Pilot FriXion Ball Slim 0.38 mm Orange Review

If you didn't know this already I am a big fan of orange. Orange pens, orange barrels, orange inks, orange detailing, pretty much anything orange. There is no real reason why, other than the fact I am not a fan of red, so I use orange as my red replacement.

What I have never been a huge fan of is the Pilot FriXion line. They are completely fine pens, but usually not for me. They are growing on me though, especially as the product line matures. I think the turning point for me was the FriXion Biz, which is the only FriXion I use regularly, but the recently released Pilot FriXion Ball Slim may join the club.

The Slim has two things going for it: An ultra-fine 0.38 mm tip, and a slim but comfortable barrel design. I like these slim single cartridge barrels more than I ever thought I would, starting with the Uni-ball Style Fit. The FriXion Slim feels great in the hand and is very manuverable. The knock is placed subtly on the side of the barrel allowing for the eraser to be placed properly on the top of the pen.

I think the 0.38 mm tip is even finer than that. It writes more like a Uni-ball Signo DX 0.28 mm to me. That means there is some scratchiness when writing, which should be expected on a pen this fine.

Where the FriXion runs circles around other pens in this category is erasibility. No other company can hold a candle to Pilot in this area, so if an erasable gel ink pen is what you need, look no further than the FriXion.

(JetPens is an advertiser on The Pen Addict and I received this product at no charge.)

Pilot FriXion Light Fluorescent Ink Erasable Highlighter Review

I get a ton of highlighter questions, but I haven’t provided many answers of late. Let’s knock one of them out today, shall we?

The Pilot FriXion Highlighter has been around for a while, but I only just recently got my hands on one to test out. Like all of the Pilot FriXion pens, this one sports a very well designed barrel. It is sharp looking and comfortable to hold. My initial reaction to the ink color is that it is darker than I like to use regularly in a highlighter, but in the photo it doesn’t look so bad.

Since the main feature of this pen is its erasability, I tested it out over a few different inks. The top line shows the Zebra Sarasa Clip 0.7mm gel ink pen, and you can tell pretty quickly it doesn’t play nice with gel inks. I tried to let the ink dry a bit, but still jumped the gun I think. The friction based eraser got into the ink too much and came out looking terrible.

The other two inks did much better. The pigment ink of the Uni Pin worked very well with this highlighter, as did the hybrid ballpoint ink of the Pilot Acroball. You can see a little bit of ink spread in those two samples, but they are more in line with my expectations.

What I didn’t test, and where I foresee no issues, is with textbooks. It doesn’t take much effort to erase the ink, so I don’t believe it will be a problem erasing over printed text.

The Kokuyo Beetle Tip remains my favorite highlighter, but the Pilot FriXion is a nice option if you are looking for erasable ink.

Pilot FriXion Biz Point 04 Review

I’m not sure where I was when it happened, but I have turned into a full fledged Pilot FriXion fan. I think it must be Pilot’s constant updating and improvements to the entire FriXion line that made me sit up and take notice. Have you seen how many products they have released just in the past year?¹

When the first round of the FriXion Biz came out, I wasn’t on the bandwagon yet. The barrel looked great, but it contained the standard 0.5mm conical tip that was present in the regular FriXion. A year or so ago, Pilot came out with the FriXion Point 04 - a needle tip 0.4mm erasable gel ink pen. Now we are in business! The FriXion Biz Point 04 was released shortly thereafter, and I finally picked one up last week.

I went with the Metallic Blue Body, and it is both fantastic to look at and to write with. The barrel reminds me a lot of the Pilot Hi-Tec-C Cavalier barrel, but full sized as opposed to the slimmed down Cavalier. I also bought the blue ink refills, because I am weird about using different color inks than the body color (it comes with a black ink cartridge).

Looking at the written review², you can see how nicely the pen writes. Very clean lines, and no skipping to speak of. The shade of blue is lighter than most, but that allows it to be more easily erased, and doesn’t bother me a bit.

One thing that did bother me originally was the eraser placement under the cap. I am learning to deal with it, because in the case of the Biz, it would make for a less attractive pen if the rubber eraser was on top. If I was using a mechanical pencil I would have to remove the cap to get to the eraser too, right?

The Pilot FriXion Biz 04 has earned a place on my desk, and I reach for it often. I wouldn’t sign any official documents with it, but it is a fun pen to use in nearly every other situation.

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   Note to Pilot: The G-2 could use an update. ↩

   
   


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   Sorry for the terrible crop and the seasick photo angle. ↩