Showcase of Stylii: Bic e.3 Stylus

The Bic e.3 Stylus is a lightweight plastic stylus/pen/pencil combination. Mine is bright yellow but I have also seen a black model. The stylus is a bit on the thick side, about the size of one of those old Bic 4-in-1 pens. The stylus has a nice rubber grip right at the spot I like to lay the stylus against my index finger when writing. It felt very comfortable.

It contains a medium point black pen, a 0.5mm mechanical pencil, and a bright orange stylus tip. The tip is actually a little thinner than a standard stylus tip but not much. The top of the stylus has a small eraser covered by a translucent yellow cap. There is also a thick clip that seems very sturdy near the top.

You move between the pen, pencil, and stylus tip by twisting the top half of the pen. Holding the stylus in front of you with the tip on the left, turn left to use the pen and right to use the pencil. Use the center position for the stylus. You can also leave the stylus in a middle position without any tip for travel.

The pen is really light and comfortable to hold, but I think it may be too light. When I try writing with it I find some of my letters don't register on the Palm. I generally have a heavy hand with the grafitti so this doesn't bode well for the normal user. Other than the skipped letters the recognition was nice and I could write as fast as I wanted, but really, writing with missing letters isn't very productive.

The pen itself is nice and large - it seems to have a larger barrel than most stylus/pen combinations. It looks like a standard Bic ballpoint pen and I suspect that normal pen refills will work in the stylus but I haven't tried any so I cannot be sure.

The pencil is actually quite nice. You have to press in on the top of the stylus a few times to advance the lead, then you are ready to go. Unlike many mechanical pencils I don't find myself constantly breaking off the lead. If I used pencils more often I'd definitely carry the e.3 around just for its pencil.

Like several of the other stylii I've reviewed, I find I cannot recommend the Bic e.3 as a stylus because of grafitti recognition problems but I find myself liking the pen and pencil. For a price of $3.99-6.99, it's a good investment as a pen/pencil combination that can double as an emergency stylus but I wouldn't get it expecting it to be an every day stylus.

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