Review & Giveaway: Bic Easy Glide Ballpoint Ink System

"Feel The Smoothness!"

That is the branding behind Bic's new Easy Glide ballpoint ink, which is now found in some of their more popular pens lines.  Bic sent me free samples of these pens a few months back, and I finally got around to getting my smoothness on last week.

So, are these pens up to 35% smoother compared to other Bic offereings?  I thought they were more like 38% smoother, but who am I to pick nits.  In all honesty, these updated pens from Bic did a very nice job, and yes, they were smooth writers for the most part.

Out of the samples I received from Bic - the Velocity, the Atlantis, and the eco-friendly ReAction - I was sure I was going to like the Atlantis the best, but once pen hit the paper, the Velocity was the one for me.  The Atlantis has the sleekest barrel and a nice rubber grip, but for some reason it didn't write near as well as the other two.  It wasn't as clean and skipped a little more.  The Velocity on the other hand was really nice.  The wider barrel and formed rubber grip turned out to be really excellent, and it was a super smooth writer on the page (the written part of the review is with the Velocity).  While I liked the blue ink of the ReAction, I couldn't get past the slick plastic barrel, but I imagine that is all a part of making it a more eco-friendly pen.

Overall, the Easy Glide pens are not a bad effort from Bic.  It is nice to see them upgrade some of their technology, making a better writing experience for all.

Thanks again to the folks at Bic for providing these pens for review!

And now, for the giveaway portion of the post...

Bic was kind enough to include plenty of extras in their package, so I have several pens left over to give out.  What I will do is pick three winners randomly from the comments section and send out a sample of each of these pens to you.  Sound good?  Lets make it official:

1. Leave one comment on this post anytime between now, and Thursday night at 11:59 PM Eastern Time.  You are limited to one entry.  Feel free to link this giveaway on your blog, or share it with anyone you feel is a true pen addict.  If you have a blog, I would love a link back, but it is certainly not required for entry into the contest.

2. For this contest, I will pick three winners at random from the comments section of this post.  The comments will be numbered in the order they are received, i.e. the first comment is #1, the second #2, and so on.  The Random Integer Generator at random.org will be used to pick the number of the winners.

3. The contest winners will be posted on Friday, November 5th.  The winners will have one week to email me at the address posted in the right sidebar.

4. I will ship internationally.  I know there are many international readers and fans of The Pen Addict, and I will gladly ship to you at my expense.

Thanks and good luck!

Review: Pentel Selfit 0.7mm Ballpoint

It isn't very often that I get caught offguard by a pen, but the perfomance of the Pentel Selfit really took my by surprise.  Being just an afterthouhgt in a recent JetPens order, the Selfit has jumped up near the top of the list as far as traditional ballpoint pens go, and not just because of its very cool grip.

The grip itself is the main selling point of this pen.  I hesitate buying a pen for just the grip technology - I want it to write well too - but Pentel did a nice job here.  The grip feels like a tight silcone that molds to your fingers as you shuffle them around the grip.  It is acually made up of thousands of tiny gel beads, making it feels soft and comfortable without being overly squishy.

As nice as the grip is, what I am really enjoying about this pen is how well the 0.7mm black ballpoint refill writes.  I was taken aback by how neat, clean, and consistenly this pen writes.  Be sure to expand the XL picture below and tell me if you have one that writes this nice.  While the specialty ink ballpoints - Uni-Ball JetStream, Pilot Acroball, Zebra Surari - still reign supreme in my pen arsenal, this is about the best traditional ballpoint I can recall using.

Click here for the XL review.

Products used:

Pentel Selfit Silicone Gel Grip Ballpoint Pen - 0.7 mm - Sky Blue Grip from JetPens

Writing Pad from Doane Paper

Review: SKB SB-1000 0.5mm Ballpoint

The SKB SB-1000 0.5mm ballpoint pen was featured on Cool Tools last week, but I missed it when it was originally posted.  It wasn't long after that post that a reader asked me about the pen and if I had tried one.  I of course hadn't at the time, but I did email SKB and they were nice enough to send me some pens to review at no charge.  Thanks Mariah!

The SKB ballpoint does have a bit of a following in the art world, and is actually referred to as the "James Jean pen" by many (see samples of Jean's artwork right here).  My first impression of the pen was that it is a glorified Bic Stic, but that would be selling the SKB very short.  While the barrel is nothing special - standard clear plastic barrel with a bit of taper in the grip area - the performance of the tip and ink are very nice.

If there is such a thing as a needle tip ballpoint, this is about as close I have seen.  Does anyone remember the old extra fine PaperMate ballpoints?  I used them back in the 80's, but after some quick Googling, I don't see that they are manufactured anymore.  They were likely 0.5mm and came to a needle type tip, at least in comparison to a standard ballpoint.  The SKB does a much better job with tip design.  When the pen hits the page, this pen really stands out.  It lays down a smooth, skip-free line, with a nice, dark black ink, which isn't always easy to find in a ballpoint.  Be sure to see the large writing sample to see how cleanly it writes.

While this pen isn't going to replace the Uni-Ball Jetstream, Zerbra Surari or Pilot Acroball in my arsenal (mainly because of the nicer barrel options), I do find that it writes better than pens like the Zebra Technoline.  For the price ($11 per dozen), it provides a great bang for the buck, and is a very enjoyable pen to use.

Big thanks to SKB Pens for sending me these pens, and for throwing in plenty of extras for me to share with readers of The Pen Addict.  You can find SKB pens on the web at www.skbpens.com, and they also have a Twitter account @skbpens, although there isn't much action there yet.

Click here for the XL review.