Posts filed under Pen Reviews

Lamy Al-Star Aubergine Ballpoint Pen Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

It's that time of year again: annual edition color schemes for Lamy's Safari and Al-Star pen lines. For 2025, we have several lovely options to choose from, and I decided to give the Aubergine Al-Star a whirl since the yellow-green section was calling out to me. While some people lean more toward either the Safari or Al-Star, I just tend to follow the colors that I like. They're both great pen designs in my book!

The Aubergine edition of the Al-Star is a dusty gray-purple body paired with a yellow-green translucent section and black hardware. When looking at the images online, I couldn't decide if I really liked the body color, but the section is what really got me. I'm a sucker for bright translucent anything.

I was hoping that the body would be a more striking color in person, but I was a bit disappointed by it. It's a unique color for sure, but it doesn't match up with my idea of aubergine. Here's a color swatch and then a photo of various aubergine fruits from around the world. I'm not crazy, right? Aubergine wasn't a great name for this color.

Naming issues aside, it's still a bit of a dull color in my eyes. There's a small hint of purple, but this is mostly a dark gray body. Despite the underwhelming body color, the section easily saves the pen for me. It's a bright, fluorescent color that just begs to be picked up and used or turned around in your hand to let the light do fun things to the material.

The cone is a matte black metal, the nock plunger is a soft black material, and the clip is Lamy's standard glossy black material. Nothing crazy, and I think they could have had a little bit more fun with either the clip color or the nose color (or both??). Oh well! The other Al-Star option for this year, Denim, also seems to have missed an opportunity to really capitalize on the fun colors, but it's also quite a looker.

Writing with the Al-Star ballpoint is a mediocre experience. The Lamy M16 refill is decent, but my main gripe with every one I try is that they take a little too long to start working after they've been idle for more than a few minutes. It's normal for ballpoint to take a second to wake up, but the M16 takes longer than most. It wouldn't be so bad if there were other options available to swap out the M16, but that's not the case. Lamy's proprietary refill is just about the only player in the market, outside of Monteverde's options, which aren't much better.

Personal gripes aside, the M16 refill is totally capable and works fine 99% of the time. I'm just spoiled by some of the other ballpoint options out there. I'll be (un)patiently waiting for Lamy to release M16 refills that use the Jetstream's ink formula.

If you've ever used a Lamy Safari or Al-Start before, then you'll know how this pen feels in the hand. The grip section has a unique shape that favors the standard tripod grip — index, thumb, and middle — to hold the pen steady when writing. This doesn't work for everyone, and means that it's not a great option for people that use different grips that are incompatible with this type of grip design. For me, I can use a standard tripod grip after a little adjustment period, and the Al-Star/Safari is comfortable for me after that. I just have to keep myself from subconsciously rotating the pen a bit when I reset my grip after a few words or sentences.

Lamy Al-Star Aubergine Ballpoint Comparison

One of the things I love about the ballpoint versions of these pens has always been the covered nock mechanism. I love the squishy accordion-like design and the unique feel it produces when extending or retracting the tip.

Overall, the Aubergine is a fun color for the Al-Star. Yes, I wish they would have made better choices regarding the body color, but it's still a winner for me due to the grip section. If it speaks to you, then grab one! As always, they're available as ballpoints, fountain pens, mechanical pencils, and rollerballs.

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

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Lamy Al-Star Aubergine Ballpoint Writing

Posted on April 23, 2025 by Jeff Abbott and filed under Lamy, Ballpoint, Pen Reviews.

Kakimori Frost Fountain Pen Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Bluesky. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

Minimal and lightweight, the Kakimori Frost Fountain Pen is an excellent, budget-friendly version of the classic cigar pen. It's just a little larger than pocket-sized, so it's comfortable to hold and travels well, and it has that elegant silhouette that's so popular with high-end pens like Namiki and Nakaya--but for a fraction of the cost.

The body of the Kakimori is made of polycarbonate plastic. It's very light, but feels sturdy. The finish has a frosted texture that's smooth but easy to grip. The body is fully transparent, though the frost effect softens the view of the converter inside the pen. In this dark Moss color, it looks like antique glass. It's also available in Purple, Red, and Clear.

Both of the pen's ends are rounded, and the cap unscrews from threads in the center. The pen has a long, narrow grip section that slopes gently toward the nib, and there's a fairly large step-up to the body of the pen from the threads. It doesn't interfere with writing, however, as it's set fairly far back from the grip. The cap does post, though I found the posting to be a little wobbly and insecure. The cap did fall off the back when writing once. However, the pen is long enough that it doesn't need to be posted for comfortable writing. There is no roll-stop, though, so the cap will have to be looked after, if it's not posted.

The pen takes a standard international cartridge or converter (it comes with a converter, but no cartridge). It looks like it should be usable as an eyedropper pen, but its specs say not to, so I'm not. For now. The steel nib that came with the pen performs wonderfully. I got a Fine nib, and it writes a nice fine line that flows well and has never skipped on me, despite a rather feverish writing session in a coffee shop where I wrote under the influence of too much caffeine. It really is a pleasure to write with, and it's lived in my notebook pocket for several weeks now.

One of the nicest things about this pen, though, is that it's reasonably priced. At $58 on JetPens, it's nicely in that "nice gift" (for yourself or someone you love) price range. It's not cheap, but it's not giving the same sticker shock that most fountain pens do these days. And for how it feels and writes, I'd say it's underpriced. It comes in a simple, triangular cardboard box with no frills, which is my personal preference, so they also get bonus points for the eco-friendly packaging.

