Fresh From Japan: Zebra Sarasa Dry and Uni-ball Air

My friend June Thomas teased us all about her pending tour of Japan in Episode 189 of The Pen Addict Podcast. She made it back safe and sound, and a little care package from her made its way into my mailbox last week.

Aside from the tissue and mask handouts (which are amazing!) I was anxious to try both of the pens. The Zebra Sarasa Dry I had only seen on the Zebra Japan site, and while I own the Uni-ball Air, the Micro tip size is a new one for me. Here are my first thoughts on both of these pens:

Zebra Sarasa Dry Gel 0.5 mm Blue

The first question I had about this pen wasn’t to see if the fast-drying gel ink worked, but how close this pen compares to an all time favorite: the Zebra Sarasa Clip. It does, but just a little. The clip is too bulky on the Dry Gel model for me, although the grip may be a bit better. They are close.

The more important aspect, of course, is the ink performance. It lives up to the marketing, drying almost immediately after going on the page. I ran my finger along the line when writing, as in this video, and there was no ink smear or ink transfer to my finger. Clean, and impressive.

Finally, how new is this ink technology from Zebra? I was thinking this Japanese model was newish, but as I dug around, Zebra USA has marketed the Sarasa Gel as Zebra Sarasa Rapid Dry Ink Gel for what looks like a year or two. I rarely visit office supply stores any more so I haven’t noticed this. Plus, this model of Sarasa is nowhere near as good as the Clip model.

So this begs the question: Has anyone used one of the Rapid Dry models, and does is work as well?

Uni-ball Air 0.5 mm Black

This oddity of a pen has been around in the US market for a while, but only in the 0.7 mm model. I bought a pack of those, and wasn’t sure what to make of it. More of a felt tip marker than rollerball, the Air leaves wide, wet lines. The 0.7 mm is fine, but I of course prefer the 0.5 mm model that June sent me. It’s still wide, but now it is closer to one of my favorite off the shelf pens in the Paper Mate Flair.

Since it is a liquid ink pen and due to the style of the tip, a lot of ink gets transferred to the page, causing some feathering and bleeding. I am a fast writer, and no matter how fast I go I can’t outrun a small amount of ink pooling at the end of my letters. That’s ok, as long as you understand what this pen is good for and if it suits your needs. Tiny writers need not apply.

Both of these pens are decent choices when used for a specific need or in the right circumstances. That makes them good, but not great. Thanks for sending me these to test out June!

Zebra DelGuard 0.3 mm Mechanical Pencil Review

There is no getting around the fact that 0.3 mm lead is fragile. It’s my preferred lead width when available, and I accept that it is going to break more often than wider diameter lead. The Zebra DelGuard proposes to fix that issue with a special internal mechanism to prevent breakage, and it works like a champ.

I previously reviewed the 0.5 mm Zebra DelGuard and found the same thing - the mechanism worked as advertised. But I don’t have a breakage problem with 0.5 mm lead to begin with. So yes, the mechanism worked fine in the 0.5 mm, but it wasn’t the best test. 0.3 mm lead, on the other hand, is very fragile and needs the added benefit of what the DelGuard offers.

I haven’t written novel-length notes with the 0.3 mm DelGuard yet, but in the time I have used it, I haven’t broken the lead one time. With my previous favorite 0.3 mm mechanical pencil - the Alvin Draft-Matic - breaking the lead every now and then was the price of admission, and I accepted it. I don’t have to accept that as fact anymore with the DelGuard.

The Pentel Orenz 0.2 mm Mechanical Pencil solved this problem a different way by having an extended pipe where the lead barely poked out, but the look and feel of writing with metal as opposed to graphite didn’t work for me. The DelGuard does it in a more traditional style and functional manner.

As far as negatives go I only have minor design quibbles. Why have a white clip with gold writing when the rest of the pencil has a black and silver style? It’s not egregious and doesn’t keep me from using the pencil, but that’s one of those things I find odd. I’m guessing the clip color is to designate between the 0.3 mm and 0.5 mm sizes. Otherwise, it is a comfortable pencil to write with, and the eraser is actually works. If you like the plastic barrel Uni-ball Kuru Toga then you will like the DelGuard as well.

Innovation in basic writing instruments is a challenge for most companies, so it’s nice to see brands try things like this from time to time. Especially when it solves a problem and works this well.

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

Zebra Sarasa Clip 0.5mm Review

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

You can never have enough gel pens, which is the rationale I use when I continue adding more to my collection. With so many options out there, it can take some time to really give them all a fair shake. I've been using the Sarasa Clip 0.5mm for the last couple of months as a daily driver, and while it wasn't love at first write, it's won me over as a top contender.

There are a few things that make a gel pen great, and one of the most important ones is how it feels when it writes. Is it smooth or scratchy? Is it free-flowing or dry? This is where the Sarasa Clip threw me off at first. I'm so used to writing with a Pilot Juice that I've started to think that all pens should write exactly like that. While that's a compliment to the Juice line, it's not necessarily true. The Sarasa is different, and that's not a bad thing.

The Sarasa Clip 0.5mm refill provides more feedback when you're writing. It's a smooth writer, but you feel more texture when writing on the page. It took me a few days to take this in. I didn't like it at first, but I eventually started to enjoy the different feel — and that's exactly what it is. It doesn't affect the writing performance at all. This pen writes very well, but it just provides a more tactile experience when moving across the paper.

Of course, all of these observations are probably different in the various tip sizes offered by Zebra. The 0.5mm is somewhere between ultra-fine and medium, but 0.5mm refills in general are fairly smooth. It's not until you get below the 0.4mm range that you might start noticing scratchy qualities, so that's not something I expect in a 0.5mm. Still, calling the 0.5 Sarasa "scratchy" isn't the right term, because that's usually a negative attribute.

Apart from the feel of the refill on the paper, the pen writes fantastically. Never a rough start, skip, or blotch. It's a top performer in the gel pen world.

I went with a blue for this pen, and the saturation of the color is a bit too deep for my perferences in a standard blue. This reminds me more of a navy instead of a standard blue. For reference, I think Kaweco Royal Blue is a great standard for my idea of a general blue.

The body of the pen is light and very comfortable. Honestly, there's not much to say about it as it's exactly like most other comparable gel pens out there. That's not a bad thing - there's just not much to say about it because it works well. One thing that I really do love about the pen body is the clip. It opens wide and it's pretty strong, which adds a certain level of utility to the pen.

As far as putting the refill into other pen bodies, it looks very similar to the Pilot G-2 that so many pens standardize on. I think all you'd need is a plug for the end of the refill so that the nock mechanism would be able to operate.

Overall, the Zebra Sarasa Clip is a great pen, and easily one of my top 5 gel pens. The Sarasa Clip is available in a lot of colors, and comes in at just over two bucks for each one. Even better, you can buy an entire bundle with 20 colors for a bit cheaper than buying them individually. I highly recommend the Sarasa Clip 0.5mm.

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