JetPens Order!!!

Yesterday, my JetPens order was waiting to be opened by an anxious pen enthusiast, when I rushed home from school, opened the mailbox, squealed with joy, had about six other people looking at me, ripped the package open right then and there, and squealed even louder. What made me so ecstatic, you ask? Well, I ordered...



Charcoal Lamy Fountain Pen: Fine Nib
Lamy piston converter
Pilot Hi-Tec-C: 0.38 mm in "bengara" (ferrous oxide)
Uni-Ball Signo: 0.38 mm in bordeaux-black
Mitsubishi Boxy eraser

The main bulk of my order was the fountain pen, since this is my first "fancy" fountain pen. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to fill ink in it yesterday (I won some ink bottles in a giveaway that I never had a chance to review), so today I'm hoping to fill it, squeal with joy again when I get to write with it, and I'll have a review of the pen up shortly. (and by shortly, I DO mean shortly. I mean it this time.)

Uni-Ball Alpha Gel Kuru Toga Mechanical Pencil

What do you get when you mix awesome with awesome? You get an EPIC WIN!!! And that's what the Uni-Ball Alpha Gel Kuru Toga Mechanical Pencil is! (Try saying that five times fast...) This pencil is the lovechild combination of the Alpha Gel and the Kuru Toga models. Uni-Ball was smart and combined two great pencils into one. Actually, if you compare this with the two, you can even tell which parts of the pencil were taken from which model!




First things first, the design of this pencil is a hybrid of the Kuru Toga, Alpha Gel, and the Dr. Grip (despite the fact Dr. Grip is made by Pilot). This pencil is entirely made of plastic, which was probably a trait carried over from the Kuru Toga line. Then we move down to the grip, which isn't as squishy as the Alpha Gel models (probably lacking a chromosome?). The grip feels nearly like a Dr. Grip...grip but squishier. In fact, the upper body seems like a trait carried over by the Dr. Grip as well! You could unscrew the top to reveal an outer barrel and an inner body (the colored part). The clip eerily looks like the Dr. Grip's clip too. The only thing missing to strengthen the similarities is the shaker... Then again, it could all be a coincidence.

Moving back to the Kuru Toga, like in the high-grade series, shows the symbol that displays the Kuru Toga engine in action. As you write, the engine moves to keep the pencil tip sharp, and when the symbol shows orange, it indicates the full rotation of the engine. The eraser cap has the same symbol as the cap on the KT pencils. The tip is not retractable. It extends outward when you press the top, but it does not affect writing or gripping it, as far as I'm concerned.



As far as writing goes, the KT engine keeps the tip sharp and produces a fine line compared to regular pencils. When compared to a regular pencil, the regular pencil shows thicker lines than the KT pencils as shown above. The pencil is relatively lightweight and weighs similar to the original KT pencils than most of the Alpha Gel pencils. One concern was if you didn't screw the silver top tight enough, the transparent barrel could be left spinning around as you write.

So to recap...

Pros: Two great concepts rolled into one
Cons:
Costs: $12.75 at Jetpens

Overall, I give this a 10/10!

Uni-Ball Fanthom: Purple

...And do I dream again? For now I find... The FAAAAAAAANTHOM OF THE OPER--okay, I'll stop. From the horrible singing, you might have guessed that what I'm reviewing today is the Uni-Ball Fanthom. Here it seems like Uni-Ball is trying to compete with Pilot in the erasable pens market. In the earlier days, erasable pens weren't so great. The eraser was like any mechanical pencil eraser, the ink would leave some kind of remnants, smear, and the eraser would leave gunk all over the table. Now, erasable pens have improved and the FriXion pens (which I plan to review soon) were one of the first and popular erasable pens on the Japanese and American market. Uni-Ball decided to compete in the market and thus the Fanthom is born!

First things first, the pen has semi-torpedo design, since the the erasing mechanism is in the cap (something the FriXion lacks). It takes a bit of strength to take off the cap, but you can put it on top of the pen, so when you write, you can flip it over to erase. In the functionality of the design, the Fanthom wins this round. There's no grip to this, but it has a total of 24 ovals engraved into it to attempt mimicking one. This part of the pen feels slightly slippery when held. One major note is that the pen side and the barrel can be easily unscrewed, especially while writing – a major downside.



As far as the ink goes, it looks like watercolours. For the purple, I'd say it looks like a dark lavender. The ink takes a few seconds to dry. I wouldn't suggest trying to erase while the ink is still wet. When erased, you can see most of what has been erased quite clearly. If you erase a particular area a lot, that area becomes "glossed" up. (But I assume this is a problem with most erasable pens) Even then, you can still see clearly what you erased. The tip of the pen cap is used as the eraser. The tip doesn't make such a great excuse for an eraser. As I said earlier, it tends to gloss up the area and you can see what you erased clearly. When the tip is erased with frequently, it starts to dull down. It wears down where you erased with. I assume that as I erase with this, it will get so dull it'll look like the tip never existed. If you look closely at the picture below, you can see the dents made on the cap.




So to recap...

Pros: Next best erasable pen next to FriXion, ink is somewhat dark
Cons: Can still see erased area clearly, tip of the pen cap dents as it's erased with, may dent paper, pen tip and body unscrew easily
Costs: $3.00 at Jetpens

Overall, I give this pen an 84%, or a B.

