In praise of a small electronic stick

I’m about to break a golden rule, for which I can only apologise. A mere two months ago I used this page to explain why I was desperate to buy a new phone but was going to resist temptation. This month, I’m going to explain why I’m desperate to buy a new phone but am going to resist temptation.

Please, have some sympathy. One of the truly awful things about this job is that I either test new, exciting products or edit reviews about them – which involves checking how much they cost, which colours they come in, and the marvellous features they offer. It hurts.

This month, my object of desire is the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra ( see p46). I don’t need one; as I mentioned before, my Huawei P30 Pro continues to serve me in noble if tricky-tocharge fashion. “I don’t need a new phone” is a mantra I repeat to myself each night.

So, why am I captivated by the S22 Ultra? Is it the cameras? That’s a big part of it. One of the reasons I’ve stuck with the P30 Pro for so long is that its photos still hold up against the best phones of today, as it was ahead of its time with a 5x optical zoom and low-light capture. But the Samsung has it licked with 10x optical zoom and staggeringly good image stabilisation. Just think how much joy I could give to all my Facebook friends with a new image of the moon each night.

But it isn’t the camera. It’s the S Pen. After almost 30 years of denial, I’ve finally realised that I have a stylus fetish. Nothing weird, not anything that’s going to attract a troubling band of subscribers on OnlyFans, just a mild obsession with them and what they can do. It’s revealing that three different styluses sit on my desk as I write this: one that I bought as a spare for my Surface Book years ago, an Apple Pencil 2 for my iPad and one for the Asus Vivobook Slate 13 OLED ( see p56) that I’ve just finished reviewing.

Reviewers tend to use terms such as “adds a new dimension” too easily, but a stylus genuinely changes what you can do with a device. This month, we have two more excellent examples of this in the Kobo Sage ( see p62) and Onyx Boox Note Air 2 ( see p63) e-readers, and I can’t tell you how much it pains me that I haven’t had a chance to play with either of those devices myself. The addition of a stylus transforms a read-only, passive device into something you can create on. Or, at least, write notes on.

Now, clearly a phone is different to an e-reader. I already spend far too much of my time swirling my finger around the Android keyboard, and allow me to briefly hail our lords and masters Swype for popularising this amazing technology. But what if I could use the huge 6.8in screen found on the S22 Ultra to draw upon, take notes or jot down thoughts without even needing to switch it on? What if I could sign documents, annotate PDFs, and all those other dreamy things I do on my Surface?

But it’s not to be. I have electricity bills to pay, feet to be shod, and a car that needs petrol that’s currently more expensive per litre than printer ink. And besides, I’ve got my eye on a gorgeous stylus holder on eBay.