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.