Uni-ball Jetstream 1.0mm

Although I'm not a fan of ballpoint pens, this pen is an exception. I'm not someone to use broader tips, but this I like. The somewhat minimalistic approach to this pen is nice. This is a good pen for scribbling school notes (you know, when the teacher says things –instead of writing them down– that might be on the test next class), or if you're behind on them, or if you just fell asleep and you're trying to copy them from your friend before they have to flip the page. I've tried the .5 mm version but it was too scratchy for my taste. I have yet to try the .7 mm version though. The grip feels nice to hold and doesn't tire your hand after long periods of time. I gave this to my mom to write with for a bit since she likes ballpoints, and she also loves this! Now, every time she needs to borrow a pen (since she says mine are better than hers), she asks to borrow this pen.

So to recap...
Good: Writes smoothly, nice grip, good ink flow, thin, reasonable price.
Bad: N/A
Costs: Unavailable at Jetpens.com, but $2.25 for the .5 and .7 mm original models.

Oh and did I mention this pen's also good for pen spinning?


(I handwrote a review for this, but I threw it away after.)

First JetPens Order

I just came back from a trip to China and bought quite a few pens (although Japanese imported) from the department stores. Before I left, I made my first order on the JetPens site and it arrived the day I left (good timing, huh?). I made the order early because I there were some things I wanted to order that were in the close-out section, and I didn't want to come back to find out it's been sold out. So I ordered... (from left to right) (Sorry for the bad picture quality...)

Nomadic PE-06 Side Zipper Pencil Case - Light Green
Uni-ball Style Fit Gel Ink Multi Pen Ink Cartridge - 0.38 mm - Red
Uni-ball Style Fit Gel Ink Multi Pen Ink Cartridge - 0.38 mm - Mandarin Orange
Uni-ball Style Fit Gel Ink Multi Pen Ink Cartridge - 0.38 mm - Golden Yellow
Uni-ball Style Fit Gel Ink Multi Pen Ink Cartridge - 0.38 mm - Green
Uni-ball Style Fit Gel Ink Multi Pen Ink Cartridge - 0.38 mm - Blue Black
Uni-ball Style Fit 5 Color Gel Ink Multi Pen - Pen Body with Clip - Black
Pilot Hi-Tec-C Gel Ink Pen - 0.4 mm - European Colors - Olive
Pilot Hi-Tec-C Gel Ink Pen - 0.3 mm - European Colors - Yellow Ocher
Pilot FriXion Color-Pencil-Like Erasable Gel Ink Pen - 0.7 mm - Yellow Ocher
Pilot FriXion Color-Pencil-Like Erasable Gel Ink Pen - 0.7 mm - Ultramarine
Pilot FriXion Color-Pencil-Like Erasable Gel Ink Pen - 0.7 mm - Purplish Red
Pilot FriXion Color-Pencil-Like Erasable Gel Ink Pen - 0.7 mm - Dark Green
Uni-ball Fanthom Erasable Gel Ink Pen - 0.5 mm - Violet

Reviews to come later. But for now, trying to combat the jetlag...~

Uni Alpha Gel: Original

So here goes my first review... It's an amateur review, so bear with me.


Picture courtesy of jetpens.com
Sorry the picture's a bit cropped... T_T

This Uni Alpha Gel is the first series produced by the popular writing instrument company. It is said that the gel can keep an egg from cracking when dropped from five feet above. I'm pretty skeptical about this though... There are six colours of this the grip in this series: pink, green, sky blue, white, orange, and black. This is far different from any other pencils I've used before acquiring this one. In fact, this pencil is the first writing instrument that got me addicted to Japanese stationery.

Around the 7th grade, a lot of kids at school had these kinds of pencils (and the Dr. Grip Ltd.), so I got curious and bought an American version of the Dr. Grip Center of Gravity (also known as G-Spec). Not satisfied, I sought out to find the Alpha Gels, but no luck. Then I went to Japan and bought a few of these beauties and the Dr. Grip G-Spec (which I'll review later), as well as some candies, but I digress.

From the looks of it, the pencil is round and the grip certainly looks squishy to the touch. There's a loop on the top from where you can hang some kind of a charm...no pocket clip though. The tip is a plastic-ish sort of metal that while it doesn't look cheap at all, it also has a smaller, lighter-coloured grip near the top of the tip. At the top of the pencil is painted "uni αgel."

MOVING ON... this pencil has a very squishy, somewhat comfortable grip. The main attraction to this pencil is the squishy grip and the metal barrel. The metal barrel is easy to scratch, which looks unsightly on the pencil. The metal barrel makes this pencil balanced in a way. It's cool to the touch (unless you left it in the oven for too long, along with the meat loaf) if you wanted to switch pencils because the other one was getting too...warm. Yeah, I have that problem and pencils being too warm are always a problem with me.

Now going onto the cons... The grip on this pencil is very susceptible to tearing. There's even a label on the barrel telling you not scratch it, dig your nail through it, etc. This hasn't happened to me though. I take good care of mine. ;D ...Okay, the inside of my pencil has a few tears, but nothing major. It just looks bubbly from the outside. Metal barrel scratches very easily. The cap on the top is very easy to lose. This pencil is also circular, making it susceptible to rolling off the table if given enough force. Other than that the charm loop somewhat stops it from rolling off. It attracts eraser dust and lint easily.

This pencil was about $5-$6 when I bought it, $7.50 at Jetpens. Overall, this is a pretty good pencil. Pretty fragile though. You have to take good care of the grip and the metal barrel.

So as a recap if you didn't want to read all that...

Pros:
-Squishy grip (claims it stops an egg from cracking at 5ft).
-Metal barrel makes it cool to the touch.
-Metal barrel makes it somewhat balanced.

Cons:
-Grip very susceptible to tearing.
-Metal barrel is easy to scratch.
-Can roll off the table if given enough force.

Price: $7.50 at Jetpens