Editing The Pen Addict 109/transcript (section)

== Pilot Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think it's the barrel. Because it's just, Pilot makes, I think Pilot makes the best liquid ink pens. Like the Precise Line and the V-Ball and all those retractable, you know, RT, whatever their crazy naming conventions are. But they're essentially all the same liquid ink and just different pens. And that's what this pen is. But it's like a proprietary size refill. There's no other refill like this. It's just got a really cool, ergonomic, futuristic-looking barrel. And it's got a clip.

'''Anna Reinert:''' One of those spring-loaded.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it's like a knock. The knock is tied into the clip. So yeah, it's spring-loaded. You flip the clip and it, you know, retracts the pen and things like that. I don't know. That's very cool. It's one of those pens that I used in school when I was younger. So you have this nostalgic part about it. And then it went away. And it's gone. But I've just always had nothing but good experiences with that pen. So maybe I put it in here at least to remind myself to go bang on Pilot some more. Because I'll tweet them every now and then, like, bring this pen back. And they just ignore me. Which they should. Most people should ignore me. The next one is a similar type pen, but it's gel. And it's maybe one of the best pens on the market that gets no love whatsoever. And it's the Zebra Sarasa Clip. It comes in 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 millimeter tip sizes. It comes in, what, 20 different colors?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The tip is very sharp and very clean. It's a writing style that I like. I love that pen. I always talk about the Uniball Sino DX 0.38 as my favorite gel ink pen. And that's true. Or my favorite one to recommend to people getting into those type of pens. But, man, the Sarasa Clip, it gets no love just because it's in a very competitive category, I guess.

'''Anna Reinert:''' It is. It's a hard place to compete. I did not put that on my list because you put it on your list. I totally agree. Yeah, in the sort of competitive world of the Zebra Sarasa, the Uni, the, wow, my brain just totally got on me. High Tech C. Yeah, High Tech C.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' DX.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah, the Uni Sino DX. You know, people talk about the other two a lot more, but Zebra is a genuine competitor. And, you know, I mean, it's just a nice pen. It's a little, the sort of overall design is a little bit simpler in some cases, which I find appealing if you're going to have just sort of a plastic dust pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. And they have a killer green. They have the best green on the market, I think. That's not a lime green.

'''Anna Reinert:''' The lime green or the dark green?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, I like the dark green, the Viridian green.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Oh, I don't have that one yet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, it is excellent. Now, the DX has the best lime green, I think. The best bright colors are on the DX side. The Sarasa clip, I use blue-black, I use Viridian green, and I use, I think they call their orange Mandarin.

'''Anna Reinert:''' That is a good orange.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's excellent. Those three, I use those three religiously. Those never go out of style. I love that pen, and it's great. It's a good price point. The only knock with Zebra has always been, if you're a heavy, heavy rider, their gels run out of ink reasonably quickly in relation or comparison to the other brands. But it's no big deal. I mean, it just is what it is. It's a great pen. Yep. Last one I brought up.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's definitely still made. And this was a pen I used for years and kind of stopped using. But it's the Uniball Jetstream Alpha. And it's the one, it's like the black matte with the big Alpha Joe grip on it. And it comes with a 0.7 millimeter refill when you order it. But why I like it is because I swap it out for the 0.5 or the 0.38 refills. Those are my favorite Jetstream refills. The 0.7 is awesome too. But that's a pen that I end up recommending a lot to a lot of people over the years. And I really haven't talked about it much in the past year or two. But it's still a go-to pen. It's still available at places like JetPens and things like that. It's not something you're going to find in the store. But it's a really good pen. And it's a little more expensive. It's like a $13-ish pen or so. But it's an excellent pen. It can take a beating. I've used it for years. And it needs to come back out of the desk into the backpack more frequently. Because I like those super fine Jetstream refills.

'''Anna Reinert:''' That review is very old. It's 2008. And it was when you were using your reporter. Yeah. Your Moleskine reporter.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Those were the days, huh? Wow. That takes you back. I actually went back through my archives through 2007 and 2008 until I finally stopped. And I was like, wow. This Alpha Gel was one of the first pens I reviewed. And I still love this pen. So that pen has withstood the test of time.

'''Anna Reinert:''' That's awesome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. All right. So that's my list. What do you have?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Okay. On my list, oddly, three out of four are liquid ink pens. But this goes back again, I think, to me being left-handed. And I also realized I haven't reviewed most of them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Isn't that the truth? I do that. I'm awful about that. I love this pen. I love this pen. Where's your review? Oh, yeah. I haven't reviewed it yet.

'''Anna Reinert:''' That's right. The first one I put on my list was basically sort of the first pen that I found that I was like, okay, this is why people like pens. And it was the Pilot Precise V5. Because up until then, I mean, like, I found that when I was in high school, you know, before that, it was ballpoints or pencils. And that was really sort of your options for, you know, writing your school papers and stuff. And I found the V5 and I was like, where can I get more of these? Looking for a dealer.

'''Anna Reinert:''' But, and I've never written a review about it because I guess I kind of figured it's like any office supply pen. Everybody's used one. But, you know, for a liquid ink, it's almost a needle tip size. As a lefty, it doesn't let me down. I can write with it. Even though it does have a bit of a rollerball tip, I've never had any problems with them. So, and the interesting thing is the V7s, I do have trouble with.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, that's interesting.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Isn't that weird?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, very.

'''Anna Reinert:''' So, but sort of the modern, for me, the sort of modern equivalent, the one that sort of ended up in my, you know, my pencil case every day is the Morning Glory Mach 3s, which are sort of like somebody took a V5 and said, hey, let's make this a little better. You know, and it's available in a bunch of different colors. It's a little bit finer tip. And it's so fun. And every time I use it, I feel like I'm, you know, I finally found my pen dealer.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, yay. Yeah, they did a really good job with that pen. I've been impressed every time I've used it.