Kokuyo Beetle Tip Dual Color Highlighter Review

I don't do too many highlighter reviews because I don't have many situations where a highlighter comes in handy. My highlighter replacement tends to be a multi pen like the Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto where I can mark up or underline in a range of different colors. On the occasion where a highlighter is required there is only one brand for me though, and that is Kokuyo.

The original Kokuyo Beetle Tip 3way was the first, and probably only, highlighter to make me say wow. In one tip it has three different highlighting modes, and I can't imagine anything else I would ever need from a highlighter.

Since my experience was so positive with the 3way, I wanted to give the new Dual Color Highlighter a shot to see how it stacks up. The selling point of this highlighter are the two adjacent color tips. You can start with one color, rotate the pen 180 degrees, and pick up with the other color. You can also create a double underline by using the two tips at once right down the middle.

This all works great, but I had one annoying issue with the highlighter. The width of the barrel and the low profile of the highlighter tips caused me to tilt my head like a curious dog to see the line I wanted to highlight. It was awkward and I tired of doing that quickly.

Aside from that, the colors are on the light end of the scale, which I prefer, and the barrel quality itself is nice. Plus, I thought that was a Rebel Alliance symbol on the barrel the first time I looked at it. The Kokuyo Beetle Tip Dual Color Highlighter is not Empire approved.

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

Uni-ball Propus Erasable Highlighter Pen Review

(This is a guest post by Brian Draghi. You can follow Brian on Twitter @Sketchscape)

Thanks to Brad and Jetpens for sending over this sample highlighter to review. I have used several different highlighters over the years but I have never used an erasable highlighter before. I was quite interested to see how well this type of highlighter erased its own highlighted areas. Unfortunately the Uni-ball Propus Blue Highlighter was a complete disappointment on several levels with an erasing ability that was less than ideal.

I really wanted to like this highlighter from Uni-ball but there are several brands of highlighters that aren't even erasable that are better than this particular one. The first strike against this highlighter is the horrible erasing ability where the highlighted area is still present after erasing. Using copy paper shows the best results but leaves a faded streak of highlight after erased. Marks on card stock can't even be erased without much difference to the original highlighted area. Trying to erase an area immediately after highlighting just smears the ink across the page. Anything written down is slightly faded in the process; highlighted ballpoint pens and pencils react the worst to erasing. Erasing any type of highlighted text in books is quite pointless since it nearly rubs out and destroys the words in the process.

The second issue is the very muted color that is produced from this highlighter. I prefer to have my highlighted areas to be bold and bright so that it stands out, instead a very dull line is produced. The final issue revolves around the rather slow drying time for any highlighted area. When it does dry, it seems to have a consistency of watercolor where you can see gaps of white space left over. It'€™s even worse when you press down the highlighter too hard because it can tend to really saturate the space. Forget using this highlighter on any type of glossy surface such as magazines and glossy card stock since there will just be a nice pool of ink on the surface that will never seem to dry.

Overall

There'€™s not many positive things I can say about the Propus. It has a nice compact style with a decent clip but there are too many issues with this highlighter to use on a regular basis. I could even set the lack of erasing aside if the highlighted color wasn'€™t so muted and distorted in consistency. I can'€™t say anything about the other colors available in this line but the blue is definitely the one that needs to be avoided. There are better highlighters available that outperform the Uni-ball Propus highlighter and choosing another erasable alternative would be ideal. For the non-erasable highlighter choice I would recommend the Sharpie Accent Liquid Highlighter.

Rating

1 out for 5

Cons

 - Horrible erasing ability

- Doesn't work on glossy or card stock materials

- Erases highlighted book text

- Very muted color

- Dries very slowly

Pros

-Compact style

-Works decent on pigment ink pens

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.