Three is the magic number, as the three winners below will each receive at least three of the new Bic Easy Glide pens. And the winners are:
Congrats to the winners! Here is what I need from you:
1. Leave a comment on this post.
2. Email me your mailing address (click on the "About" link on the sidebar)
You have one week to claim your prize. Thanks to all who entered!
I was contacted by the fine folks at Tom Bihn a few weeks back wanting to know if I would like to give one of their new Field Journal Notebooks a test run. Having been familiar with their product line but never having tried one of their products, the answer was of course a resounding yes! Just from browsing the Tom Bihn website and looking at all of their Made in the U.S.A. goods I was expecting the highest quality product, and I was not disappointed.
After a quick exchange of emails, I had a Cocoa Field Journal on the way, along with samples of the three paper styles that are offered with the Field Journal: Crane's Crest 24# 100% Cotton Paper and Harbor 100 60# from Gray's Harbor Paper in Grid or College Ruled. Just from feel alone, you can tell this is a well made and well thought out product. The heavy duty nylon material, zipper, straps, and seams are all nice and tight and scream quality.
From a feature standpoint, the Field Journal is the Swiss Army knife of notebooks. The list is endless, but here are some of the high points:
-- Front zipper pocket plus rear flat pocket
-- Accepts 8-1/2" x 5-1/2" paper
-- Ring Mechanism can be rotated 180 degrees to accommodate left-handed users
-- Weight: Exactly 1lb
-- Shoulder Strap, Key Strap, Leaf, and TOM BIHN Logo Plastic Ruler Included
(The full specs can be found on the product page)
As you can see in the photos, I could fit four pens (including a fountain pen and stainless steel Sharpie), a thumb drive, my iPod Touch, and the provided Tom Bihn plastic ruler easily within the pockets on the inside front cover. The zippers are designed to zip far enough back so the journal can lay flat on any surface. The handle options are nice as well, with a removable shoulder strap or attached briefcase handles depending on your carrying needs.
From a paper perspective, the writing experience was nice, but not exceptional. Like I mentioned earlier, there are three stock paper choices - Crane's Crest 24# 100% Cotton Paper, and Harbor 100 60# from Gray's Harbor Paper in Grid or College Ruled - all of which I sampled. The grid and lined paper are your basic choices. They both handled my Lamy Nexx fountain pen without issue, and I saw no trouble with bleed or feathering with any other ink types either. The only real pause is the page isn't as smooth compared to Rhodia or Clairefontaine, but that is also a tradeoff with the environmentally friendly Gray's Harbor (Watch the Gray's Harbor Paper story here). I also found on the graph paper that the lines faded out from left to right across the page, which you can see slightly in the picture below.
Highlighter test performed by sneaky 4 year-old
The Crane's Crest is a beuatiful paper, with an ivory color, perforated page, and a little more tooth. For me personally, it is not my style, but I can see why it would be a popular choice and it was the best of the three samples. If none of those are your style, feel free to add any standard three-punch 5-1/2 x 8-1/2" paper to your Field Journal, which is a major plus.
I honestly could go on and on and on about all of the things the Field Journal Notebook has too offer, but the product page on the Tom Bihn website does a great job laying everything out, showing all of the colors, features, accessories, photos, and even a video of this cool product.
Photo of sneaky 4 year-old
The Field Journal Notebook retails for $75.00 at TomBihn.com.
Many many thanks to Tom Bihn for providing this review sample at no charge.
"Feel The Smoothness!"
That is the branding behind Bic's new Easy Glide ballpoint ink, which is now found in some of their more popular pens lines. Bic sent me free samples of these pens a few months back, and I finally got around to getting my smoothness on last week.
So, are these pens up to 35% smoother compared to other Bic offereings? I thought they were more like 38% smoother, but who am I to pick nits. In all honesty, these updated pens from Bic did a very nice job, and yes, they were smooth writers for the most part.
Out of the samples I received from Bic - the Velocity, the Atlantis, and the eco-friendly ReAction - I was sure I was going to like the Atlantis the best, but once pen hit the paper, the Velocity was the one for me. The Atlantis has the sleekest barrel and a nice rubber grip, but for some reason it didn't write near as well as the other two. It wasn't as clean and skipped a little more. The Velocity on the other hand was really nice. The wider barrel and formed rubber grip turned out to be really excellent, and it was a super smooth writer on the page (the written part of the review is with the Velocity). While I liked the blue ink of the ReAction, I couldn't get past the slick plastic barrel, but I imagine that is all a part of making it a more eco-friendly pen.
Overall, the Easy Glide pens are not a bad effort from Bic. It is nice to see them upgrade some of their technology, making a better writing experience for all.
Thanks again to the folks at Bic for providing these pens for review!
And now, for the giveaway portion of the post...
Bic was kind enough to include plenty of extras in their package, so I have several pens left over to give out. What I will do is pick three winners randomly from the comments section and send out a sample of each of these pens to you. Sound good? Lets make it official:
1. Leave one comment on this post anytime between now, and Thursday night at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. You are limited to one entry. Feel free to link this giveaway on your blog, or share it with anyone you feel is a true pen addict. If you have a blog, I would love a link back, but it is certainly not required for entry into the contest.
2. For this contest, I will pick three winners at random from the comments section of this post. The comments will be numbered in the order they are received, i.e. the first comment is #1, the second #2, and so on. The Random Integer Generator at random.org will be used to pick the number of the winners.
3. The contest winners will be posted on Friday, November 5th. The winners will have one week to email me at the address posted in the right sidebar.
4. I will ship internationally. I know there are many international readers and fans of The Pen Addict, and I will gladly ship to you at my expense.
Thanks and good luck!
