Uni-ball Signo Sparkling Glitter Gel Ink Pen – 1.0 mm – Blue

Feel the sparkles in your heart

I’m no connoisseur when it comes to glittery gel ink pens—I may snag one as a novelty, but I don’t have my finger on the pulse of that movement like I did in the 6th grade. My knowledge of the quality of entrants in the field is lacking. That said, I do have a rather cat-chewed Sakura Gelly Roll gel pen in sparkle purple that I will use for comparison.

Pleasantly acceptable!

The body is nice, as far as these cheap things go. Sparkles in the body and cap—noticeable but not gaudy. Cap posts securely on both ends. Pen itself is theoretically easy to refill (who knows how easy refills will be to find, however).

Looks like a mess waiting to happen, though I assure you it isn’t.

First, how the ink writes. I find it smoother than the Sakura Gelly Roll, and generally more consistent. If I’m gonna be taking some sparkly notes, on writing quality alone I favor the Uni Signo over the Gelly Roll.

Unless I’m writing on my hand, then the day goes to the Gelly Roll

As far as personal preference goes, be advised that the Signo ink is more translucent and the Gelly Roll more opaque.

Let it shine!

There is a big flaw in the Signo that you have to be warned of, one that does not plague the Gelly Roll: the Uni Signo glitter ink smells like fish. Smells *powerfully* like fish. If you write with it long enough (read: at all), you’ll think you’ve been transported to an open air fish market. It is truly bizarre.

Perhaps I should have known, blue—> water—> ocean—> FISH.

If you like fish, get this pen. If you want glittery and smooth writing, get this pen. If the mere thought of seafood turns your stomach, DO NOT get this pen.

 

Uni-ball Signo Sparkling Glitter Gel Ink Pen – 1.0 mm – Blue at JetPens

Uni-ball Jetstream Color Series Ballpoint Pens – 0.5mm – Light Blue & Purple

Angels are weeping right now, Uni-ball, and they are not tears of joy.

I’m not particularly subtle when it comes to my feelings about the Jetstream line of pens. I constantly shoehorn in mentions of them. I rank them somewhere between a writing utensil and a god (perhaps on par with Hercules, or something that writes in a combination of butter and black gold). I hold the Jetstream to a high standard, because that’s what the Jetstream delivers. That said, I’m not sure these are Jetstream pens.

They are perhaps wolves in pens’ clothing

They look like Jetstream pens. Exactly like the black 0.5mm Jetsteam I so dearly love—that same slick and sweeping modern design, attractively and accurately color-coded to match the ink inside.

The purple seems to be coming out too dark in several of these pictures. This is a more accurate representation of what this purple looks like. Pretty close to what Wikipedia terms “Mardi Gras” purple

Really spot-on with the color. You have no idea how much I appreciate that.

This is shattering every fundamental truth I ever knew about the universe, Uni-ball. The sky is blue, the earth orbits around the sun, Pilot G2s are generally pretty terrible, and the Jetstream writes like an oil-based miracle. THAT IS THE WAY THE WORLD IS SUPPOSED TO WORK

Let’s not kid ourselves—even on Clairefontaine paper there, this ink performance isn’t up to snuff. The tip is an absolute mess, and I think that’s where all the problems are coming from.

CRUSTED WITH PROBLEMS

Picture it: the ink gums up at the tip, leading to blobs. Blobs that don’t get transferred to the page lead to slight, jerky resistance as they get worked around the surface of the ballpoint, and all this inconsistency and uneven distribution of ink leads to the occasional ghosting.

These two are up to no good

It wants to be smooth, really it does. But something about the formulation for colorful inks is having this terrible side effect. This is a ballpoint pen. Maintenance is not part of the repertoire for a ballpoint pen this inexpensive. I shouldn’t have to be cleaning off the tip of a ballpoint pen. I’d also like to note that in handwriting this post, the blue pen just started having the pen equivalent of agonal breathing, and I had to switch back to the purple.

I thought maybe using bottom-barrel paper might bring out some kind of desperate last-minute hat-trick-miracle, but no.

What is going on here, Uni-ball? Whatever it is, it’s not okay, and should NOT be called a Jetstream.

Take those nametags off right now, you rank impostors!

You can either find a way to fix this ink, or don’t dare call this thing a Jetstream. Your choice.

EVERYTHING IS A LIIIIIIIE

So, where do we go from here, my fellow penficionados? I suggest stockpiling canned goods, and buy up more REAL Jetstreams.

Real Jetstream Ballpoint Pens at JetPens

But it’s your money, you can do whatever you want.
Uni-ball Jetstream Color Series Ballpoint Pen – 0.5 mm – Light Blue Body – Light Blue Ink at JetPens
Uni-ball Jetstream Color Series Ballpoint Pen – 0.5 mm – Purple Body – Purple Ink at JetPens

P.S. Many thanks to JetPens for providing these sample pens free of charge!

Mini Review: Uni-ball Style Fit Mystar 5 Color Multi Pen Body Component – Black

Old body, new body, and my bathroom counter.

Can’t go mentioning the sleek new 3-component Mystar Meister without also acknowledging the slightly cheaper (in all senses of the word) 5-component body. In my undoubtedly never-ending quest for the Perfect Multipencil, the Mystar Meister is an upgrade from my first multipencil/my first Style-Fit body.

The new body might be the teensiest bit thicker than the old body, or I might be the teensiest bit hallucinating; it's hard to tell.

I didn’t get any new components to go in the new body, because why would I need two fully-loaded multipencils at the same time (/why would I need to spend an extra quantity of money exceeding $10)? So this will just be about the body. The Mystar Meister has a matte finish to its plastic body (as opposed to smudgy-fingerprint-showing slick plastic), a tapered end with streamlined plungers (as opposed to airplane wings), a metal clip on a plastic plunger (as opposed to an all plastic clip that could break at any moment), and an eraser with easy-to-lose cap (as opposed to no eraser whatsoever). I like these improvements, for the most part, but there are still some problems with the Mystar Meister’s overall design.

