Review: Pilot Easy Touch Pro

I finally came across the Pilot Easy Touch Pro on a recent Staples run after having my eyes peeled for it for the past few months.  This pen is the boorish American cousin of the hip looking Japanese Pilot Acroball.  Fortunately, some of the basic design elements translate.

If you happen to own both versions of the pen, you will notice right off the bat that they both share the same overall design.  From the molding of the barrel to the wonderful herringbone style grip (best grip ever?), they are essentially the same.  The only real difference is that the Easy Touch Pro has a more professional looking color scheme, as opposed to the fun colors available in the Japanese market.  This seems fairly standard for the Americanized version of pens - make them appealing to the everyday office worker, or the company supply orderer.

From a performance standpoint, I don't have an exact comparison, since the Acroball I have is 0.7mm, and the Easy Touch Pro is 1.0mm.  I can tell that the writing properties are the same - both write very smoothly and have the same feel - but the 1.0mm Easy Touch Pro comes off just a slight bit messier when compared to the squeaky clean line of the 0.7mm Acroball.  Compared to other similar pens though, the Easy Touch Pro is an excellent ballpoint alternative.  If you like the Uni-Ball Jetstream line, then you will like this pen as well.

Click here for the XL review.

Big Two-Year Blogiversary Giveaway Winners

Another great contest is in the books!  Thanks to everyone who entered, and HUGE thanks for helping The Pen Addict grow by leaps and bounds over the past two years.  I'd also like to thank JetPens for sponsoring the great prizes for this giveaway - they have been a great supporter of this blog since the early days, and for that I am very thankful.

On to the winners!

The Grand Prize Zebra Sharbo X package goes to Craig with comment #101.  I think the picture below sums it up quite nicely:

The two First Prizes of a $25 JetPens gift certificate go to Alex with comment #131 and thevioletdragon with comment #165.  I absolutely loved reading each and every entry, and while I have reviewed a ton of pens from JetPens over the past two years, it is amazing how much stuff I didn't even realize was out there.

The three winners each need to leave a comment on this post, and also email me at the address on the sidebar so I can arrange getting your prizes to you.

Thanks again to everyone who entered, and look for more fun giveaways soon!

Review: Tombow Reporter 4 Compact Multi Pen

I may need to double check the archives, but I don't think I have reviewed many mini multi pens other than the Zebra Smartline, so welcome to the occupation Tombow Reporter 4 Compact multi pen!

One of this pens main selling points is that the push buttons for the ink cartridges have different grooves, so not only can you tell the cartridges apart by color, but also by feel (see the image on the product page at JetPens for a better idea).  This is a great idea in theory, but in practice it falls a bit short.  For some reason, Tombow decided that the cartridge that rests against your hand - the red one - should have the two pointy triangles sticking right into your skin.  Annoying to say the least, especially when one of the smoother cartridges could be in its place.  (Brain fart - maybe I can move the cartridges around - I'll have to check later today).

Outside of that little issue, I feel that I get a good writing performance out of two of the ink cartridges (blue and red) while the other two (black and green) come out lighter on the page than I like.  This is a quality pen though, as the construction is nice and solid, plus the binder clip is spring loaded so it can attach to larger items, and also sports a hole for attaching to a lanyard.  But in the end, the little things will keep this from being a pen that I use very often.

Click here for the XL review.

Product links:
-- Tombow Reporter 4 Compact Multi Pen - Clear Blue Body from JetPens
-- Idea Journal from Doane Paper