Posts filed under Pentel

Pentel Fitline Highlighter Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter.)

The Pentel Fitline set of highlighters includes the standard basics--yellow, pink, orange, green, and blue. They're double-ended, with the classic chisel tip at one end and a 1 mm bullet felt tip at the other. They're designed to work both for highlighting and quick note taking, though that always baffles me a bit. Generally, ink bright enough to highlight is terrible for reading notes, and ink dark enough to read is terrible for highlighting. Still, the design persists across a number of brands, so maybe I'm missing something.

These are, in nearly every way, just your standard highlighters. They've set themselves apart with two features, though. One is a notched neck which allows the chisel tip to flex a bit for easier highlighting over curved pages. It's an interesting feature in theory, but I didn't see much flex in my samples. In order to get any bending, I had to press hard enough that the tip was getting squished and there was a risk of ink bleeding. It's possible they'd become more flexible with use. And due to their other unique feature--they are refillable--it is actually worthwhile to break them in. The refill is for pigment only and does not include a replacement tip, so eventually the tip will move past the broken-in phase and become worn out--at which point the whole pen will have to be replaced.

These are on the pricier side for a standard highlighter at $1.75 apiece. And refills are $1.40--quite high for pigment alone. That cost would make sense if you were getting a replacement tip, and I wonder if the felt tips will last more than a few fillings.

The tips do write smoothly and well. The ink distributes evenly and there are no issues with bleeding or show-through, even on cheap printer paper. There was some slight smearing on rollerball and gel pen ink, but surprisingly none with fountain pen ink. It also did well over pencil, ballpoint, and printer ink.

The clips are sturdy and have enough space between them and the body to be clipped to a book cover. The caps snap securely and both can be posted to the other, but the fine-point end caps are very small--so be careful not to lose them.

Overall, I think these are a good quality school supply, if a bit on the pricier side. They work very well, but fall short of being anything particularly innovative. For highlighters, though, my only real expectation is that they be practical, and these do that very well.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Posted on June 21, 2018 by Sarah Read and filed under Pentel, Highlighter, Pen Reviews.

Pentel EnerGel Clena 0.3 mm Gel Ink Pen Review

The Pentel EnerGel Clena is the brands latest foray into micro-tipped gel ink pens. Like all of its Pentel predecessors, it’s a good one. Also like its predecessors, it could be better.

Like many of you, I was first introduced to Pentel’s micro-tips with the Slicci. At the time, it was one of the best writers on the market, especially in the 0.25 mm, 0.3 mm, and 0.4 mm tip sizes. It also has a terrible barrel that is skinny and uncomfortable. For those who enjoyed the writing experience it was worth it, and I certainly used my share of them. We all wished for more though.

The Euro came out a few years later to almost no fanfare, except from me. I love this pen! It’s a weird offering though, which is why it never stuck. It was a capped barrel with a needle tip - which is fine - but only had one micro size in 0.35 mm in black, blue, and red. The remainder of the sizes were the admittedly more popular 0.5 mm, 0.7 mm, and even 1.0 mm. More traditional EnerGel sizes if you will.

The standard EnerGel kept trucking along all these years, with the RTX being the most popular yet. The barrel design got a graphical update, and the color palette was expanded to 12 colors. 12 really good colors at that. This is the product lineup that most consumers are referring to when discussing the Energel.

The introduction of the Clena caught me off guard a bit, having both 0.3 mm and 0.4 mm sizes available out the gate. Like every other EnerGel I’ve used, they are amazing writers. The lines are clean, sharp, and dark, and the writing experience is smooth, which you can’t always say about tip sizes this fine. But I want something more from this pen.

There are two reasons Pentel can’t compete in the micro-tip gel ink category against the Uni-ball Signo DX, Pilot Hi-Tec-C, and Zebra Sarasa Clip: Barrel diameter and color choices.

The Clena uses what I call the traditional EnerGel barrel. It’s the one you see in the wild and go “yeah, that’s an EnerGel.” The paint job is different for the Clena, but for all intents and purposes its identical in size, shape, clip, grip, and knock. The barrel is great for wider writers like the 0.7 mm size, but I feel that it is too wide for 0.3 mm. Since you aren’t generally writing big, flowing lines with pens this fine, you want the control of a narrower barrel. Not Slicci thin, but Euro thin.

Secondly, the only ink choices are black and red. Even the Euro had blue! The 12 shades of standard EnerGel ink would be perfect for the Clena. I’d even forego complaints of the barrel diameter if I could get orange, blue black, purple, turquoise, and more in 0.3 mm.

To fix all of this, Pentel should rework the Euro barrel with the new shiny RTX silver paint job and add in all of the new colors. That fixes both of my complaints about what is actually a very good pen. If they do that, then Pentel will be in the same conversation with all of the other micro-tip gel greats.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Pentel, Energel, Pen Reviews.

Pentel EnerGel Pearl 0.7 mm Gel Pen Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter.)

The Pentel EnerGel is arguably one of the best pens you can find in any random stationery aisle. They're widely available, and they might even be stocked in your office supply closet at work. If not, I suggest sneaking some in there.

The EnerGel ink is a blend of gel and rollerball ink. It's known for writing smoothly and drying quickly. It is sometimes described as a smudge-free ink, though I found all of the colors smear a bit--some more than others. While it does dry more quickly than some gel inks and claims to be good for lefties, I worry that it may smear when a hand is dragged across. It does okay with highlighter, but not great. Even the dry ink smudges a little, and will leave a residue on the highlighter tip. But the text was still clear, and it didn't perform any worse than most pens under the circumstances.

The writing experience was smooth, for the most part. I did have a little stuttering with the black ink, but the other pens wrote beautifully. The .7 mm line is broader than I'm used to, but I enjoyed it, and it showed off the intensity of the ink colors. The ink is very well saturated and bright. The 8-color Pearl set includes black, red orange, lime, sky blue, blue, and violet. I also tried the pink ribbon edition of the black pen. I love that Pentel has this line that benefits breast cancer research. I did have some trouble telling the difference between the pink pen and the black-ink pen in the pink body. They are identical except that the tip size is outlined in black for the black-ink pen.

The pen body is a very good build. And it's responsibly made, being 54% post-consumer recycled plastic. The silicone grip is latex-free and comfortable to hold. This Pearl edition has a pearlescent white body with transparent color accents that indicate the ink color (except in the case of the pink ribbon edition). They have sturdy, flexible clips and a solid click mechanism. The click button does rattle a bit when depressed, which is one of my personal pen pet peeves, but the other features more than make up for that small flaw. The body appears to be identical to the RTX model, apart from the body color. The ink colors are the same and they both take the same refills.

At $22 for an 8-color pack, or $2.80 for open stock, I think these are a little on the pricey side. They're comparable to the Uni-ball Signo pens, but considerably more than the Pilot Juice—which is, in my opinion, a better pen. But there’s a lot to like about these, and they're way more fun than the usual office fare.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!