You don't need to know what components you're using, right?

The tiny window is a slight problem. All the labels, on the gel pens especially, are at the bottom, now hidden by the grip. The only thing I can see on this 0.28mm Black Gel component is the beginning of a label that says ” .24 BLACK” (what happened to 0.28??) and the only thing I can see when that component is deployed is “CK”…. ink components need to be labeled with all Style Fit bodies in mind, not just the original model.

At least I could relabel the pencil components myself.

Remodeling the plungers, however, was a good move. Looks much nicer/less like a rocket ship.

No one is ready for take-off now

Much of the improvement in this model is geared toward making the Style Fit a better multipencil. The old model body, while technically multipencil capable, was a pain in the thumb when you needed to advance lead. You had to press down on the little airplane wings, which were not exactly optimized for the task. And the old model body had no eraser.

Let me quote my first Style Fit review: "I think I’d rather have no eraser at all than be saddled with a uselessly small eraser beneath a tiny, easily lost plastic eraser cap." ...... it's like they listened...to half of what I was saying.

I still much prefer the Hi-Tec-C Coleto eraser component. I’m glad to see an eraser on the Style Fit…but I doubt I’ll use that dinky thing very much.

Finally, I want to mention the biggest improvement/problem in the new Style Fit:

Forget doofy wings; we can go back to advancing mechanical pencil lead in the way our ancestors intended.

Deploy pencil you want to use. Push down on the top. Lead advances. EXCELLENT….at least conceptually. In practice, I have frequently (not always, but enough to be very annoying) had the component I was trying to advance lead on spring back up into undeployment whenever I clicked the top to advance lead. The lead advanced, the component retreated. NOT EXCELLENT.

The design is a much better—and most importantly, more aesthetically pleasing—way to advance lead (PILOT I HOPE YOU ARE TAKING NOTES). But Uni needs to work out whatever design bug is causing this frequent retraction problem. I don’t know what condition causes it (I am sitting here right now trying to replicate the problem on command, but the multipencil refuses to obey, as if to say “I can change! Please don’t tell the world about my one major design flaw! I swear I won’t do it again!….until after you’ve posted your review”)…and that unpredictability makes it all the more annoying.

I can be a good multipencil! A good multipencil like you wanted!

It’s an improvement, yes, but it still has a ways to go. If you’re looking for a good multipencil without outrageously flaring wings, I’d just load up the Mystar Meister 3-component metal body. No eraser, true, but I haven’t had any problem with components waywardly retracting in that model. And it looks all kinds of snazzy.

 Uni-ball Style Fit Mystar 5 Color Multi Pen Body Component – Black – at JetPens

Holiday Gift Guide — AND GIVEAWAY!

It’s just about that time of year, my good people, when all your favorite gift-giving holidays convene. That’s right, such holidays as: my mom’s birthday. My grandmother’s birthday. National Fritters Day. Letter Writing Day. Pepper Pot Day. AND MANY MORE!

You will need to be armed to the teeth with gifts if you hope to make it to the other end of December alive. Personally, I like to do all my shopping from the same location, as far away from humanity as possible, and preferably while sitting. I think you know what that means—online shopping! This post will almost entirely feature items from JetPens; maybe, if I’m feeling particularly industrious, I’ll do another (or more?!) post(s) involving writing utensils from other websites.

And! As promised in the title, there will be a giveaway associated with this post. Details will follow. But first—pens!

I’ll organize this into two major categories—pens I own, and pens I don’t own but am going to recommend anyway—and for the first category, I’ll break it down by price. Let’s begin!

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Pens I Own

$1 to $10

There are far too many pens in this category to list them all individually. So I’ve compiled a wish list of them on JetPens! And now it can be your wish list.

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$11 to $30

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen for Calligraphy - $13.50

Great for artists and people who can write in Japanese.

It’s got individual synthetic fiber bristles, and it’s refillable. Can write from a hair-thin line to an I-can’t-be-bothered-to-measure-how-thick broad line. Comes with 2 refills.

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Uni-ball Alpha Gel Kuru Toga Mechanical Pencil – 0.5mm - $14.00

This has all my favorite things in a mechanical pencil. All of them. Including lead.

Fantastically comfortable Alpha-Gel grip + Kuru Toga lead-rotating mechanism = maybe the best pencil ever? Especially helpful for those who have to take a bunch of scantron tests / handwrite a bunch of essays in pencil. A.k.a. students.

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Uni-ball Jetstream Alpha Gel Grip Series Ballpoint Pens – 0.7mm – $16.50

There is possibly nothing I can do to make this ballpoint pen better.

Can’t have my favorite mechanical pencil without my favorite ballpoint pen. As an added bonus, I have reviewed this one before! This body takes any size Jetstream retractable refill (I currently have the 0.5mm refill in mine), and also fits the Zebra Sarasa gel refills.

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Sailor HighAce Neo Beginner’s Fountain Pen – $16.50

Be careful, you're gonna put your eye out with that thing.

I’ve reviewed this one before, too. It’s a nice fine nib pen. Warning: doesn’t come with a refill. I’d advise buying the converter; it’s cheaper than the cartridges, and easier to refill. Warning: I bought the cartridges (which I refill by syringe), but I have not personally tried the converter.

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Akayashi Sai Watercolor Brush Pen – 5 Color Autumn Set – $17.50

Convenient watercolors? Yes. It can exist.

I would recommend buying these brush pens with the Akashiya Sai Watercolor Mini Pallet ($4.50) and a waterbrush pen like the Kuretake Small Compact Size ($4.25), which actually pushes the total cost of this set up to $26.25, but I think it’s worth it. And the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen works great with these for a watercolor black.

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J. Herbin Tapered Body Frosted Glass Dip Pen – Large – $20.00

Fun fact: I studied abroad in Venice before my fine pen obsession kicked in. I only bought 1 glass dip pen from Murano. I REGRET THIS VERY STRONGLY.

