The Pentel Energel RTX .5 mm retractable needle point pen

The Pentel Energel RTX .5 mm retractable needle point pen (whew, that’s a long description) is as smooth a pen as I’ve ever used. I tried out a 3-pack of purple Energel RTXs with a medium .7 mm point before I plunked down the money for a twelve pack of needle points. Next, I’ll probably get a pack of .7 mm black pens but I’m going to try to make the .5mm work for me first. I need to use what I buy.

I’ve been looking for a pen to draw on top of graphite and colored pencils. I can’t remember where I heard about these Energels or why I considered them for drawing. Till now, the only pens that I’ve gotten to go on top of pencils have been ballpoints but the ink in these tend to be less saturated than gel inks, which are more vibrant. The ballpoints were too grey and the gel inks have tended to skip way too much to be any good.I practiced with the purple .7mm pens and liked the results. The .5mm pens have even cleaner lines — the ink doesn’t pool as much as with the .7 mm pen; and there’s minimal skipping; and the blacks are nice and dark.

I hope other artist community discovers these pens and put them to good use!

Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen

I picked up the Pilot Metropolitan pen after hearing so much about it on the Pen Addict podcast. The podcasters, Brad Dowdy and Myke Hurley, made a lot of noise about this pen. Anyway, I got hooked on buying the pen after considering the positive discussion, coupled with the low cost of getting it. I’ve never owned a fountain pen; I never even considered owning one. I always saw them as either status symbols or as tools for calligraphy — none of which particularly interests me. But the fountain pen discussions on the Pen Addict were insistent and I got curious.

But if I was going to get started, I needed to keep it inexpensive and there was one clear winner after all the discussions, the Pilot Metropolitan.

I’ve now used the Metropolitan and the thing’s actually good… for writing. It has a very smooth and consistent line, with no breaks. I’ve written on my Moleskine Folio and Rhodia Webnotebook and both papers handled the stock ink very well. It’s a medium nib, and the line’s not too fat and definitely not too thin. It’s…just right. I also picked up the Pilot Namiki ink refills — which look to be budget inks — 6 dollars for 12 refills. For about 22 bucks, I got the pen and the refills. I call that cheap, about what I like to pay for a 12 pack of very good disposables. It’s a smooth write — I hear the best of all pens in the price neighborhood.

The Metropolitan is a no-nonsense pen. Capped. There’s the matte black of the two halves, a thin chrome band and a shiny black middle. Nice looks, but not too attention grabbing. Uncapped, the chrome area expands, like the reveal of more leg in a dancer. And that’s it for the looks. There’s pens out there that are prettier and even jaw dropping beautiful. This one’s a Plain Jane.

The pen clicks quietly when you cap it — I’d be wary of traveling with this in my pocket or loose in my backpack. This guy’s going to be staying home.

I was considering a Lamy Safari but I hear that it’s scratchier than the Metropolitan and more expensive. My next purchases are likely to be inks, like the Iroshizuku from Pilot, and some other Pilot pens. Pilot it seems knows fountain pens and give good quality at all price points. Imagine that.

If you consider the countless pens and nibs ever made and the many inks, then you have a universe of experiences — more than what you have with other writing tools. These things combine in different ways.

On the color front, I see the different inks as conducive to writing, different colors for different moods. Color should not be a barrier to writing, am I right? So, we need tons of ink. Pink, purple, baby blue, indigo…yes, I said pink.

For me, this pen is but one more writing tool to add to the arsenal but did I really need another one?

Pilot G2 Limited Gel Pen

When I first bought the Pilot G2 Limited, I thought that I was just getting a nicer body for the refills inside my G2 pens. At the time I had no experience with the market for pen bodies and refills. Turns out, the pen body adds to the performance of a pen — good to know. The heavier pen stabilizes the pen while writing. The pen is pushed down ever more slightly, without additional effort from the user. For me, this translates into a more consistent line and a smoother, less scratchy feedback — and the G2 is a scratchy pen. In addition, the G2 Limited does a better job of controlling the rattling of the pen parts — the spring in the clicker, for example, prevents the clicker from shaking and so writing is quieter. I had no idea.

Features that I like:

• better plastics
• refined chrome-like trims
• comfortable rubber grip
• vastly improved performance for the same refill

Drawbacks:

• still all plastic construction (including trims)
• clip is not very resilient and has begun prying off on one of my pens so I no longer clip them to my shirt

I would recommend the G2 Limited, if only to improve the performance of the G2 in the finer 05 and .38 sizes — where the extra stability counters the scratchiness of the finer points.

The Pilot Better Retractable – Fine

The Pilot Better Retractable – Fine is an excellent and affordable ballpoint pen.

Are there better pens out there? Absolutely. Better ballpoints? Yes! Of course! The Pilot Better doesn’t claim to be the Best pen…it simply says, there’s better. You don’t have to settle for junk and you don’t have to spend too much for quality.

There are different classes of pens, as there are with many types of products. For pens, there’s trash on one end (we can and should ignore these); there’s premium class on the other end; then there’s a vast middle ground, full of compromises.

This is why I think the Pilot Better Retractable is, in fact, better than its peers:

• It’s a skinny pen — too many pens out there are just too fat, with excess plastic or rubber grips.
• a major step up in quality from disposables (surprise!)
• in design, similar to the Bic Cristal Stic Ball Pen, just more evolved
• good metal clip for putting it in a pocket
• nice metal nib-sleave and clicker
• writes well and for a long time
• good price

There are some drawbacks, though. The absence of a plastic nib-sleave means that the ink stick rattles during usage. A well designed plastic sleeve would have quieted this, but I get it. It was a design choice– there’s already too much plastic in the affordable pen world.

All in all, a good writing choice.