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Nearly nine months after the first USI-compatible Chromebooks were announced at CES, we’re finally starting to see pens bearing the Universal Stylus Initiative technology. The first to market was technically HP’s rechargeable USI pen but it quickly sold out and remained as such for weeks. Only recently did HP replenish its inventory but the stylus quickly sold out in just a matter of days. Third-party maker iPlume appears to have the corner on the market at the moment with its Amazon listing that has been sporadically available over the past few weeks.
We have seen listings of the USI pens from ASUS and Lenovo pop up around the web but the styluses have been out of stock or backorder since they appeared. Apart from a Reddit post from a user that was actually able to get one of the ASUS models, I haven’t seen either pen in the wild. Oddly enough, Lenovo’s USI stylus has quietly shown up on the company’s Australian site and it’s actually available to order. Priced a $59 AUD (approx. $42.50 USD), Lenovo’s USI stylus isn’t rechargeable but the listing says that you can get up to 150 hours on a single battery with an average of two hours of daily use.
I was initially a bit surprised at this discovery given the fact that Chromebooks are few and far between in Australia. However, upon further inspection, I found that our friends down under do have access to a couple of very popular USI-compatible devices. One of those is the HP Chromebook x360 12b. The other just so happens to be the Lenovo Duet Chromebook. If you’re in the land down under, you can now get your hands on the USI pen from Lenovo. Hopefully, this is an indicator of a wider spread launch of this and other USI styluses. Grab the one on Australia at the link below.