Impractical, but beautiful. Especially nice for ink enthusiasts (I recommend Noodler’s, which you can get through places like Goldspot Pens or the Goulet Pen Company). Easy to clean; just don’t drop it.

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Kaweco Classic Sport Fountain Pen – $21.00

Alas, the price has gone up on these since I bought this one. Curse you, modern economy!

From extra-fine nib to broad nib in a variety of colors. Also check out the Kaweco Ice Sport line if you like translucent and bright colors. I have the medium nib, which I find to be one of the thinner mediums I own.

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Lamy Safari, Vista, and Al-Star Fountain Pens – $26, $26, and $37.50

So the Lamy Al-Star is technically out of this arbitrary price category I decided to sort things by. JUST TRY TO STOP ME!

Colorful, durable, with nibs ranging from extra-fine to broad, and in my experience, they’ve all been wonderful writers. I’d recommend getting the converter with this one, as these pens go well with having a nigh unlimited spectrum of ink colors to choose from. Warning: also recommending the converter because the Lamy takes a special cartridge rather than the standard international short cartridge. The pen is designed so that you just drop the cartridge in and then twist the nib section back onto the barrel; the cartridge then punctures itself. Warning: I’ve never actually tried to shove an international short cartridge into a Lamy, as far as I can remember, so I can’t advise what would happen.

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Lamy Joy Calligraphy Fountain Pen – $29

Pen is conveniently named to describe what emotion you'll be experiencing while using said pen

Comes with a converter. And a lovely tapered body. And the cap posts on the end! Calligraphy nib options: 1.1mm, 1.5mm, and 1.9mm. Nibs are interchangeable with the regular Lamy nibs, if you just like the body.

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$30 and up (except for the already mentioned Lamy Al-Star)

A. G. Spalding & Bros. Mini Fountain Pen – Fine Nib – $33.00

Sleek and classy, like a little sci-fi spaceship.

This pen has grown on me a lot more since I first reviewed it, and especially since I started using Rotring Turquoise ink in it (warning: that is a ridiculous price; I paid $4 for my refills at the Art Brown Pen Shop, but they don’t seem to sell that refill online). More of a medium or maybe even broad (what do I know; I never use broad nibs) nib. Warning: do not try to take the clip off or accidentally take the clip off. It comes off, and scratches the satin metal finish in the process. Oops.

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Kaweco Liliput Al Fountain Pen – $53.00

This is such a disappointingly unsexy picture of a phenomenally sexy pen.

I got the fine nib. Yes, this pen is everything I hoped for, and also more. Yes, I desperately owe you all a proper review of this pen;  I am waiting for the opportunity and the lighting so that I can take the kind of pictures that do this pen justice.  Comes in extra-fine to broad nibs. Takes international short cartridges. Also takes….YOUR HEART.

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Pilot Prera Clear Body Fountain Pen – $58.00

When I first held this pen, I couldn't leave the store without buying it. And now here we are!

I bought the fine nib, which was a Japanese fine nib—also known as an extra exceptionally fine line nib. Possibly the finest nib I own (too bad I dropped it on the nib (ARGH WHOOPS)). Also comes in medium nib. I’d recommend getting the Pilot Plumix as well (currently cheapest at Target, I believe); the nibs are interchangeable. You (like me) can have a Pilot Prera with an italic nib! Makes your handwriting look even fancier than normal.

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Pens I Don’t Own

I’m only going to make two recommendations. First, the Uni-ball Jetstream 4&1 4 Color Ballpoint Multi Pen + 0.5mm Pencil ($16.50); I bought one for a friend and he loves it. Four colors of Jetstreams, a pencil, and an eraser all in one body! Second, the Zebra Sharbo X….specifically the Zebra Sharbo X LT3 Pen Body Component – Silver ($49.50). Look at that thing. I want it. Why wouldn’t you?

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THE GIVEAWAY!

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Brad at JetPens has generously offered up a $10 JetPens gift card for one lucky commenter on this post! The rules:

1. Leave one comment on this post any time between now and Sunday, November 27th 12:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. This contest is open to all readers in any country! That includes you, international people!
2. One winner will be picked at random from the comments section of this post. Just make any kind of comment—but only one comment! Comments in excess of one shall be deleted. The comments will be numbered in the order they are received, i.e. the first comment is #1, the second #2, and so on. The Random Integer Generator at random.org will be used to pick the number of the winner.
3. I’ll post the contest winner in the evening of Sunday, November 27th (sometime between noon and midnight). Winner will have one week to email me. There’s a link to my email at the top of the right sidebar.

Good luck! And preemptive happiness to your holidays!

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P.S. I should have it set up so comments will post without my having to approve them all moderator-style. But if your comment doesn’t show up right away, that means I didn’t set that up correctly, and your comment will show up when I go through and hit “approve” on all of them. Don’t worry! Or, if you are worried, feel free to email me!

Uni-ball Vision Elite – 0.8mm Blue-Black

Blue-black: not as overexuberant as blue, not as boring as black

There was a day a few months back when I was jonesin for a blue-black pen. I hit up one of my local big-box office supply stores for a 3-pack of the only blue-black they had available: the Uni-ball Vision Elite. I had vague memories of my favorite pen I used to use in my high school AP Chemistry class being some kind of blue-black Uni-ball. So it was that this pen came riding into my collection on a wave of probably misplaced nostalgia.

Kind of like a space-ship, as imagined from the 1950s

I’m surprised Uni would market a design so almost cool in America. It’s simple, with a nice use of geometric repetition and an attractive translucent element on the cap that bears no resemblance to the actual shade of ink within.

Now the spaceship is a laser gun

The plastic around the tip of the rollerball is a much closer match for color. The cap snaps firmly closed, but only slides on to post—meh. I’m ambivalent on the waffle grid grip.

