The Zebra Surari is one of those pens I like but never spend that much time with, so it was a perfect selection for the #OnePenOneDay project. I got a good day of usage out of it, and found it to be as solid as ever. Compared to the Uni-Ball JetStream and Pilot Acroball, the ink tends to blob on some letters a bit more, but it may write smoother than its competition. Depending on what day it is, I'm likely to have a different answer on which one of the three is my favorite.
Posts filed under Surari
Review: Zebra Surari Emulsion Ink Pen 0.5 Black
Hello, viewers of the Pen Addict! My name is Amy, and I'll also be contributing reviews here along with Kalina. As a current undergraduate student at a university in southern California, I hope other fellow students find my reviews useful as I wish for practicality and portability in pens and stationery. Recently, however, I've been getting into fountain pens, so I'll be giving an amateur view on these wonderful instruments and their related items as well. The Zebra Surari Emulsion Ink Pen 0.5 mm Black with dark black body can be purchased from JetPens. Brad recently reviewed (and gave away for free) Zebra Surari Emulsion ink pens. However, I really wanted to try it particularly because I do not like ballpoint pens yet want oil-based ink. I also am an undergraduate researcher in a lab at my school, and the rule apparently is to use ballpoints in lab notebooks because the ink is waterproof. Yet being stubborn, I still use gel pens but I just tape plastic over my notes to prevent the ink from bleeding everywhere when in contact with water. Hence, when Zebra combined gel and ballpoint pens, I knew I had to have it. That being said, onto the review. I'm really serious about wanting this ink to handle basically any chemical that my lab has. Therefore, I treated this ink to a small variety of chemicals popularly found in the lab (and household) and compared it to a generic (borrowed) ball point pen and Pilot Hi-Tec ink. These chemicals are water, ethanol (aka hand sanitizer), and isopropyl alcohol (aka rubbing alcohol). Zebra Emulsion Ink resists the most to modification by a variety of common chemicals compared to oil-based ballpoint pen ink and gel pen ink.
As you can see above, the Zebra Surari resisted the most to all of the treatments! The most popular things found in the lab are water and ethanol, and there are negligible changes to the emulsion ink when smeared with these chemicals. The oil-based ink of ball point pens seems to fail when treated with alcohol, while the gel pen ink of Pilot Hi-Tec is terribly smudged when treated with water.
As for the writing experience, sometimes I really feel like I'm just writing with a ballpoint pen but whatever is coming out of the pen is just gel pen ink. I think it's probably because it looks and feels like a ballpoint pen with the thick barrel and ergonomically textured rubber grip (which just seems ballpoint pen -ish to me based on my past experiences with ballpoint pens). Yet, the tip looks like that of a gel pen and the ink lays down on the paper like a gel pen. Regardless, it writes very smoothly as expected from a ballpoint and the ink is absolutely amazing. Additionally, the 0.5 mm pen does not really seem to write a 0.5 mm line. In my opinion, it's very comparable to a 0.3 - 0.4 mm line, which is great for me because I love fine lines.
The Zebra Surari writes a pretty fine line for a 0.5 mm pen.
In the end, this is a great pen for a student because of its oil based ink and its thin lines (which is especially great for taking notes in textbooks). The price at $1.50 is perfect for the starving-college student budget and amazing if you look at the value of the pen. However, this pen is not as reminiscent of a gel pen as I would like, perhaps due to the design of the pen. I'd really love Zebra to work in developing other pens that use this emulsion ink but are comparable and simple in design to Pilot Hi-Tecs or Pentel Sliccis. I think it'd be a real competitor to these popular staples, yet may pose problem for their Zebra Sarsas (and therefore this may not really happen except in my dreams). ):
The Zebra Surari can be found on JetPens here.
This review was done on a Rhodia Dotpad No. 16.
Giveaway: Zebra Surari Emulsion Ink Pens
Sold HERE.
Reviewed HERE.
Given away RIGHT HERE!
When I bought my batch of Zebra Surari pens from JetPens, I made sure I got enough to spread the wealth around a bit. After I squirreled away a couple for myself, I still had nine left over, so I am going to give away three pens to each of three winners of this giveaway. Here are the standard rules:
1. Leave one comment on this post anytime between now, and Thursday night at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. You are limited to one entry. Feel free to link this giveaway on your blog, or share it with anyone you feel is a true pen addict. If you have a blog, I would love a link back, but it is certainly not required for entry into the contest.
2. For this contest, I will pick three winners at random from the comments section of this post. The comments will be numbered in the order they are received, i.e. the first comment is #1, the second #2, and so on. The Random Integer Generator at random.org will be used to pick the number of the winners.
3. The contest winners will be posted on Friday, July 16th. The winners will have one week to email me at the address posted in the right sidebar.
4. I will ship internationally. I know there are many international readers and fans of The Pen Addict, and I will gladly ship to you at my expense.
Thanks and good luck!
