Posts filed under Balloon

Lamy Balloon Rollerball Review

The proof of concept period is complete, which means it is time for Lamy to finish the transformation of the Balloon Rollerball into the Vista Fountain Pen.

I first reviewed the Balloon over a decade ago, and the tale of two pens that was present in that design - great barrel, poor refill - unfortunately continues on in their latest version of this colorful pen. That’s what gets me the most about the Balloon: it’s a stunner! At least to look at. Writing? Not so much.

The Lamy T11 rollerball refill is the single worst proprietary refill they make, in a sea of other good to great proprietary refills. That was my primary complaint with the previous model. Given the usage of the same refill, I had hoped to see some performance improvements over the years, but my hope was misplaced.

The medium blue refill is inconsistent. That’s the long and short of it. A good rollerball line should be consistent and smooth, laying down a saturated ink color. The line from the Lamy T11 is so inconsistent, repeatedly going from thin line to thick, that I would almost say it is skipping. That’s a word I’ve never used in relation to a rollerball refill. It’s a bad writing experience, to be kind.

Odds were that this would be the expected result of the writing experience, but that’s not why I bought this pen to review. I bought it for the barrel.

Even though the Balloon uses the same terrible refill it always has, Lamy made some changes to the barrel design. Primarily focusing on the cap, they changed the clip to the famed Lamy wire clip, including the addition of a separate finial cap to slot the clip into.

Kind of looks like a Lamy Vista, doesn’t it?

Lamy Vista.

My dream for Lamy has long been to upgrade the Vista fountain pen lineup to include transparent color barrels. Fun colors, as seen in the Balloon for years. Currently, Blue, Lime, and Pink are part of the rotation. Imagine Purple, or Orange? The technology to manufacture this type of barrel is obviously available, and now parts to match have been added to the lineup. So I have to ask: when, Lamy?

Soon, I hope.

Until then, I would avoid the Lamy Balloon, despite the cool looks, and the reasonable $18 price tag. The writing experience isn’t worth it.

(Pen Chalet provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)


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Posted on June 19, 2023 and filed under Lamy, Balloon, Rollerball, Pen Reviews.

#OnePenOneDay Lamy Balloon Roller

Lamy Balloon Roller


The Lamy Balloon Roller is one of those pens that I am desperate to love, but has one little thing that keeps it from being perfect. And by perfect I mean I REALLY like this pen, and despite the fact it is 0.7mm, I use it a lot. From me, that is high praise. But, in the initial review I talked about the ink cartridge skipping, and that has never gone away, even after repeated use.


I took a full 8 1/2" x 11" page of notes with this pen last week, and counted six obvious skips on the page. By skipping, I mean the ink line thins out for a partial or full letter, but no more that that. Six times over a full page is not a large number, but it is noticeable to a pen addict like me.

Posted on June 8, 2011 and filed under #onepenoneday, Balloon, Lamy.

Review: Lamy Balloon Roller Ball

Lamy Balloon RollerAnother one of the great new Lamy products from JetPens, the Lamy Balloon Roller Ball is a very cool pen.  The great looking translucent colored barrels sold me, but would the performance keep me around?  Would you expect anything else from Lamy?

The Balloon Roller feels great in the hand.  The plastic barrel is lightweight, but in traditional Lamy style, it also feels very sturdy.  This is no cheap plastic pen here for sure.  I love how it writes too, but I do have a couple of minor concerns that keep this pen from being perfect.  One, I am getting a little skipping from the ink cartridge.  Until I can order a new cartridge, I am chalking this up as a fluke.  I either need to give this refill a good writing workout, or try another one to compare.  I have marked on the review where you can see the skipping.  From past experience, this seems like an outlier.

Secondly, I love the look of the clip, but I wish it was a little tighter.  That is an extremely minor complaint, but being used to how snappy the clips are on the Safaris and AL-Stars, this one is a bit of a let down.  It is by no means a deal breaker though.  It's just if I was making the perfect pen I would make it tighter.

In the big picture, I like the Balloon Roller more than the AL-Star roller I reviewed recently.  It feels better, and I am enjoying the blue liquid ink more than the black.  It doesn't seem as wet, and if I can get past the skipping it will be great.

Click here for the XL review.

Products used:
Lamy Balloon Roller Ball Pen - Blue Body from JetPens
Writing Pad from Doane Paper


Lamy Balloon Roller

Posted on October 18, 2010 and filed under Balloon, Doane Paper, JetPens, Lamy, Pen Reviews, Rollerball.