Roll in syrup for a snack in times of desperation

But that’s how I tend to be with grips. Unless it’s luxurious squish-cushioning or aggressively uncomfortable, it doesn’t merit much attention from me.

If you look closely, you can see my distorted reflection in the plastic of the pen.

In writing, this pen is especially dependent on the paper being used in terms of how the experience goes. In my Behance Dot Grid review notebook, I felt like I was getting resistance while trying to write. On Clairefontaine paper it rolls just fine, but takes too much of FOREVER to dry. I end up smudging ink all over the page and my hand. It looks like I’ve been awkwardly punching Smurfs.

DID YOU KNOW: Uni-ball's decision to switch their ink from being Smurf blood based to Na'vi blood based in 2010 caused such a drop in color consistency and quality that it sparked a 9 day riot outside of their Mongolian headquarters?

But Clairefontaine paper isn’t what a pen like the Uni-ball Vision Elite would normally come in contact with. So I tested it on regular paper—legal pads, notebook paper, printer paper, etc.—and found new ways of being dissatisfied. The ink soaks through these papers, making the back side useless, and the lines themselves on the front side look a bit fuzzy. I like my lines crisp, no matter how thick they are. I don’t want my writing to look like some kind of moldy growth on the page.

Is it terrible? No. If I were currently working in Cubicle Land, I’d probably throw these into a cup on my desk (a cup near the door, where other people might be tempted to walk off with them), and they would do a perfectly unremarkable job of recording my thoughts. But the Vision Elite isn’t some thrilling object that I would try to convert my entire office into using (like I did with the Jetstream). It’s standard office fare.

At least it's moderately attractive/possibly usable as a prop in a low budget alien-spaceship-invasion film.

Since the Uni-ball Vision Elite is available even in Wal-Mart, I’ll just link to the official Uni-ball page for the Uni-ball Vision Elite.

Uni-ball Fanthom Erasable Gel Ink Pen – 0.5 mm – Green

Johsts? No, Fanthoms.

I’ve been meaning to pick up the Fanthom for a while. Of course, I’ve also been meaning to review at least one of the many Pilot FriXions I have lying around, and that has not yet happened. We’ll just have to go with what I’ve got.

This picture seems to have come out way bluer than I intended. WHOOPS.

I swear this pen is actually more of a green.

The pen body is a hard, lightweight plastic, with no actual grip to speak of—there are small recessed ellipses where a grip might be, but don’t be fooled—it’s just more hard plastic. For those of you looking to build up your writer’s callous, look no further.

Uni does get one major design factor right, above and beyond the standard set by Pilot’s FriXion: the eraser is the cap, and thus, the eraser is always accessible. Pilot, for some reason, puts the eraser on the bottom of the pen in every FriXion model (except for the FriXion Ball Knock and the FriXion color-pencil-like pens) so that you cannot actually use the eraser with the cap posted. Points to the Fanthom in the eraser category. However, this does mean that as you are erasing (which, if you note the tests above, does require some persistence and occasionally some force), you are wearing away at the cap.

Don't believe what you only hope to be true--you ARE losing part of the cap when you erase.

You can see some flat spots forming on the cap, which will only get worse with continued use. But I think it’s more of an aesthetic issue than a structural one; I’ll let you know if I manage to erase a hole in the cap.

A satisfying Uni standard gel pen tip

Ink flow is pleasantly consistent. Very rarely, I’ll get less than a millimeter’s worth of railroading when I start a letter, but this happened so infrequently that I only noticed it upon close scrutiny. The ink itself has a sort of opaque, pastel, milk- or chalk-like quality to its color. It’s hard to describe, but I’ve seen it in all the Pilot FriXion models as well. I rather like it, but I suspect that this is due to some quality that makes the ink erasable, and that means that you won’t get a true and vibrant black from a pen in the current generation of erasable models from either brand.

Acceptable erasing substitutes include pocket lighters, hot cars, flame-based superheroes...

How well does it erase? On par with the FriXion, which is to say, leaps and bounds better than the erasable garbage peddled back in the 90s. I had some difficulty on the Behance Dot Grid paper, but on other papers I’ve been able to get all the ink off the page without grief or strife. Or, I should say, I get all of the ink on the page to undergo the heat-based chemical reaction  necessary to make the ink no longer visible. The ink is still on the page—just stick your paper in the freezer, and it will come back in time. Maybe don’t use this ink to write sensitive or offensive things? When you tilt the paper in the light, you can see the ink you’ve “erased”, but for note-taking and other standard writing purposes not taking place in sub-freezing or boilingly-heated environments, the Fanthom ink erases quite well enough to easily be written over.

The Fanthom is a good start for Uni-ball. What I’d like to see are more/better body options, as the current grip is far from comfortable. Picture it: Uni-ball Fanthom Alpha Gel Retractable Gel Ink Pen. You know it would sell like squishy, erasable hotcakes.

Uni-ball Fanthom Erasable Gel Ink Pen – 0.5 mm – Green at JetPens

Uni-ball Jetstream Ballpoint Pen – 0.7 mm – Alpha Gel Grip Series – Silver Body

Jetstream is just about the only black ink I still love right now (I am on a colored ink kick, what can I say)

I believe I mentioned to Brad at JetPens that my new job involves inordinate amounts of training and excessive amounts of note-taking, and that my hand was probably going to fall off, explode from callouses, and shatter at a molecular level. Or maybe I just said that I thought the alpha gel grip was great, and Jetstreams were great, and we could not possibly live in a universe where the combination of the two is anything but greatness squared; given these facts, should JetPens find it in its heart to bestow such an item unto me, I would be so grateful that not even the most extravagant of metaphors, no matter how many mythical creatures I invoked in said metaphor, would properly convey my thanks. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but the facts are these: JetPens did send me such a pen, my gratitude is at an all-time high, and this pen really is greatness squared.

