Running out of Pen's in Staples

Things have been slow in the Pen evaluation recently. There are a couple of reasons. First, I've pretty much run out of pen's in the local Staples to evaluate, and I can't seem to find new pen's locally. I'll have to do some poking around on the internet to see what I can find.

In addition, I've partially moved back to taking notes in my Palm instead of on paper. No major reason, just a preference shift. I'm sure I'll move back to paper before too long.

Dave

Uni-Ball Signo Micro 207

I've been using this for a week or so for general purpose writing, and I'm pretty impressed. It starts up nicely, leaves a smooth, dark trail of ink behind on the paper as it writes, and it a reasonably attractive pen to boot. While this is a little thicker than I really prefer, it's not too bad. I've also seen these in staples more often than I've seen the Signo RT Gel pens.

A big advantage is that the ink capacity for this pen is easily 2 to 3 times larger than the Signo RT 0.38 pens.

Definitely a thumbs up for this one.

Uni-Ball 207 Micro 0.5

I just picked up a package of these at Staples, 4 for $6.99. I'm curious to see how they write compared to the Signo RT 0.38 pens that are currently my favorite. I suspect that they will be too broad for a Moleskine, but we'll see.

Pilot Precise V5

Another pretty generic capped pen with a "needle point". This writes pretty well, and the ink doesn't smear. This is a rollerball instead of a gel pen, and it writes well. I left it uncapped for a couple of hours, and it started up without any skipping. The ink delivery is smooth, with a consistent line width and no skips.

This has a hard plastic grip, so writing with this for a long period of time would probably be uncomfortable. Other than that, it's not a bad pen. I'd certainly pick this over the Staples and the Sarasa pens, primarily because of the smearing issues.

Zebra Sarasa 0.7

Nice retractable pen with a smooth rubberized grip. Comfortable to hold, and a smooth writer. On the other hand, this ink suffers from the same problem as the Staples Sonix pen, in that it smears pretty easily. Since I can't stand ink that smears, I'd have to give this a thumbs down.

Staples Sonix Gel

My oldest son started high school this year, and he came home with a note from his English teacher that she didn't want him writing with any gel pens in class.

This pen is the reason why. It leaves a beautiful black line behind, but it smears like there is no tomorrow. I can get smears from a whole word after writing. This is enough to put this in the do not use column. On the plus side, I got a package of 5 for free. I wonder who I can pawn these off on?

Pilot Precise Grip Extra Fine

This pen is a capped gel rollerball pen, with a silver and clear body, and a silver top. This writes well, with good ink startup and decent line thickness. I haven't noticed any scratchiness was I write, it just lays down a nice black line. The grip is nice and rubberized, with a nice sticky rubber, which is covered by the cap when the pen is capped.

I did run into one problem though. I did have a problem with the pen not flowing ink once, were I was trying to write and ink wasn't flowing in volume. This just happened once, so it's possible that it was just a glitch. I'd have to say that as long as you used this regularly, there shouldn't be a real problem. Comparing this to the Pentel Energel, I think this is a nicer capped pen, primarily based upon the looks of the pen.

Giving up on the G2

I've had enough with the Pilot G2 on a Moleskine, the scratchy writing is enough to drive me up a wall. I'm back to the Uni-Ball for daily writing in a Moleskine.

Staedtler Liquid point 7

I picked up a package of these last weekend, and wasn't very impressed. This has a nice fine line, but the grip is hard plastic, with no rubber cushion on it. I found it uncomfortable to write with because of this. The ink also takes a relatively long time to dry on the paper, I was able to draw a line a couple on inches long, rub my finger along the ink, and smear the whole line. I'd have to give this a thumbs down for these two reasons.

Pentel Energel Non-Retractable

I found a package of these in Staples, in the Extra Fine that I'm craving. I picked them up in the hope that the ink cartridge was the same between the retractable and the capped version. No such luck, the Capped version is a single piece, without a removable cartridge.

Other than that, it writes very nicely, with good ink startup and deep black ink. That said, I have to say that it's not as attractive to me as the retractable one. The detail at the cap strikes me as being a little too much for my taste.

Pilot G2 Revisited

Well, after a couple of weeks using a G2, I have to say that I'm not impressed. Most of the time it writes just fine, but occasionally it really feels like there is something scratching on the paper. Mostly, this is when I'm writing on a Moleskine notebook, but not always. I looked at the point under a microscope, and I didn't see anything while it was acting this way.
On the plus side, when it was writing nicely, it did do a nice job. I've swapped out a for a new one, to see if this was just a fluke.

Pilot G2

Well, I've been using this for a couple of days, and it's not too bad. Compared to the Uni-Ball Signo RT, the line is a little wider, which is a bad thing. On the other hand, it looks like there is a ton of ink in the cartridge, so I expect to be able to write for a long time with this.

As far as the ink flow goes, it's not bad. I'm not seeing any gaps or skips when I start up, which I appreciate. On the other hand, I do notice that when I am writing, there seems to be some times when the ink flow isn't enough, and the line gets a little thin and ink starved, something that didn't happen with the Uniball. I am using the 05 point width, so this is likely something that is specific to the extra fine width. The 07 width probably doesn't do that.

I bought this at Staples, $4.89/4 or $1.22 each.

