Review: Zebra F-301 0.7mm Ballpoint

Raise your hand if this is your everyday, go to, get it done pen.  I expect more than a few hands will go up for the Zebra F-301 line of pens, and for good reason.  These are exceptionally well made and great looking pens.  For me, I have never quite gotten it with this pen, but it is not for lack of trying.

What I love about this pen is its design.  The sleek stainless steel barrel is great looking, and the barrel length and diameter both hit those just big enough sizes.  The blue plastic in the grip and around the plunger really pop as well.  But as great as it looks, it doesn't quite cut it in the performance department.  The ballpoint ink is standard, and my definition these days of a standard ballpoint is any ballpoint pen that you would pick up that is just laying around.  Something in the non-Jetstream category for sure.  I have a feeling that the look and feel of this pen make the people who use it think that the ink actually performs better than it does.  Does that make sense at all, or just in my head?

More than the ballpoint, I really dislike the hard plastic grip.  It is too firm and too slick for a pen that does require some pressure to write with.  They may not be able to go with a full on squishy gel grip with the barrel diameter limitations, but almost any change in that area would be good.

So, while I am at it, what else would I like to see?  Would it be too much to ask for a Surari branded F-301?  Make it happen Zebra!

Click here for the XL review.

Products used:

Zebra F-301 Stainless Steel Body Retractable Ballpoint Pen - 0.7 mm - Blue from JetPens

Writing Pad from Doane Paper

Brown Pen Battle

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

 It can be hard to find a good brown pen for sketching.  While there are a lot of beautiful brown fountain pen inks, they aren't waterproof (with perhaps one or two rare exceptions).  When buying a disposable brown pen, it can be hard to predict the color - they range from rusty orange to ashy sepia, and the color on the label or even the pen cap is often no clue to the tone of the ink.

While my collection is by no means exhaustive, this examination includes several of the most common and most recommended brown pen options.  

The Candidates

• Pilot Hi-Tec-C .03 Brown


• Uni-Ball Signo DX Brown Black


• Zebra Sarasa Clip Tea Brown


• Copic Multiliner Sepia


• Pigma Micron Brown 05 (product site) 


• Pigma Micron Sepia 05 (see above)
  

Visual Comparison

In the line tests above, I pressed harder for the bottom three lines - you can see it clearly in the case of the Pigma Micron 05 Sepia.  Note that some pens showed no variation based on pressure.

Like many Pen Addict readers, I'm a big fan of the Pilot Hi-Tec-C despite it seeming to be waterproof only on certain papers.  At least when it runs, it runs in an attractive way which is usable for art.  Note that the almost purplish hue of the Hi-Tec-C brown turns to something like burnt sienna when wet. I love these colors, though of course since it isn't waterproof I often don't choose it for sketching.  Also see Pen Addict's Hi-Tec-C review for a writing sample in blue-black.

The Zebra Sarasa had some conspicuous problems while I was making the comparison chart above - it wasn't giving a consistent line.  Since Pen Addict's reviews show good consistency with this pen,  it may have been a rare glitch.  I went through several test pages before it worked itself out, but now that it has I like this pen a lot and it allows for more line variation than most of the other options.  I drew the more distant towers here lightly to imply distance - it's subtle but you can see the difference.

  

The Zebra Sarasa also does very well with water - I'd say it's totally waterproof. The "tea brown" color is nice and rich. All in all, a very good pen for sketching.

The Uni-Ball Signo DX in Brown Black is very consistent, has good ink flow, and is also almost but not entirely waterproof.  On some papers, a little surface ink can pick up when the ink is still relatively fresh; you can see a slight cast here as I went over it with a waterbrush.  The line isn't pressure sensitive at all, but like I said... consistent.  I really like this one as a writing pen, actually.  Without pressure sensitivity or a particularly rich tone it's not my favorite for sketching but is a fine pen albeit with some body issues (I agree with Pen Addict's assessment).

I had trouble with the Copic Multiliner in sepia.  It's very pale, and the tone isn't strong or beautiful enough for me to want to use it for adding color.  I really want to like it, since the Copic Multiliner is built to last - metal body, replacable tip, refillable - what's not to love? The Pen Addict agrees.   This sepia (which is far from what I would call sepia) is the weak link in their collection, and I look forward to reviewing some of their other colors here soon - I've enjoyed those much more.

The Pigma Micron in brown performed very well though I've only found it in their 05 size, which is larger than I'd like, and I prefer less of a yellow cast. Still, totally waterproof and a good pen.

The Pigma Micron in sepia is much darker, but it's a tone I found very visually pleasant.  It's a shame that once again I only had a larger tip (05) available for testing.  See Pen Addict's thoughts on the smaller 03 size.  

The Final Verdict

If it were even halfway waterproof, the Hi-Tec-C would have made it to the top due to its lovely purple-leaning tone and versatile line.  Instead it is relegated to "special use" but can't be a primary tool. The Pigma Micron in sepia serves well as a warmer substitute to a black line.  As a truly brown pen, the nice rich tone of the tea brown Zarasa won me over - that's the pen I'm grabbing when I'm laying down a brown line with some watercolors and want the line to sing.

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.