Ink Links

-- A Quickie All-in-one Moleskine Diary/Sketchbook in Leather Cover  (Scription)

-- What Do Our Pens Tell Us About Ourselves?  (Stupidhippy)

-- Featured Pen - Lamy 27n  (Whatever)

-- Stationery Store Series  (Palimpsest)

-- Dixon Markette spotlight and 1-minute demo videos  (Lung Sketching Scrolls)

-- Sakura Gelly Roll Fine 0.7mm Gel Pen – Blue  (Pens'n'Paper)

-- Pilot Hi-Tec C Gel Ink Pen in Kurikawa  (Pocket Blonde)

-- Best To-Do List Manager: Paper  (Lifehacker)

-- A Little Habana Named Taupe  (Unposted)

-- Doodle and eat with Graphkins  (Quo Vadis Blog)

-- Pretty in Pink: Inc® Alias 1.0 Ballpoint Pen  (Does This Pen Write?)

-- 2010 Office Supply Geek Newsletter and Monthly Giveaway  (Office Supply Geek)

-- The Koh-i-noor 7240 fountain pen.  (Leigh Reyes)

-- Uni-ball Jetstream 1.0mm  (The Pen-Guin)

-- Review: Sanford Sharpie Stainless Steel Fine-Point Permanent Marker  (Note Booker, Esq.)

Review: Zebra Surari Emulsion Ink Pen - 0.5 mm - Dark Black

The Zebra Surari Emulsion Ink Pen is one of the latest pens to hit the virtual store shelves at JetPens, and I think it is going to be a popular one.  Following in the footsteps of the Uni-Ball Jetstream and Pilot Acroball with their hybrid inks, Zebra has come up with their own emulsion ink technology.  JetPens describes it thusly:

You are viewing a breakthrough in ink history, the development of a new ink type!! The new Emulsion ink from Zebra combines the best quality of a ballpoint and gel ink pen. It has the smoothness of an oil-based ballpoint ink pen but features the vibrant colors of a gel ink pen. That's an incredible new development. The Emulsion is supposedly even smoother than "low friction" ballpoint pens, is smear-proof and water resistant. The Zebra Surari is available in multiple tip sizes and colors.

I just received my Surari's yesterday, so I obviously haven't had a ton of time with them yet, but I would say the description is spot on.  I chose to review the 0.5mm Surari first since one of my current favorite pens is the Jetstream 0.5mm and they seem to be reasonably comparable.  At first pass, the Surari does seem to write more smoothly than the Jetstream, which is a complaint some people have with the 0.5mm version.  Outside of that, there is hardly much difference between the two pens at all, and that is a very big compliment in my book.  The Surari is designed well (very similar to the Jetstream Basic Series), feels nice in the hand, has a good grip, a good knock, and writes very consistently and cleanly.  Best of all, they are only $1.50.

I threw in a few other quick writing samples at the bottom of the page of other sizes and colors that I bought.  the 0.7mm tip size may be my favorite of the bunch.  The black ink is very dark.  I'm not real crazy about the Fluorescent colors - they are too light for me, but would be nice for highlighting since they dry very quickly.  Overall, I am very pleased with the Surari in the early stages, and I will be sure to update as I spend more time with it.

Click here for the XL review.

See Also
Review: Uni-Ball Jetstream 0.5mm Blue Basic Series

Review: Pilot Acroball 0.7mm Blue

Review: Zebra Airfit 2+S Multi Pen

The Zebra Airfit 2+S Multi Pen was a pen I picked up off of eBay many months ago.  I very much enjoyed the original Airfit Jell I bought from JetPens, so I thought this one looked nice and was worth a shot.

I knew going into it that the ink cartridges were of the ballpoint variety as opposed to the gel that I was used to, but that was ok by me.  The funny thing is that what was supposed to be a black + red + pencil multi pen arrived with a blue ink cartridge in the black slot.  The barrel of the pen even says black on it!  Again, no worries.  I like Zebra's blue ballpoint ink just as well, if not better than the black anyway.  As you can see on the written review, both ink colors are very nice, but performance wise there was a decent amount of skipping which takes this pen down a notch or two.

I also found the cartridge switching mechanism on the barrel a little clunky to operate.  Instead of a knock or plunger type button, the clip twists around the top from station to station.  It is a little tight and clunky as it moves around - certainly not as smooth as some of Zebras other offerings.  The Airfit grip is always a nice touch, but the rest of the pen didn't really do much for me.  I'll stick with the single cartridge Airfit Jell for now.

Click here for the XL review.

See also:
Review: Zebra Airfit Jell 0.5mm
Review: Zebra SK-Sharbo+1 2 Color Eco Ballpoint Multi Pen + Pencil