Monday, December 20, 2010

Pilot Hi-Tec-C: Sear Blue 0.4mm


Looks like Hari's prepared for winter!

Haven't heard from me in a while, eh? Well, I'm back for a few reviews before Christmas rolls along. Today I'll be reviewing one of the many colors in Pilot's Hi-Tec-C line.

First of all, why "sear blue?" The katakana on the label reads "shia buruu," which could translate to "sear blue" or "sea blue," but JetPens marks it as "sear blue." Name aside, sear blue is a dark, turquoise color. It's a nice shade of blue (or green...whatever you consider turquoise to be) to write in. Being a .4mm sized tip, it is only slightly on the scratchy side, but not so much that it's significant. It skips quite often, but other times it writes normally. I tried to clean the tip and remove any fibers, but even after all that it still skips. Could it be the way I'm holding the pen? Could it be that there's paper fibers tightly stuck in the tip?

(Lyrics are from "I Believe in Father Christmas," by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer) (I'm sorry, the pictures don't do much justice to the ink's real color...)




Moving onto aesthetics. The body of the pen is pretty simple, like your typical pen body. Nothing extravagant or out of the ordinary. The cap clicks on, it has a rippled grip, the body is transparent, and all that. The tip is a needle tip, and there are two dimples on it where you can see the ink coming out of it.

PROS:
-Simple design
-Nice turquoise color
-Lays down a relatively smooth line

CONS:
-Skips occasionally
-Needle tip is somewhat scratchy, though almost unnoticeable

PRICE: $3.00 at JetPens

Overall, I give this a 9.8/10!!