Weep. WEEP, FOR IT IS BEAUTY AND IT CAN EXIST IN YOUR HAND

I won’t dwell on writing performance; I’ve reviewed the Jetstream 0.5mm before, and there isn’t much that differs between the two except that the 0.7mm, being larger, is ever so slightly smoother. They take the exact same kind of refill, these two models, so if you don’t care for the 0.7mm you can easily swap it out.

Ok, so maybe it's not the MOST beautiful pen. BUT IT PERFORMS BEAUTIFULLY

The design, I admit, leaves me a little perplexed. I like the top half. I like the bottom half. But I keep getting the strange feeling that their designs were generated by giving two separate and isolated design teams a vague set of parameters (“silver. white. classy”), then taking the top half of one team’s design and adding it to the bottom half from the other team. Maybe if the grip were a different color, like a pale blue? Maybe I just can’t handle white and off-white on the same pen. I don’t know. But to be honest, I don’t care. Is this what infatuation is like?

The grip could be puke green for all I care; doesn't change the fact that it is the perfect amount of squishy

Being almost entirely metal, the Alpha Gel Grip Jetstream has a nice weight in the hand. The clip seems reasonably sturdy (though I still prefer a hinged clip), and it clicks just like a pen should. Like every good grip, the alpha gel has an almost supernatural ability to attract cat hair, dust, food crumbs, and other little bits of debris that like to populate purses and pockets, but it’s easy to wipe off with a damp napkin, or, for the uncouth, a bit of spit on your thumb.

I almost wish that more of the pen were covered with the Alpha Gel grip; the gnarled way I hold a pen causes pressure on the end of my third finger and in the crook between my forefinger and thumb. It would probably look really weird, but I don’t think I’d complain if there were an inch more grip to the pen.

Gaze into the Alpha Gel Grip. Become one with the Alpha Gel Grip. You need the Alpha Gel Grip. You ARE the Alpha Gel Grip.

Whether or not the Alpha Gel grip is the One You’ve Been Searching For depends on your preferences. For me, if the grip is too squishy, with a firm grip you just end up holding the barrel, with a bunch of fancy grip piled around the edges of your fingers. But if the grip is too firm, you might as well not have a grip on the pen at all. I find that the Alpha Gel grip strikes the perfect balance; it cushions, but has enough firmness that all grip doesn’t flee from beneath your fingers.

This pen and my Kuru Toga Alpha Gel are now my designated test-taking/oh-heck-I'm-gonna-be-doing-way-too-much-writing instruments

As far as price goes, I think it’s well worth it. You’re paying for a lot of metal (sturdy) and a very nice grip (squishy). It would be nice if you could buy a replacement grip in case you wear the current one out (though I don’t know how likely it is to wear out), but I don’t think that’s currently an option. If you’re like me, and any nonstop writing effort that lasts for more than ten minutes starts shunting your hand into a deformed world of pain from the amount of furious concentration you instinctively devote to your grip muscles, then this pen is worth it at any price. I easily foresee more of these, perhaps the black body, finding their way into my JetPens cart. And if colored grips come out? That will be my Kryptonite.

Note: If you buy one of these and are not satisfied, please send it to me. I would be glad to take it off your hands.

Uni-ball Jetstream Ballpoint Pen – 0.7 mm – Alpha Gel Grip Series – Silver Body at JetPens

Appalachian Motorcycle Pen Battle: Round 1

Round 1, because all of these pens will need to be re-evaluated again after more motorcycling and abuse. These are just the results from a single 4-day motorcycle trip.

You will recall the intended contenders:

The Fisher Space Pen I've tested extensively before. It (or more accurately, a similar model not pictured above) was my default motorcycle pen. That's the standard to beat.

I switched from the basic bullet-style Space pen to one with a Maglite attached both for functionality (hey! I have a pen AND a flashlight! I’m a wizard!) and for the simple fact that I had a hard time finding the slippery little standard Space Pen in my jacket pocket. The clip my standard Space Pen came with is of no help; it has come off so many times in bags and pockets that its whereabouts currently remain unknown. But I rarely want to pull the whole pen-and-flashlight operation out of my pocket; doing so tends to launch a cascade of receipts to the ground. Using the Space Pen with no cap on, it’s too small to comfortably wield and is a bit slippery. A different pen was needed. Let’s take a look at the Fuel Log from my trip and get into the good and bad with each of these pens.

Yes, this is a Moleskine info book. In spite of my loathing of this paper, it /is/ conveniently pre-tabbed; something I'm far too lazy to do to a book with good paper.

Riding over to meet up with my family Thursday evening I used my Space Pen, just for reference.

The most ineffective nunchucks I own

Day One featured use of the Tombow Airpress.

Designed for rugged Japanese construction workers. And also me.

What I like: pen is lightweight, has a decently sturdy and secure clip, compact body, satisfying plunger mechanism. The whole surface of the body is a kind of non-slip rubber, and there’s a lanyard clip. There are a lot of little features here. And it’s not so expensive that I’d be outlandishly upset at losing this off the side of a mountain.

What I don’t like: I want the clip to be even sturdier. Sturdy enough that I feel like I could ride with it clipped in my pocket, instead of zipped securely away. And what is that black arrow piece on the clip for? It confounds me.

Judgment: I wonder how much abuse it will stand up to. I worry it would probably melt if I accidentally dropped it on the motorcycle and it hit something hot. At the same time, I think it has the right kind of look and function for what I need it for. Definitely one to keep around.

Day two  I brought out the Lamy Pico.

I have a lot to say about this one

What I like: Design, design, design. The size is fantastically compact, very low-profile in the pocket, but expands to a full-size pen:

Looks pretty cool, right?

This pen has that screaming jet-black aesthetic you expect from motorcycle things. It’s an item where, eventually, you’ll pull it out to write something down and get asked about it. The body is thick, which makes it easier to hold with gloves on, and it has a nice weight to give it presence.

