Image via JetPens
My Top 5 gel ink multi pen list doesn’t change very often. The Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto is entrenched at #1, with the Uni Style Fit a solid #2. The Uni Style Fit Meister is the newest barrel in Uni-ball’s gel multi pen lineup and I’m not sure it will crack the list at all.
On the surface, the Meister is a great looking pen. The lightweight metal barrel is an upgrade over the standard plastic barrel and the clean lines make this a pen people will notice. The Signo DX refills are excellent too. While you can choose Jetstream or pencil cartridges, I generally stick with the gels. It’s hard to beat the DX for smoothness and color vibrancy, although I believe the lines are a bit sharper from the standard single cartridge DX as opposed to the multi pen refills.
There are two annoyances with the Meister that keep me from heaping full praise on it. One, it uses a twist-deploy method for the ink cartridges. Some pens get this right, but not the Meister. The twist from station to station is quick from 1-2-3 and 3-2-1 but the second you go past slot one on the way back the barrel starts to unscrew. There is no buffer between that station and taking the pen apart.
Secondly, and this is something that may only annoy me, but the entire top section of the pen is able to be pressed down about a quarter of an inch for no good reason. Looking at the pen, you can depress the top of the pen like it is retractable and it covers most of the ink window in the middle of the pen. It serves no purpose other than to make me fidget with it and drive me insane. What can I say, I’m weird. (UPDATE: As my Twitter followers quickly let me know, I'm an idiot. What is my annoyance is others pencil click mechanism. Maybe I should try that component sometime?)
The Uni Style Fit is an excellent gel ink multi pen but stick with the entry level plastic body for one-fifth of the price. It is a no frills, knock-type multi pen that uses the same refills and gets the job done in a simple, efficient manner.
(JetPens is an advertiser on The Pen Addict and I received this product at no charge.)