The only beef I have with this pen is that it's going to force me to make some tough decisions as I evaluate my pen collection. Because I only need so many cigar-shaped plastic pens. And this one? It writes better than several of my fancy, collectible, expensive ones. But I don't have to make that tough decision today. Today, I'm taking this pen to a cafe to write.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on April 3, 2025 by Sarah Read and filed under Kakimori, Fountain Pens, Pen Reviews.

ensso Bolt Fountain Pen Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

The idea of a retractable fountain pen is something of a white whale. There are very few options, and it seems every one of these options comes with some serious trade-offs. For something that seems like such a big design challenge, that doesn't stop people from trying. It's also not often that we see new options come onto the scene in this category, so that's why I'm excited to talk about the Bolt from ensso.

On the outside, the Bolt looks like another machined metal pen that uses a simple bolt mechanism to control the retractable refill. The all titanium body is lightweight and feels great in the hand, but it's really surprising to extend the refill and see a slim fountain pen nib emerge from the end of the cone.

At just 5.16 inches (13.2 cm), the Bolt is a really comfortable size both in hand and when storing. The barrel diameter is fairly slim at just 3/8" (9.5mm), similar to most gel pen barrels and a little slimmer than most fountain pens.

In most cases, there are two Achilles heels when designing a retractable fountain pen: clip placement and sealing the nib when not in use. There are other challenges when designing a pen like this, but these two seem to be obvious factors with the products we have access to today. The way we hold a pen when writing is unique to each individual. For a pen like the Pilot Vanishing Point or Decimo, the clip placement might make the pen uncomfortable for many people. If you can't accommodate the clip being part of your grip pattern, then it just doesn't work for you.

With the Bolt, the clip is an optional accessory that installs on the back of the pen barrel. The unit I have for testing didn't come with the clip, but it's easy to install by using a coin to remove the plain end and screw on the clip end. When using the clip to store the pen upright, this does face the nib toward the ground. I thought that might be an issue since gravity and motion might cause some ink to leak out and stain whatever it's clipped to.

I tried this out by simply carrying the pen around in a pocket with the point faced down. In my testing with normal walking, no ink escaped from the pen, and the nib was clean when I got it out to write. My assumption is that some leakage could still occur depending on the environment and the level of movement you put the pen through. I would certainly be careful about flying with this pen due to the large air pressure change. Either empty the pen before flying or isolate it in a bag to prevent some inky mishaps in your luggage. Overall, though, I really appreciate the clip placement on the Bolt, and I like the optional nature of the clip even more. Even though I don't have a clip to try out, I still think I prefer this pen sans clip. It's more sleek and the bolt mechanism acts as a great stopper to keep the pen from rolling around on flat surfaces when not in use.

Similarly, a fountain pen isn't much use if the tip dries out after a couple of hours while retracted due to a bad seal that lets too much moisture leave the nib and feed. This seems to be the really tricky bit to design and manufacture at scale. Pilot seems to have a good solution, as does Platinum.

With the Bolt, I've been incredibly impressed by how well their seal design works. According to their webpage, they spent over a year developing and testing this system, and it's really simple in practice. It's just a small piece of silicone that has a couple of slits that form an X pattern that allow the nib to pass through, but come back together to form a seal over the nib when it's retracted. I've left this pen alone for over a month and come back to use it only to find that it writes almost immediately. Very nice. Also, ensso includes two extra silicone seals with the pen in case the original one (or second) fails. Time will tell how these hold up.

One of the concerns I had when looking at this silicone sleeve mechanism is that the contact with the nib and the silicone might cause excessive ink creep on the nib. By ink creep, I mean how ink tends to leak a tiny bit around the slit on the top side of the nib. And if you try to use a paper towel to clean up a tiny dot of ink, you end up dragging a lot more ink onto the nib due to the capillary action of the towel when it hits the slit. I'm happy to report that this just isn't an issue with the Bolt. There hasn't been any ink creep on this nib at all.

And while talking about the nib, let's just take a minute to admire this custom nib unit that ensso designed. It's reminiscent of the nib units you see in Pilot's offerings, but this one uses a standard international cartridge converter to supply ink. The actual nib and feed are super small — they're like miniatures.

I've really enjoyed using the Bolt over the past couple months. It's a solid performer that has really impressed me and removed any doubts I had about the performance of the retractable nib design. Operating the bolt mechanism is really easy to do one handed, and I really like the amount of resistance the spring provides. I also love how the nib retracts a bit slower than you expect due to the drag of the silicone on the nib unit. It's similar to watching a soft-close drawer finish closing. Satisfying.

The only nitpick I have for this pen is about the feel of the bolt mechanism. It works well, but I don't love the metal-on-metal feel/sound when operating it. This is likely unavoidable since all the parts are metal, but I wonder if a small synthetic bushing would help smooth out the feel and get rid of the minor nails-on-a-chalkboard sound of metal grinding against metal. Or maybe a little dab of carefully applied silicone grease would alleviate that problem. Either way, it's a minor gripe on an otherwise stellar pen.

The Bolt is only available in the titanium finish, but you have an option of EF, F, or M nibs (and you can pick up several), along with the option of a clip. The clip is an additional $25 on top of the standard $120 price for the pen. You can pre-order the pen now and expect delivery later this month. If you like retractable fountain pens and like the aesthetic of this pen, you should go for it. It's a solid performer at a great price, and it will hold up to years of use thanks to the titanium material and the extra silicone seals that ensso provide with the pen.

(Brad purchased this pen via the enso Bolt Kickstarter campaign.)

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