Okay so. This is a pencil. You can draw on paper with it as you would with a pencil. You can then bring it to your laptop screen and write on it, as you would with a stylus.
This MSI Pen 2, announced earlier this week, actually seems like such a good idea when I think about it. If you have a notebook or Post-its on your desk that you like to take notes on, but sometimes also like to navigate the screen of your laptop with a stylus, you now only need one pen to do both. You can also try sketching a picture, diagram, or graph on paper before diving into it on a computer without putting down your writing utensil. You can make physical notes on text you’re reading on your computer, and then also reach up and highlight parts of that text. I keep thinking of more scenarios where this could come in handy.
I just tried the MSI Pen 2 and I really enjoyed it. This stylus uses MPP2.6 technology with 4096 pressure levels. MSI says it will last 10 hours on a five-minute charge. There’s haptic feedback, and the screen-writing component was quite comfortable, with both a smooth stroke and excellent resistance. I made a video here:
So how on earth does this work?
Well, the pen does indeed have a graphite nib inside. It’s kind of like those mechanical pencils we all used in fourth grade; when the graphite runs out, load another stick into it. (MSI tells me the pen comes with multiple graphite refills to get you started.)
MSI’s claim in the demo area was that the graphite tip was small and light enough not to damage the screen or leave residue on it when writing. Accordingly, I did not see any graphite or residue on the screen during or after my demonstration. My appointment was also late in the day, and at that point people had come over and been writing the thing non-stop. (I still think it’s magic though.)
The laptop line that this stylus comes with is the MSI Creator Z series. The unit I demonstrated this with was Creator Z17 HX Studio, which comes with the pen. This monstrous laptop will feature Intel’s new Core i9-13950HX, which has a whopping 24 cores (although only eight of those are performance cores, while 16 are power-efficient cores). You can get it with up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 laptop GPU and 64 GB of memory. The resolution is 2560 x 1600 and there is an RGB keyboard per key. But in my opinion, this pen is the highlight.
The Creator Z17 starts at $2,999, the release date is not finalized yet.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.