iPad mini suitability and comfort for handwritten note taking.

Your iPad Air 2 will not be able to use any version of the Apple Pencil, but there is a third party stylus that is compatible with some handwriting and notes apps that your current iPad Air 2 can run, if interested in trying to use your current iPad Air 2, instead.

A rather small investment in a third party stylus you can test with your iPad Air 2 is the Adonit Pixel Bluetooth stylus from Adonit.

You could purchase this stylus, first, and see if it works well enough with your iPad Air 2.

It’s the ONLY third party, smart Bluetooth stylus that I can, honestly, recommend that actually works well with any iPad

http://www.adonit.net/jot/pixel/

This smart, Bluetooth stylus works across a wide range of iDevices.

The Bluetooth connection is stable and its Bluetooth pressure sensing technology is very smooth, natural feeling and has consistent line drawing ability.

Plus it's a quality made, aluminum stylus with two programmable buttons.

I have been using this stylus for well over two years now and it is really good on my iPad.

This stylus works wonderfully for me.

The Adonit Pixel works with iPads all the way back to the 2012, 1st gen iPad Mini and iPad 4th generation!

Has ON/OFF/app shortcut buttons.

Has a nice fine, textured pen tip AND a nice rubber grip.

Magnetically charges, has an auto 15 minute shutdown feature ( to preserve battery life ), charges in a hour, or so.

Has both a small USB charger that that plugs into any USB charging block OR you can purchase an optional charging dock.

I find it only lasts for anywhere between 9-12 hours, but Adonit claims up to 16 hours of continuous use on a single charge cycle.

Made of very high quality aluminum materials.

The Adonit Pixel ONLY works with over a dozen of the major/popular drawing/sketching/painting apps (the Pixel works with, but currently no longer “officially” supported with Procreate, but it still works and works pretty well in Procreate ), and over a half dozen of the popular note taking apps, a half dozen writing apps and about a half dozen PDF style/compatible apps.

You WILL have to perform some pairing and setup parameters in each of the Adonit Pixel compatible apps.

You just DO NOT simply turn on Bluetooth on an iDevice and turn on the Adonit stylus and start writing.

The Adonit Pixel stylus is NOT an Apple Pencil in this regard/respect.

You have to initially Bluetooth pair the Adonit Pixel, setup the hand/palm position and in many apps, set up the stylus screen pressure sensitivity for each and every compatible app!

Once you have, initially, done all of this, all Adonit Pixel compatible apps will remember these settings for future use!

Some Adonit Pixel users claimed their stylus doesn’t work, but it does work well IF you properly know how to set up the Adonit Pixel!

Many of the more popular note taking apps in the iOS App Store now have handwriting to text conversion and some handwriting apps can convert your handwriting to text live as you write to an application.

Some of these handwriting to text conversion apps will work with just an inexpensive, commonplace, fine point battery capacitive stylus that requires no Bluetooth connection.

Found it on Amazon .

https://www.amazon.com/Adonit-Pixel-Sensitivity-Rejection-Compatible/dp/B01EM7TGOW/ref=sr_1_4?crid=GULRDU8O4QCJ&keywords=adonit%2Bpixel&qid=1576022045&sprefix=Adonit%2BP%2Caps%2C165&sr=8-4&th=1

Purchase the bronze/copper version. It’s cheaper than the black/gray version.

The iPad Mini 5 and Apple Pencil will make a great notetaking combo, but if you choose, you could just get by with your current iPad Air 2 and third party stylus.

If your iPad Air is already running iPadOS, you are running the latest operating system and the most up to date apps and have access to all of the current, popular notetaking apps.

The iPad Mini 5 and Apple Pencil DO have more compatible apps for notetaking than the apps I have previously listed.

The ones I listed are all both Apple Pencil compatible and Adonit Pixel stylus compatible.

So there is that to consider.

Try Amazon.

Compatible Adonit Pixel apps for Notes and Notes with drawing types of apps.

GoodNotes 4 or 5

Notability ( palm rejection noticeably improved using special, non-electrical conducting, lycra-based material drawing glove )

Note Shelf 2

Notes Writer ( palm rejection improved using special, non-electrical conducting, lycra-based material drawing glove )

QuickNotes X Pro ( palm rejection ONLY. No pressure sensing for light/dark or thin/thick lines )

uPad

Zoom Notes ( Adonit Pixel works very well with Zoom Notes/Zoom Notes Lite )

PDF Pen 5

This stylus works with other non-compatible apps, too, but without any palm rejection and/or pressure features.

You can use this stylus with other apps but will not be able to lay your palm on the screen, unless you use special, non-electrical conducting, lycra-based material drawing glove that works by isolating your hand/palm and allow you to lay your hand/palm on the screen as you draw in these non-compatible Adonit stylus apps.

Something like this found on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Anti-fouling-Drawing-Tablet-Graphic-Right-Ha nd-Left-Hand/dp/B017R8M2JY/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1543548123&sr=8-1-spons&k eywords=lycra+drawing+gloves&psc=1

Many more makers of these types of gloves on Amazon.

If interested, to make sure you get the latest installed stylus firmware, you must order the Adonit Pixel stylus directly from the Adonit website.

Good Luck to You!