What I don’t like about the design: one, there have been several times where I pushed the end in but didn’t push it in enough to get the mechanism to catch. You don’t look very cool when you have to push the end of your pen any more than once to get pen functionality. Two: no clip. What Lamy could do, however, is take that little silver logo bit and make it out of a powerful magnet, with the word “LAMY” recessed into the metal. Then you could at least magnetically clip the pen to your bike. I say this because I drove halfway to Asheville with a magnetic pocket tire pressure gauge on the side of my bike, and did not notice till I stopped for gas and saw it was still there. Just a thought.

What I really don’t like: The ballpoint cartridge is crap. I don’t think there was a single time where I started to write with it that it wanted to write right off the bat. Which brings me to another thing I really don’t like: this pen is ludicrously expensive for a ballpoint pen, especially one with a shoddy ballpoint cartridge. And being so pricey, I think I’d have a small heart attack if I lost this pen.

Judgment: The pen is made to look cool and feel cool, but not actually be worth more than a Bic disposable in terms of writing performance. Unfortunately, the cartridge for the pen is oddly shaped, so I’m not sure if we’ll be able to find a better cartridge to hack into the pen to make the price worthwhile. Accept this pen as a gift, but don’t buy one for yourself.

 

 

Day Three I intended to use the Uni Power Tank, but first ended up using my Lamy Vista EF nib with Noodler’s Black Swan in Australian Roses (I wanted to see how a fountain pen would do in my pocket on a hot summer day). Fountain pen ink on Moleskine paper was as suboptimal as you’d expect, but I otherwise saw no difference in performance of the pen. What I really liked about the Lamy Vista was the clip.

I think this clip alone is worth the cost of an entire Lamy Pico

The way the end bevels up makes it super easy to slip onto a pocket, but the way the rest of the clip hugs the barrel makes it reassuringly secure. I rode with the Vista clipped upright in an unzipped pocket and had no worries about it flying away.

Alas, Day Three was a short ride; I only fueled up once, so I had to use the Uni Power Tank to note my mileage at the end of the day.

Is the grip made of tires? It might as well be. Nothing is gonna slip on that grip; it is diametrically opposed to the common banana peel. They are like matter and anti-matter; touching the grip of a Uni Power Tank to a grounded banana peel could destroy the universe.

What I like: writes beautifully every time, solid and dark. Comes out looking very fine for an 0.7mm, which I am a fan of. I’d say, of the bunch, the Uni Power Tank has the unique distinction of both writing the best, and being the most inexpensive. I could stand at an overlook and throw dozens of these pens into a ravine and STILL buy more because it would be a pen worth having. And the grip is pretty neat.

What I don’t like: while it’s well designed for a great, inexpensive pen, I want something with a bit more oomph and dollar signs in the design. I want to put a little more money down and have a designated Motorcycle Pen. If we could put the insides of a Uni Power Tank inside the Lamy Pico, and put the Lamy Vista’s clip on all that, then we’d have exactly what I want. At the very least, I’d like a pen that’s a little shorter than the Power Tank, and with some kind of usable clip in place of the standard plastic snap-off affair.

Judgment: This pen is cheap enough and writes well enough in multiple conditions that I think it’s worth keeping a few in my saddlebags. It writes well enough to be the primary pen, but there’s a bit more I’d like from the aesthetic.

Day four I don’t remember what pen I used, unfortunately (I didn’t write down which pen I was using at the time, oops). Instead, I’ll wrap this up by noting that I didn’t get a chance to try the Sharpie pen :( and I’d like to give an honorable mention to the Ohto Capstick. The Ohto Capstick writes wonderfully and has an excellent, compact design, but if I lose the cap…

The ingenious retracting feature makes the cap LITERALLY INDISPENSABLE; you lose the cap, you might as well switch to another pen.

I can’t have my primary pen contain an integral part that’s sooo easy to lose.

As it stands, every one of the four main pens I tested (Airpress, Pico, Vista, and Power Tank) had enough good things going for them to save them from total expulsion, but no pen had everything I was looking for. As it stands, I’ll probably work on a rotation of these main four (perhaps getting my hands on an EF white body Lamy Safari with Noodler’s Polar Blue, and trying to jam every tiny cartridge under the sun into the Pico until I find something better or give up in despair), plus perhaps a nice orange-body Ohto Pieni in lieu of the Capstick. After a year of abuse, I’ll do an update to see which pens have ultimately fared better than the others. If anyone has any other suggestions, I’ll add them in to the rotation!

In order of appearance:
Tombow AirPress Ballpoint Pen – 0.7 mm – Black Body at JetPens
Lamy Pico Pocket Size Extendable Ballpoint Pen – Medium Point – Black Body at JetPens
Lamy Vista Fountain Pen with Extra Fine Nib (no link because I paid full price for mine in a fancy pen store…if you want this one, you can do your own work to find it at a good price! :P )
Noodler’s Ink Black Swan in Australian Roses Bottled Ink at Goldspot Pens
Uni-ball Power Tank Ballpoint Pen – 0.7 mm – Black Body – Black Ink at JetPens
Honorable Mention: Ohto Capstick Cap-Knock Needle Point Ballpoint Pen – 0.5 mm – Red Cap / Black Body at JetPens

Uni-ball Signo RT UM-138 Gel Ink Pen – 0.38 mm – Blue Black

I had a lot of fun with the doodles. Always a good sign(o)

My fourth goody generously provided by JetPens :) I feel like I don’t even need to tell you guys how awesome the JetPens team is at this point; it is naturally assumed to be part of the very definition of JetPens; the phrase “awesome JetPens” is just redundant. But I’ll keep thanking them anyway. Another set of thanks to JetPens!

The Uni-ball Signo line was probably the first sub-0.5mm pen to work its way into my regular rotation of pen use about a year ago. The model was the Uni-ball Signo DX 0.38mm in brown-black and bordeaux-black, which, though enjoyable, was plagued with issues of ink blobbing. But the pen had otherwise endeared itself to me, and I put some other Signo models on my wishlist over the following months, unwilling to write this pen off.

