Editing The Pen Addict 333/transcript (section)

== Top Five Pens Discussion ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, definitely. So I want to actually do something this time where we run through each category and we run through the awarded stationary items.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And then we can kind of stop to talk about any of them in more detail where it feels necessary. But I wanted to understand what the kind of high level changes are. So are there any kind of new areas that you focused on this time?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The biggest change was probably like the fountain pens in the $100 to $200 range. Like all the low end stuff is pretty locked in. Like your basic gel ink pens, your pens at the store shelf, your pencils, you know, all the inexpensive stuff. There hasn't been a very much change in that realm, I think. But I did make a stand in the fountain pen $100 to $200 range by putting the Platinum 3776 at the top of the list. So, you know, one of the things that I said about this list is it didn't change a lot year over year. And I'm not just going to change for change sake, right? If it's been, you know, I've been doing this, it'll be 11 years this month. And you get a feel for the products, you get a feel for the product category. You understand what the landscape is in each of those categories. And sometimes it just is what it is. Like things don't change every year. Like gel ink pens don't necessarily change each year. Uniball or Pilot are not coming out with something every year that's going to shake up the list. Like the most recent one would be something like the Pilot Juice. You know, that was a new pen like three years ago and it made the list. Pilot hasn't done anything interesting since then. Uniball hasn't done anything interesting since then. But that doesn't mean that the pens that they currently have on the market aren't still the best. So I'm not going to do a top five, what's the new hype train pen or pencil just to change it around. I'm going to just go with what I think are the most solid pens. I also had a change in the top five fountain pens under $50, which we'll talk about too. So, and these are based around things I would recommend. You know, I made it clear that this is not necessarily my personal top five list. Like my personal list would look different than this. So, and it's hard to like cover every category despite, I don't even know how many categories I have. It's got to be at least a dozen or 15 even. And there's still like categories we could mix in there and do things like that. But, you know, it gets easier and harder every year because I think people would like to see more change in it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But sometimes it just is. Like there's no better pen than the Jetstream for someone who doesn't know anything about pens to walk in a store, buy a pen and have an enjoyable writing experience. Like those kind of things kind of stay the same. So there's definitely a little bit more movement in the fountain pen categories than like the stock basic pen category. So it's hard in that I actually, I would love to see like huge shakeups in the ballpoint pen category. It's just not going to happen really. It's like I, yeah, it's an interesting position where I feel like it's kind of locked in for the most part. So, and no one's coming out with anything crazy innovative that's going to change a lot of these lists.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, all right, so let's jump into it. We're going to start with the top five micro gel ink pens. I'm going to go with all of these from five to one. And Brad, if you want to stop me to talk about any of them and break it out a little bit more, we can do that. It's probably worth at least we touch on each number one pick. So like why is the number one pick? And we can kind of go on from there. So top five micro gel ink pens. And at five is the Pilot Hitec C 0.3 millimeter. Is a 0.3 millimeter the most micro or is it just the one that you feel is best to get that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They have a 0.25. That's the most micro. It's not very good. Okay. The 0.4s and 0.5s don't write as well as their competition higher in the list. But the 0.3 writes better than anyone else's 0.3.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. Makes sense. The Pilot Juice 0.38 millimeter. The Uniball Signo 307. The Zebra Saraciclip 0.4 millimeter in at number two. And the number one micro gel ink pen is the Uniball Signo DX 0.38 millimeter. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So a lot of the I'd say these top four are almost interchangeable. People will have their favorites from those four pens. And I wouldn't argue against any of them. Right. They're all really, really good options for something that's sub 0.5 millimeter. And that's what the this category is. This is like your 0.4 millimeters and lower gel ink pens, which was kind of what this blog was built on way back in the day. This is what I focused on. And for years, the DX has been at the top of the list. The Pilot Hitec C has been up there before, but it's never been consistent enough for me to recommend it to most people. You know, you have to recommend that pen with a caveat that it might be a little bit finicky. The DX, you never have to. The Saracic is only second because it's a little bit scratchier than the DX. And that's just the style of tip that Zebra uses. It's a little bit more scratchier. Some people like that. Some people don't. And then the Signo 307 is kind of the main line of the DX. That's kind of more available. And they have them in 0.38. And then the Juice. I mean, the Juice is just a fantastic pen. It's way better style than the G2. And it's been more consistent over the years, the past few years than the G2. So I use that and recommend it a lot.