Zebra Mini T3 Ballpoint Pen Review

Mini pens are a tough thing. I think that everybody can benefit from having one for various reasons - wallet carry, pocket carry, purse carry, etc. - but there are equally as many reasons for not carrying one. Most of those arguments are size related, and are valid points. Can I even grip a pen that small? How long will the ink last? Am I just going to lose it? The Zebra Mini T3 Ballpoint doesn’t pretend to solve those problems, but it may be the best of the bunch if you want to give a mini pen a try.

The thing that stands out to me the most is the barrel construction. It is fully metal, and just feels durable. If a pen is going to be this small, I at least want to feel the weight in my hand when I write. On top of that, the default blue ink cartridge pleases me to no end. You can order black, red, and green refills for the Mini T3, but blue ballpoint ink is my favorite. It writes wonderfully.

One minor issue that cropped up from time to time is the knock release in the clip. You press the knock down like normal to write, then to retract the pen you press the end of the clip. Since the pen is a shorter length, I sometimes hit the clip with the cup of my hand if I rotate it when writing. Most of the time it isn’t an issue, but I did want to mention it because it happened more than once.

It may not be perfect, but I am not sure what else I could ask for in a mini pen. What do you look for in a mini pen? What other mini pens do I need to check out?

Pilot B2P Guest Review

This is a guest post by Lou Rinaldi, who can also be found at cfug.org and on Twitter @LouRinaldi.

I wanted to hate this pen. After all, it's just a G2 refill in an eco-friendly body, right? I'm supposed to look down my nose and scoff at it, aren'€™t I? Well, I don't hate it. I don't know if I love it either, but it has enough redeeming qualities that I can't dismiss it outright. It feels better in my hand than the standard G2 barrel, though not as good as a G2 Pro. For this ink, the 0.7 seems to flow more smoothly than the 0.5.

I definitely prefer the aesthetics of the B2P to those of the standard G2, but that may be simply because the G2 hasn't had an update in eons, and I'm just sick of looking at it. (Enough with that gross, rusty-looking area near the top of the refill!) The biggest design differences in my opinion are that the B2P barrel is a little wider, and the 'grip' is simply some indentations cut in the plastic. The eco aspect (89% recycled content) is a nice touch, and the price differential is actually insignificant enough that it'€™s easy to justify choosing the B2P over the G2. That was an important business decision by Pilot, because as the premium prices of hybrid vehicles have shown us, sometimes the upfront cost of going green can be hard to swallow.

At the end of the day, it'€™s still a G2 at heart. That can be a good or a bad thing, depending on your writing habits and personal preferences. While I may be a tad biased, I will share a story that I hope proves the degree of objectivity with which I approached this review. I put the B2P up against the three other pens that JetPens recently sent me for review, and let a small group of my work colleagues evaluate them with no pretext whatsoever. This is a group of people with diverse tastes in writing implements, and every single one of them independently chose the B2P as the winner. Take that as you will, but it certainly speaks to the broad mass-market appeal of this pen.

Be sure to check out Brad’s original Pilot B2P review for another opinion.

Paper Mate Hardhead Flair Review

My recent posts on the Bic Z4 Porous Tip pen have turned out to be very popular. People like this style of pen tip and the way they write, but unfortunately they are a little hard to find. The same goes for any similar pens, which is a question I have gotten several times recently. I was hard pressed to come up with an answer, but Pen Addict reader Amy sent me the Paper Mate Hardhead Flair to try out, and it is very comparable to the Z4.

The Flair line has been around for as long as I can remember, but I had never heard of the Hardhead until Amy emailed me. Flairs have always been my favorite Paper Mate product, and this one holds up well under the test. The Hardhead has a sharp, dark line, and doesn’t bleed through the Doane Paper I am using. Compared directly to the Z4, it is almost identical, with only the smoothness of the Z4 being a bit better.

Now for the kicker: These are even HARDER to find that the Z4. In fact, Amy got hers off of eBay, and was nice enough to share with me. Are there any other porous tip pen options out there that I should test and are somewhat easy to obtain? Please let me know in the comments section and I would be happy to hunt them down.