As with the Pentel, I'll sent one to the first person who leave's a comment here. US only, please.

Uni-ball Signo RT Gel 0.38

This is more along my lines of a very fine pen to use. Most of the writing I did with this one was in a moleskine notebook, and it did a very nice job. As I mentioned, I tend to write very fine, and this fine point was just the thing to use. It started up immediately, and left a nice dark line. The ink didn't smudge on the paper. I bought this in a package of 4, with 2 black, 1 blue, and 1 red. I'm using all the colors, and they all leave a nice dark line of the appropriate color.

I have 2 complaints about this pen. First, the ink cartridge doesn't contain much ink. It's nice and long, but the plastic that is used in the cartridge is thick enough to support my car :-). Seriously, it's a very thick wall tube, and it contained enough ink for filling up about 30 pages on a regular sized moleskine, plus some other miscellaneous writing. Not an impressive amount of ink.
The other complaint is that the pen point exploded and leaked ink onto a shirt of mine. Certainly not the first time, and it probably won't be the last. None the less, it was annoying



I'd certainly use this pen again, but I'd have to say it wasn't as nice as I was hoping, primarily because of the two faults I've mentioned. It certainly wrote nicely though.

Pentel Energel Retractable

This is one sweet pen. I prefer retractable pens so I can easily remove them from my shirt pocket and write. The clip is attached to the retract mechanism so that if I put it in my pocket with the point extended, it automatically retracts. This is a great feature, I've ruined several shirts by putting pens in with the point extended.

The real reason to use a pen though, is to write things down. In this, this Energel excels. It writes smoothly, and lays down a nice dark line. No start-up stutters or gaps, and it keeps up with high speed scribbling as well. The ink will smear if you rub it immediately after laying the ink down, but give it 5 seconds, and it's smearproof.

I tried scrubbing the paper with Acetone based nail polish remover, and it didn't smear at all.

The only downside it that I really want one in a narrower width, and I haven't seen one in a store yet. I'll be keeping my eye out for them, though.


This came in a package of 3 for $5.79, or $1.93 each.

I'll send one to the first person who leaves a comment on this blog. US Only, please.

What to do with all the pens?

One of the bad things about buying all of these pens is that now I have lots of extra pens laying around. While some of these are available in singles, the big office supply stores all sell them in packages of 3 or 4. This is great if you really like the pen, but what to do with the one's I don't like?

More Pens!

I stopped by Office Depot on the way home this week, and picked up some more pens.
1-Pentel Retractable Energel, Black medium line
2-Pilot G2, Black Extra Fine
3-Pilot Precise GRIP Rolling Ball, Black, Extra Fine
This last one came with a free Precise V5, so that gives me 4 different Pens to try out. I also have some Uni-Ball Signo RT gel 0.38, extra extra fine that I've been enjoying for a while, and I'll write up my impressions on that sometime it the future, as well.

Uni-ball EX2 basic

Staples/$1.29 single price

This is very similar to the Uni-ball Signo bit that I've reviewed. Writes very nicely with a smooth dark line without gaps or skips. The ink smears a little right after it goes down, but give it 15 sec to dry, and it doesn't smear. After the cap is off for a while, the pen starts up nicely. I even left the cap off for 2 hours, and it started up nicely.

This is a pretty generic stick pen, with a hard plastic grip that isn't very comfortable to write with. This is pretty long in your hands, without the cap posted on the end. This also unscrews to allow the ink cartridge to be removed. I'm not sure if the cartridges are available.

This pen also has a small scratchy point which went away as I rotated it in my hand.

This point is labeled 0.7, which is too broad for my taste, and I was unable to find a smaller point in the bin at Staples. This isn't a bad pen for the money, but it's got a really generic office supply look to it.

Uni-ball Signo bit 0.7

Staples/$1.99 single price

Not a bad cheap pen. This is a capped Gel pen, which writes pretty well. Using Ampad's Gold Fibre pads, there was little feathering on the page and the ink dried quickly. If I rub my fingers over the ink just after writing it, there was some smearing, but if I gave it 10 to 15 seconds, then there was no smearing. I left the cap off the pen for a couple of hours, and it started up nicely without any skipping.

The grip is partially rubber, and partially ridged. It was comfortable to write with. With the cap not posted, it's a nice small pen to write with. The pen unscrews, and the ink cartridge comes out, although I'm not sure if refills are available. Looking at this, it's a fairly attractive pen, with some nice texture to it.

One downside is that it's a little scratchy when writing. As I rotated it around in my fingers, this came and went, so there was a single spot on the pen point that was scratching. This is on a sample size of 1, and so I'm not sure that this is the case for all of them.

I generally prefer a much finer point, so I'd have to say that this isn't a pen that I'd really use for day to day use. If this were available in a fine or extra fine point, I'd be likely to use one.

What's Here?

This Blog is intended to collect and comment on cheap pens and how suitable they are for writing. I've got small handwriting, and I use a variety of papers to write on. I've been using fountain pens for a long time, and have recently decided to stop carrying around $100 pens, and instead use ones that only cost under $5.00 each.

My review format will likely involve writing on several different paper types, along with seeing how well the pen's start up after sitting uncapped for a few minutes.

Dave