Zebra Pen recently shipped me a huge stash of goods which included the hugely popular Zebra Mildliner Highlighter. For this giveaway, I have an 8-pack of traditional highlighter colors to give away, so read the rules below and enter away!
Posts filed under Zebra
Zebra bLen Ballpoint Pen Review
I was late to the Zebra bLen party.
When the 2020 OKB48 results dropped, a pen I had never heard of slotted in at number two. New pens sneak up on me all the time, but I would expect them further down the 48-pen list. Not directly into the number two spot.
I had a friend reach out at the time and offer to send me over one to check out, as they were only available in Japan on launch. And it was good. I liked it. And then I misplaced it, or maybe even gave it away. Why I didn’t slot it into the review queue at the time is odd for me, but now that the bLen has become even more popular, and propagated worldwide, it is time to correct that miss.
The marketing of the bLen revolves around two things: Zebra’s emulsion ink technology, and unique barrel construction.
Originally launched as Z-Mulsion ink, this was Zebra’s answer to the hybrid ballpoint ink technology popularized by the Uni-ball Jetstream, and later, the Pilot Acroball. What hybrid ballpoint inks offer is a far superior ink formula over the purely oil-based traditional ballpoint ink. It’s smoother, darker, cleaner, and more consistent. In short, this ink is far better than typical ballpoint ink.
Z-Mulsion didn’t exactly take off for Zebra on it’s first go-round. But going back to the drawing board and building around a solid refill put them on the path to a better product in the end.
In collaboration with Japanese-Canadian designer Saki Oki, the bLen barrel was engineered for silence. How often have you heard that in pen design? And if you haven’t, you know exactly what it means. Often times when using pens, primarily retractable pens, there is rattling going on in the barrel. It could be from the tip area where the refill is exposed, or it could be in the internals where the knock mechanism resides. The bLen was designed to eliminate all of that sound and vibration.
And it works. The Zebra bLen barrel is lightweight, and solid. The knock engages cleanly, and is quiet. The tip is cushioned, and smooth. Overall, Zebra delivered on their design ideas.
That design allows the refill to shine. Zebra always had something with the Z-Mulsion ink, but it didn’t land from a design and marketing perspective. Now with this unique barrel design, the refill performance is able to be noticed. I have an 0.5 mm Blue and an 0.7 mm Black in hand to test, and they are fantastic to write with. The 0.7 mm will win the popularity contest due to the tip size, but I, of course, have a soft spot for the 0.5 mm.
As much as I like this ink (especially the Blue 0.5 mm,) I do think both the Uni-ball Jetstream and Pilot Acroball do it slightly better. If the Jetstream was a 9 out of 10 ink performance, the Acroball is an 8/10, and the bLen is a 7/10. Still good, but a clear third place for me. The barrel practically makes up the difference, though. It’s that good.
The lines on both pens are consistent, and fine. Compared to similar tip sizes in gel and rollerball pens, the line from ballpoints is narrower on the page. The ink doesn’t spread on the page like the other two, despite the same manufacturing size of the tip.
I did see a little bit of what I call “spidering” in some of my writing, more from the Black 0.7 mm tip than the Blue 0.5 mm. If you look at the word “meaning” above, you will see a strand of ink from the bottom left of the A, to the top of the I-like a spider’s web.
I’m really enjoying the Zebra bLen now that I’ve given it some dedicated usage time. At $2.50, they are competitively priced, and have become more widely available. With the success Zebra has seen with this pen barrel, they launched a gel ink bLen option as well, which I’ll be looking at soon.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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Zebra G-450 and G-750 Gel Ink Pen Review
Before I left my day job to focus on The Pen Addict full time, I was in the IT field. I was with the same company for around 15 years, 12 of that in the same facility. I knew a lot of people there, and a lot of them knew me as the pen guy.
For the few that were interested past the “oh, that’s nice,” phase, there were two pens that were their favorites: the Pilot G2, and the Zebra F-301.
I understood the love for the G2. Still do. It’s a rock solid gel ink pen that writes smooth and has dark ink. Wide availability on store shelves expanded its popularity. If you liked school supplies when you were a kid, you were prone to grab a pack of G2’s when you saw them, and sung their praises once compared to the general office supplies you were stuck with at work.
The F-301 was different. There is no doubt that it looked cool, and while not near as ubiquitous as the G2, it was reasonably available at office supply stores, if not grocery stores. And F-301 fans? The ones I met were passionate about this little pen. I’m never one to yuck someone’s yum, but let’s just say my feelings were not as strong about this pen as the G2 at the time.
The biggest failure with the design of the F-301 is the grip. It looks great on the shelf, but once you unpack the pen and hold it, it becomes evident how uncomfortable the plastic ridges are on your fingertips. For a quick note it is passable, but any longer writing is out of the question.
Still, the F-301 proved to be popular due to its construction. It is a durable pen, and the refill was good enough. And I’m happy that this pen has been a success for Zebra, because they took what worked well with the F-301 and improved on it. There is a softer grip model in the F-402, and they eventually added gel refill options in the various G-series models, including the two I’m going to talk about today.
The G-450 and the G-750 are a continuation of the F-301 family tree, and pretty darn good ones at that. The G-450 is the shorter of the two pens by just under a half an inch, and features a rubber grip. The G-750 features a similar full-metal exterior, with the addition of a knurled metal grip. It also has a subtle triangle-shaped upper barrel, while the G-450 is essentially round. The G-designation on both pens mean they use gel ink, 0.7 mm black gel ink to be specific.
Comparing these two pens is difficult because there is not much that separates them from each other. The G-450 rubber grip is the superior of the two, which is hard for me to say as a knurled grip fan. The G-750 knurling is so fine and tight that the grip feels smooth. That’s not how I ever want to describe knurling. There has to be some grab in there, and there isn’t.
I will say that the nose cone design of the G-750 catches my eye. It has four angled steps down towards the tip of the pen, which allows for a great view of the tip and the page you are writing on. There’s nothing wrong with the front-end shape of the G-450, but the G-750 had me inspecting it, wondering why I liked it so much.
With matching 0.7 mm black gel ink refills, there is obviously no difference in writing performance between the two. The ink is dark, and the tip is smooth on the page. There are minimal swappable refill options for these pens, but JetPens does list a few, including 0.5 mm choices. I don’t think you will be successful hacking refills into either of these barrels, as the interior barrel opening for the refill is narrow. In fact, I had a hard time putting the refill back in one of the pens when I removed it for inspection.
Between the two, the G-450 is the clear winner. The grip is more comfortable, and combined with the shorter length, it felt better in my hand while writing. Plus, it is $7.00, while the G-750 runs $9.50.
If you like gel ink pens with upgraded metal barrels, I think you will be happy with either of these options from Zebra. Myself, I’m happy that they keep building and iterating on an interesting product lineup that differentiates them from the competition. I hope that continues.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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