black pen and '0.7' with an arrow for pencil. Pressing the button then clicks the right nib into place. Personally, I quite like this system, and it works 95% of the time - the 5% when it doesn't, you retract the nib by clicking a different button on the clip and try again. The Lamy stylus is grey and glides easily over the screen, making for pleasant use. The pen has a grip and an oversized barrel. It's quite heavy, but not unpleasant to work with at all.

The pen nib is not dissimilar to the Throttle's pen in the line it writes, though it tends to go more towards dark grey than black. A black band round the nib helps to identify it and stop you from trying to use it on the screen by accident! The pencil nib takes standard 0.7mm lead, and comes supplied with two roughly two-inch pieces. The lead can take a few clicks to advance, but this is probably better than having it advance every time you extend the pencil nib. Hidden away in the button is a small but replaceable eraser, which might be convenient if you didn't have any other erasers to hand. All of the Trio Pen's nibs can be replaced, even the stylus - in fact, if you wanted to put the red pen nib back in instead of the black pen or stylus, you could do it.

The Trio Pen does rattle slightly if shaken when no nib is extended. This doesn't personally bother me too much, but if you dislike rattling you might want to avoid this type of multi-pen.

Especially if you can get the Trio Pen at a discount (StylusCentral.com was selling them at $10 off at the time of writing), it is a fine multi-pen which should last for a long time. It's the only stylus in this roundup to contain a pencil and eraser, and even boasts a five-year guarantee.

The Everywhere Stylus
List price $1.50
StylusCentral.com sale price $0.49

The Everywhere Stylus is a rather unusual stylus. It's just a stylus - no pen or pencil - and is a moulded, semi-translucent plastic barrel with a stylus tip at the end. My first impression was that it looked a bit cheap, but, looking at the price, it really is cheap! You can leave these around, hence their name, and not have to worry much if one gets lost.

It's very light, and there's almost no difference between it and the Revo stylus in terms of weight. The Everywhere Stylus is a little longer and thicker, though, so those with larger hands might prefer it to the standard Revo stylus. Writing on the screen with The Everywhere Stylus feels similar to writing on paper - it doesn't glide as much as the Lamy stylus on the Rotring Trio Pen. The grip with large ribs is peculiar but not bad, though it does seem like you could play the stylus as a musical instrument!

The Everywhere Stylus is great if you want something very cheap, or if you're liable to lose styli! It's not the best, but you wouldn't expect that at this price.

Apple Newton eMate 300
List price $5.95
StylusCentral.com sale price $2.95

The Apple Newton eMate 300 is a part-plastic, part-metal stylus which would probably fit in the stylus slot of an Apple Newton, had I got one of those to test with. The contours of it are so similar to The Everywhere Stylus' I think that the latter might be designed for an Apple Newton too.

Because the nib end of the barrel is metal and the rest is plastic, the stylus is somewhat end-heavy, but because you hold it at the nib end it balances out. The actual nib looks identical to The Everywhere Stylus', but the eMate's nib is less rough and glides more easily. The feel of it isn't unlike the Lamy nib on the Rotring Trio Pen.

At this price, the eMate is my favourite if all you need is a stylus, and no pen or pencil. It might be even better if you had an Apple Newton!

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All the styli in this roundup can be obtained from StylusCentral.com.