14 DAY TRIAL // As we previously told you, Dell has finally started shipping out new Active Styluses (REV A01) for its Venue 8 Pro and 11 Pro tablets, styluses which were pulled from sales, due to technical issues affecting customers.
Those of you who have placed orders months ago, should be expecting to receive your styluses any time now (and as some of our readers reported, some already received it).
Tabtech reports a Hands-on video is already available and according to it Dell has fixed some major issues with the stylus but not all of them.
According to the new information, the tip of the pen no longer falls off and is firmly positioned. One of the major complaints users had regarding the stylus was its extremely low life-cycle.
The pen was previously powered by an AAAA battery, which lasted only for a day. Now that has been fixed and the stylus will last you much more.
From the outside, one can’t spot any difference between the new pens and the old ones. In the video, you can see the stylus input is detected 2 cm above the display and writing and drawing seems to go pretty smooth.
But wait, it seems we’re not spared of more problems. The pen's delete button is quite unreliable and you’ll have to press it multiple times before it finally complies. Moreover, no cursor is displayed when the tablet detects stylus input, thus making calibration difficult.
Anyway, this isn't a very big issue and could be solved easily by virtue of a simple software update, although we had hoped Dell would have done so by now.
However, if the improved battery life and improved pen capabilities are good enough for you, it appears the Dell Active Stylus has already shown up for purchase in Europe for the price of €30 / $41, so those of you who didn't order one yet, now is your chance to do so.