Click!

What we have here is an ideal candidate for a perfect office pen. The design is pleasing but unobtrusive, with the entirety of the pen working together to broadcast the color it contains, including a blue tint on the translucent parts of the barrel. Nothing flashy, which is probably ideal for the stereotypical office setting, but no dead-fish design either; all of the Signo RT line has richly colored barrels that match the ink they contain. The only reason the blue-black may look less than bursting with vibrancy is because blue-black is inherently a more toned-down sort of color.

The plunger has a very sturdy clicking mechanism. I bet it would hold nicely if you needed to enlist your pen in weaponized, stab-like activities.

The grip is simple rubber with some slight, subtle curving to it; narrower toward the tip, thicker toward the back. The plunger has the nice, satisfying sort of click that every retractable pen should have. It’s a simple design, but absolutely suited to the task of inexpensive office pen.

I like a sturdy, conical-tipped microtip pen. Feels solid. Nothing to break or snap here.

The writing experience was much better than the Signo DX. I never had a single issue with ink blobs. I can write with a light touch and it’s just as dark as with a heavy hand—actually, it might even be a little darker. If you write with too much pressure, you get lightness and almost streaking in the middle of the line itself (look at the writing sample bigger; it’s very evident). Writing with a light hand is much smoother, and gives a more consistent line. In spite of the slight consistency of ink line problem with the heavy pressure writing style, I never had the pen not put down ink. No skipping, no smudging. The smoothness isn’t phenomenal, but for a pen that’s $1.50, it’s quite satisfactory. And it’s another fun little sketching pen; not an art object, which I don’t want in an office pen, but it can still hold its own when a boring meeting needs some doodles to flourish in the margins of notes.

I think the best place for this pen is within a multi-color array of microtip pens in a nice cup at your desk. It’ll do well for daily work needs (and every job, in my opinion, needs to have a cup of pens in multiple colors and tip sizes available at all times), but isn’t something you need to shed a tear over if a coworker wanders off with it. And since it’s retractable, there’s no cap to worry about losing. Exactly what an office pen needs.

I'll help you make intricate and detailed notes, figures, and margin doodles!

Thanks again to JetPens for providing me with this pen! :)

Uni-ball Signo RT UM-138 Gel Ink Pen – 0.38 mm – Blue Black at JetPens

Uni-ball Kuru Toga Auto Lead Rotation Mechanical Pencil – 0.3 mm – Silver Body

For once, the smudges on the page are ACTUAL product-produced smudges, and not the result of using a series of abominably crappy scanners. But the paper appearing a slightly pinkish hue? I HAVE NO IDEA.

Brad, now at JetPens, generously arranged for JetPens to send me a Jiffylite envelope cushioning samples of pure wonder and delight in writing utensil form. It is taking all my willpower to avoid typing this information in all caps, and to refrain from typing this face— :D —dozens of times. Oh heck, we’ll let loose for one sentence. THANK YOU BRAD AND JETPENS!!!!!! :D :D :D Those faces count as punctuation on that sentence.

This is a pencil. Not a pen. I am going to want to refer to it as a pen, because that is all I have reviewed, but stop me. It is a PENCIL.

Before I can get into a review of the Kuru Toga, I’ve got to point you toward some of the great reviews that came before me. Go read these and then come back. I’ll wait for you here.

OfficeSupplyGeek Kuru Toga review
Dave’s Mechanical Pencils Kuru Toga review

This is a highly technical pencil. You have to read up and get educated on this thing.

Everything I know about this pencil (aside from my own experience with it) has come from reading those reviews (which is why I linked you to them, rather than awkwardly trying to summarize what’s already been well written, seeming as though I came by such knowledge all on my own), and from JetPens’ own description of the Kuru Toga engine:

Printed on every pencil, in case you forget what is in there.

“The Kuru Toga, on the other hand, has a core rotation mechanism that continually rotates the pencil lead as you write. The lead is twisted through a spring-loaded clutch, it works by twisting incrementally every time you lift the pencil up (i.e. during printing words, etc). This allows a uniform wearing of the pencil lead so that it always remains as a pointed tip. Not only does it solve the above problems, but it also gives you an amazingly thin line. You are effectively using only 50% of the lead area that you were previously using with your old mechanical pencil. Thus, a 0.3 mm Kuru Toga will write incredibly thin lines and have less breakage than a standard 0.3 mm mechanical pencil.”

This is not JUST a mechanical pencil; it’s innovation in a barrel. Don’t forget that. I like seeing products where the makers have pushed the boundaries, have gone above and beyond what’s strictly necessary into the realm of what’s potentially extraordinary. Even if this pencil were a complete disaster, I’d still be excited about it for that reason alone. It shows vision.

Speaking of vision, let's talk about the way this thing looks.

From the grip up, the Kuru Toga isn’t anything particularly remarkable. A small, translucent, smoky black plastic cap (not pictured, oops) makes a nice little click to securely cover the eraser (I’ll miss this cap, when I inevitably lose it). The eraser, while not as big as those on wooden pencils, is at least not the smallest thing I’ve found on the end of a pencil, and erases well. The grey branding on the clip goes nicely with the silver-grey barrel. I don’t know how secure the clip is, but I have an instinctive distrust of all plastic clips, having dislocated many in my youth. All the fun of the Kuru Toga, of course, is on the other end.

Office meeting on the top, PARTY ON THE GRIP. Wait, why would I obliquely compare this wonderful pencil to a mullet? Mullets are terrible. This pencil is fantastic. Shame on me.

The light-grey see-through grip gives you an excellent view of the Kuru Toga engine in action. If you push your finger on and off the tip of the pencil repeatedly, you can see the yellow part turning around and around. You can also see how much pressure it takes to get the engine turning; too light of a touch will fail to make the mechanism turn, which could be a problem if you write lightly.

