Sailor HighAce Neo Beginner's Fountain Pen Review

This is a guest post by Bryan Gushikawa.

The Sailor Pen Company has been making pens for a LONG time (100 years!) and have set standards with their Sapporo and King of Pen line. However, all Japanese companies like to have a product line that stretches from budget to luxury and Sailor is no exception, with several of their pens falling into an everyday use range. The real beauty of Sailor pens, though, is that they are ALL excellent writers, no matter what they cost. The Sailor HighAce Neo is part of a budget line of pens that doesn’t sacrifice writing performance, at all. Oriented towards beginning fountain pen users and office professionals, this pen wins high marks on the nib and tight fit and finish.

Smoothness: The Sailor F-4 fine nib is a stiff nail, but it writes VERY smoothly. It’s rare to have such fine tips produce such smooth writing, but Sailor’s experience shines through here. One benefit to the stiff nib is the ability to take a little more abuse in a book bag or survive a drop, as well as press through carbon paper.

Grip and Balance: The grip is smooth and can be a little slippery, but there is enough texture on the barrel itself to stabilize the pen. The balance is good with the pen posted, but the pen is super light, making balance not so much of an issue. The barrel isn’t as thick as a Prera, but it’s average and fairly comfortable to hold.

Ink Flow: Excellent. A perfect 0.4mm line every time, with no skips or blotches.

Build Quality: The barrel is cheap plastic, but the cap, clip and nib are finished metal and very well worked. Not bad for the price, although a dark barrel will hide the cheap plastic finish.

Capacity: Uses Sailor-specific cartridges and can probably fit a Sailor converter (not tested).

Clip: Deceptively strong. Metal, with a good stiffness.

Post: Snaps securely into place with no jiggling. A superior posting system. The cap snaps crisply onto the front, as well.

Overall: I’d recommend this pen because it is an excellent performer in its price range. It’s not flashy and won’t win awards for the cheap plastic barrel, but the nib and feed are wonderful and this pen can be used with Kiwaguro and Seiboku cartridges (if the pen is used daily!) I’d recommend this pen for daily use and office use.

Review: Sailor Pocket Brush Pen - Super Fine

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at Geminica.com.

The Sailor Pocket Brush Pen (Super Fine) isn't really a brush.  It's even less of a brush than most brush pens of the type.  In order to provide a line that could be described as "Super Fine", Sailor got rid of all the brush-like attributes and has simply provided a fine felt-tipped pen.

I don't mean that as a complaint, really.  The pen works well, the tip is performing well so far (I've seen one review that claims the tip doesn't hold its point for long, but haven't seen that problem yet myself), the ink is waterproof, and it seems to be a good workhorse product.  If I wanted to draw comics with a consistent line instead of the variability you can get from, say, the Tombow Fudenosuke which I unabashedly love, this super fine Sailor would be a decent option.

    

However, I will not buy this pen again.  At $2.25 (JetPens), it's the same price as the Tombow Fudenosuke.  The Tombow has a much nicer body made of recycled plastic with crisp, professional printing on the side; the Sailor is made of cheap plastic with sloppy silver printing on the side.  It just looks and feels cheap.  The Sailor Super Fine will give you a more consistent, thin line compared to the Tombow Fudenosuke's variability, but if consistent line width isn't your top priority, the Sailor brush loses its only advantage.  Personally, I just wasn't very excited to pick this one up, but will probably keep it around and use it until it runs dry because it  performs a simple function and works fine for what it does.

I haven't tried the other sizes of Sailor brushes, and they may be very different from the Super Fine so there is further investigation to be done.

If you're a fan of the Sailor Super Fine brush, I'd love to hear about your experiences with it and whether the tip has held up over time.

Note: Drawings on this page are based on Victorian mugshots, which are easily found online and lots of fun to browse.

Review: Sailor Pica Kirei Anti-Bacterial Multi Pen

An anti-bacterial pen? Call me skeptical, but that is what the Sailor Pica Kirei Anti-Bacterial ballpoint multi pen presents itself as. How does it work? The product page at JetPens has all of the details:

This pen utilizes material developed by Tokyo Advanced Technology Research Center and Fujitsu Research Lab. The pen body material is a combination of photocatalyst titanium apatite and silver apatite, materials commonly used in advanced air purification systems. This composite can absorb and decompose microorganisms and various other substances such as bacteria, pollen, fungus, and more. The apatite adsorbs contaminants even without exposure to light. The material adsorbed by the apatite is decomposed by the photocatalyst titanium apatitet on exposure to sunlight (ultra violet). Silver apatite inhibits growth of the germs and keeps this anti-bacteria effect without sunlight.

Can I verify this with my own lab tests? Of course not, but it does sound like a really good idea for doctor offices, schools, restaurants, or any other place where the public is in repeated contact with the same pen.

From a writing perspective, I am generally a fan of all Sailor products, and this one is no different. The ballpoint ink cartridges are nice and clean, with little to no skipping.  I actually enjoyed writing with it, regardless of whether I was spreading cooties or not. Maybe its not a pen you want to use every single day, but it wouldn't hurt to leave one around the house or on your desk for when those germ laden hands come calling.

Click here for the XL review.