Yasutomo Y&C Stylist Marker Pen Review

As a purveyor of plastic tipped pens I like to think I know what I like in pens similar to the Yasutomo Y&C Stylist Marker Pen. Sharp lines are key, which goes hand in hand with a firm plastic tip. Color brightness and comfort are secondary, but still important. The Yasutomo Stylist Marker covers all of that with surprising ease.

I almost didn't add this pen to my cart at JetPens, considering the poor perfomance of the Yasutomo Stylist Gel. It was a scratchy writer and is poorly designed in the grip area. While the Stylist Marker has some barrel design concerns (which I will get to in a moment), the writing performance is so good I am willing to overlook them.

You cannot make a plastic tip pen too firm in my opinion. To give you a baseline, the Kuretake Zig Cartoonist Mangaka is very firm, while the Marvy LePen is very soft. The Sakura Pigma Micron is right in the middle. The Stylist Marker is right up there with the Kuretake.

Looking at the writing sample, the edges of my lines are very sharp, which I love. That is what a firm plastic tip will give you. In no way did I expect to find performance like this from this pen. The only thing left to determine is durability, which will come with time and use.

It's not all roses for this pen though. The barrel design could use some improvement, especially regarding the clip. Mine fell right off after receiving it and I tried to shove it back on as you can see in the image below. That didn't work, so I just trashed the clip. It is comfortable to hold and write with otherwise.

I don't normally have good luck with unknown brand name pens but the Yasutomo Y&C Stylist Marker Pen is a keeper.

(JetPens is an advertiser on The Pen Addict and I received this product at no charge.)

Zebra Fortia ST Cap Ballpoint Pen Review

One of the latest releases at JetPens, the Zebra Fortia Ballpoint is a surprisingly good entrant in the less than $10 ballpoint category.

This is a classically designed pen. There is no show to be seen, no flair to be tossed around. The Fortia is all business because sometimes that is what you need. Rock your favorite Hello Kitty multi pen in your cube, but swap it out for the Fortia when you head into that meeting. Your boss doesn't understand the depths of your addiction, so no need to own it until the time is right. These are the things us addicts must consider.

The Fortia features a glossy plastic barrel with a metal inner sleeve to give it a nice weight when writing. The design of it reminds me of a wider Pilot Hi-Tec-C Cavalier. Like the Cavalier, the Fortia hides a refill worthy of excellent housing. No, it's not Hi-Tec-C quality, or even Jetstream quality, but for a standard ballpoint it is very good. Smooth, clean, and dark - can't really ask for much more. I generally enjoy Zebra's ballpoint refills and this is no exception.

Should you rush out and buy a Zebra Fortia? It falls into the situational use category for me. It's not game changer, but rather a solid offering if you have the need for this style of pen with a ballpoint refill. For only $8.50 I'd say it provides good value.

(JetPens is an advertiser on The Pen Addict and I received this product at no charge.)

Parker IM Liquid Ink Roller Ball Review

If there's one thing I know about myself, it's that I'm a sucker for metal barrel writing instruments. This is the reason I flicked the Parker IM rollerball into my cart one day when I was browsing through the different rollerballs on JetPens. It's the only Parker rollerball on JetPens, so I thought I'd give it a try. In short, I love the design and aesthetic of the pen, but not the refill.

Aesthetics

The Parker IM has a really pleasing look and feel. I opted for the gunmetal finish, which is a dark gray with a silver sheen. The accents look like chrome, although they probably aren't real. The clip on the pen has the classic Parker arrow shape, which is a nice touch. My favorite part of the pen is the all-metal grip area – this is a huge plus for me. I love pens with metal grips.

The pen is a little on the heavy side, but it's not noticeable unless writing for more than 20 minutes or so. I usually write with it unposted anyway. The pen looks classy and feels well-built.

And then I tried to write with it.

Writing performance

I was greeted by poor ink flow and a really scratchy sound when I tried to write. It sounded like I was writing with a nail, and the ink trail looked like I was using a ballpoint pen that hadn't been used in a few months. It was skippy and faint. I was perplexed.

A little background info that might be helpful here: I hold my pen in the "standard" grip. The grip rests on my middle finger, and my thumb and index finger hold it in place. The angle of the pen to the page is usually between 40 and 60 degrees. From my knowledge, that's a fairly common and universal grip.

I couldn't write with the Parker unless I held it perpendicular to the page – 90 degrees – any deviation would result in the scratchy sound and feel. This was frustrating, so I put it away for a bit. I wondered if there was something I did wrong. Did this pen have some sort of seal on the tip like some of the gel pens? It didn't look like it.

After fiddling with some other pens, I had an idea. I put the Parker refill through a similar process as smoothing a fountain pen nib. Figure eights and infinity symbols on varying grades of grit while holding it at a 45 degree angle.

To my relief, a few rounds of smoothing produced a better (not perfect) result. It was closer to what I was expecting, but still scratchy. At least the ink was flowing well now. And, wow. This ink flows. It's extremely smooth and bold ink. Parker calls this a "medium" point, but I would call it a bold. It looks like a 1.0 mm line on the page.

My only guess is that I received a refill that wasn't quite ready for retail. Maybe there was too much metal around the roller ball that was causing the problem? Seems like that might be the case since a little grinding made it better.

But really, who's going to do that to a roller ball? These are the types of refills that just work straight away. I considered buying a replacement refill, but decided it wasn't worth it. They're the same price as the Schmidt refills used in the Retro 51s, but I'd much prefer those to the Parker. The Zebra R-301 is only a few bucks and delivers a stellar performance.

Instead, I set out to find another refill that I could retrofit into the body. It's pretty universal and will accept a Pilot G2 size or a Pentel Energel with very little fuss. I used a 0.25" piece of tubing from the kit I received with the Retrakt to provide the right amount of spacing for the refill. Perfect.

Conclusion

I'll continue using the Parker IM, but not with the Parker refill. For now, I have several better options that produce smooth, silent results on the page. Maybe one day I'll try another Parker refill in this pen to see if I got a lemon, but I doubt it.

JetPens sells several colors of the Parker IM roller ball. With the experience I had with it, I can't really recommend it unless you're prepared to do some retrofitting or tuning.

(You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution, Twitter, and App.net.)