The tip, I believe, is all metal (or at least, it tastes like metal), which I find pretty visually appealing, though it might look better if the clip and the tip were the same color (either both white, or both metal). There’s also a little rubber ring around the metal tip, toward the top. It looks neat, but I find it a little confusing, being so small. I guess you just line that up to be the point of contact between the pencil and the finger you rest your pencil on? But if you grip higher, then that ring is of no use to you at all. I just want to know what the thought process was when including that in the design. I’m also torn between the aesthetic appeal of having the Kuru Toga engine components visible, versus the desire I often had for a cushiony grip on this pencil. If you’re making your marks too lightly, the engine doesn’t rotate, so I felt I had to write with a little more force than I might have otherwise used, which led to me gripping the pencil a little bit harder than was strictly comfortable for a long writing session. And the pencil itself provides almost no weight to help with this; being almost entirely plastic (including the Kuru Toga engine), it’s a very lightweight pencil. A lightweight pencil feels nice, but I think having more weight in the pencil itself might be helpful in terms of making the rotation process a little easier for lighter writers.

So how did it write? First, I wanted to replicate OfficeSupplyGeek’s findings by filling out a crossword with the Kuru Toga and comparing it to the same crossword filled out with a non-rotating mechanical pencil (since the only other 0.3mm pencil I have was Muji’s hexagonal mechanical pencil, that’s what I used). I am terrible at crosswords, so I also just copied down the answers from the solved puzzle from the first website I found that would actually print the crossword out, instead of just printing out all the clues and no crossword table.

Kuru Toga on the left, non-rotational on the right. Since I'm left-handed (a.k.a. smudge-handed), I filled out these puzzles starting at the bottom right, working my way leftward, then going up to the next row and repeat.

In hindsight, I should have made sure to use the same brand of lead in both pencils, starting from a fresh piece of lead, but I just used the lead that each pencil came with. For the Kuru Toga, I think that’s Uni’s NanoDia HB lead. For the Muji, I have no idea, because as a rule they brand nothing. Presumably it’s also HB.

Kuru Toga on top, non-rotational on bottom. Order of letters written: N-O-M-E-L for the first word, D-E-R-A-D for the last word. The N and D in the middle is a side-by-side comparison of the first letter written against the last letter written. Click for a closer examination.

Ignoring the fact that the lead in the Kuru Toga wrote darker overall, you can see that there’s no difference in the sharpness between the first letter written and the last letter written. In the non-rotational pencil, the D is palpably wider than the N; I kept the pencils still in my hand when writing (no habitual rotation of pencil in hand) to make sure this is just a comparison of normal lead wear. The crossword puzzle was the first writing test; let’s look at the lead.

Click to peer even more closely

Kuru Toga’s on the right, but the leads look almost identical. I think the difference here was made by the fact that the sharp side point was kept rotating around, instead of having that flat plane continuously in contact with the paper, as was the case with our non-rotational friend on the left. So then I did a drawing test; unlike writing, drawing involves way more variation in weight of the lines you make and the amount you press the pencil to the page.

"Oh, I can use a pencil with an eraser! Now I can prove I actually know how to draw!" Proceed to not do that, barely use eraser, and not finish drawing bothersome things like hands.

The Kuru Toga does well for drawing, though it takes a bit to get used to the springy quality that’s integral to the function of the turning mechanism. It almost feels a little unstable when drawing at first. “THE TIP MOVES OH CRAP THE PENCIL IS COLLAPSING I BROKE IT” may be one of your first thoughts, if you’ve never used one of these pencils before and don’t know what you’re getting into (which is exactly what happened with my first Kuru Toga last year, 0.5mm). It’s just something you have to get used to.

I’m surprised to note that, at no time was I ever worried by working with such a thin lead. In spite of the springiness, the lead never felt fragile; I was never worried about making heavy marks. It’s a weird combination. The lead felt totally secure, and yet the springiness made the pencil feel a little odd. Not as noticeable when writing, but something about drawing really made me realize that yes, there is a spring in this pencil, and that spring is necessary to rotate the lead. Now, the lead the Kuru Toga came with, well…

Probably designed by the right-handed tyranny.

I will want to find a different lead for this pencil, or I’ll want to learn to do all my writing from right to left. This was after doing the writing sample at the very top (remember the top? Feels so far away) of this review, where I did not work from right to left like I did with the crosswords or the drawings. Back to the drawings; how did the lead look after the drawings, my second Kuru Toga use exercise?

The end of the lead almost looks like this: > instead of like this: 7 HOORAY! Click to gaze more closely at the leadly depths.

Starting to achieve that advertised ideal! But would it last? Let’s see how the lead looked after my third Kuru Toga exercise (the writing sample at the top):

Multiple angles, to give you a better idea of the actual lead shape

Well, it’s got a bit of a lean again. But I don’t think the lean affected the performance; writing was sharp from beginning to end. My guess is that the lead is, more often than not, off from the ideal symmetrically pointed shape, but the constant rotation still keeps your writing looking fairly sharp. If there are any unsavory broad sides developing on the lead, you don’t write with them long; every lift of the pencil rotates that surface, changes it a little. And I didn’t have any breaking of the lead, not at the tip, nor further up the shaft. I do remember in days of old having the very sharp and pointed tips of my mechanical pencil leads break a little, leaving a dark point surrounded by little lead crumbs on the page. Never had that happen with the Kuru Toga.

This review has gone on forever. I don't remember my name anymore.

Great, affordable, creative, and innovative mechanical pencil. I’ve also started to see the 0.5mm version of this pen in big box stores (but not at as good of a price as JetPens), so this isn’t some totally isolated-from-mainstream-America product. If you want to stop having to rotate the pencil yourself to keep a sharp point available, the Kuru Toga HAS GOT IT GOIN ON, YO.

Thanks again to JetPens and Brad! :)
Uni-ball Kuru Toga Auto Lead Rotation Mechanical Pencil – 0.3 mm – Silver Body at JetPens