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Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

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Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#71

Post by cflewis »

cevn wrote: post #14

Have to agree with the Vanishing Point being the best luxury fountain pen for writing... I have like 8 of them.

I liked mine a lot, but I got it in extra fine which was a real mistake. It's like scratching which makes inky marks, not writing. I should have gone with a fine or even medium nib.

I now use a Pilot Custom 823 which is always going to be less sturdy than the Vanishing Point and my guess is it's always living on borrowed time. I'll replace it with a fine/medium VP when I eventually break it somehow.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#72

Post by cflewis »

bambax wrote: post #22

I'm surprised there's a market for budget foutain pens. We mostly don't write by hand anymore and if we do, it's to jolt down notes. One chooses to use a fountain pen for the thrill of it, or for love of tradition. In those cases, money is no object. A budget fountain pen is like a budget race car. Obviously I'm wrong, but I'm not sure why.

When I was in school in the UK, we were only allowed to write with fountain pens. My guess is that learning to handwrite properly is easier with them; I certainly write much more legibly with one today (now I'm 40).

There is value in jotting down notes legibly :)

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#73

Post by charcircuit »

rntz wrote: post #63
charcircuit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think it's painful, why not write with your right hand instead? Just because you are a lefty that doesn't mean you have to artificially limit yourself into doing things a painful way.

Have you tried writing with your non-dominant hand? I'm a righty and I find left-handed writing effectively impossible.

Yes, I have and for cursive, which is relevant when not picking up a pen, it is not that hard since you don't have to worry about precision of where exactly you place down the pen.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#74

Post by adrian_b »

vel0city wrote: post #44

I really wanted to get into fountain pens a while ago. I bought several different ones over the years and ultimately had roughly the same experience. In the end I didn't find them great for me, being a lefty in a right-to-left writing world. The main benefits of the fountain pen feel is when you're able to just lightly drag the pen across the paper, its nearly effortless to put down a good line. However, being a left…

The article linked here has a section with the best pens for lefties.

You should be grateful that you have not been born a century earlier. When my father, who was also left-handed, was in elementary school (almost 90 years ago), it was still a practice to persuade the left-handed to write using their right hand by beatings.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#75

Post by 3523582908 »

charcircuit wrote: post #56
vel0city wrote: post #44

I really wanted to get into fountain pens a while ago. I bought several different ones over the years and ultimately had roughly the same experience. In the end I didn't find them great for me, being a lefty in a right-to-left writing world. The main benefits of the fountain pen feel is when you're able to just lightly drag the pen across the paper, its nearly effortless to put down a good line. However, being a left…

If you think it's painful, why not write with your right hand instead? Just because you are a lefty that doesn't mean you have to artificially limit yourself into doing things a painful way.

Hey man, I feel like your comment came from a good place and this might be something that you don't know, but asking lefties to switch hands is a pretty emotionally sensitive topic. In modern society (as recently as 2007) left-handers had strong negative perceptions and left handed children were often forced to write right handed [1]. Forcing people to change has also had effects on their brain structure and chemistry [2].

Personally, my grandmother was forced to switch from left handed to right handed! In those days (early 1900s) the forced switch often came under threat of violence. Yes, they beat children to make them write "right". So this is a sensitive topic for a lot of people!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_peopl... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6758284/

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#76

Post by arkaic »

kloch wrote: post #68

Today I prefer the Pilot G-2 0.7mm. The construction is plastic but decent quality for a disposable pen. The clicker and screw joint have excellent fidget properties. The ergonomics are good except for the injection nub on the rubber grip, and the ink is the best I've found in a cheap disposable today. In the 1980's I preferred Uniball pens. Back then they had unreasonably high construction quality for a disposable p…

I'm also a decade long user of this pen right here.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#77

Post by Graziano_M »

vel0city wrote: post #61
charcircuit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think it's painful, why not write with your right hand instead? Just because you are a lefty that doesn't mean you have to artificially limit yourself into doing things a painful way.

Because writing with my right hand is even more painful. Trust me, if writing with my right hand was a pleasant experience, I'd do it in a heartbeat. This isn't just some "I identify as a lefty; therefore, I do things left-handed" kind of thing. In fact, most other activities I do, I do right-handed. Swing a bat/club? Right-handed. Throw a ball? Right-handed. Use a computer mouse? Right-handed. Shoot a rifle? Right-h…

Same. One huge advantage you and I have is that we can write notes while we use the mouse to navigate the computer. Came in handy a lot in college.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#78

Post by chrismartin »

kloch wrote: post #68

Today I prefer the Pilot G-2 0.7mm. The construction is plastic but decent quality for a disposable pen. The clicker and screw joint have excellent fidget properties. The ergonomics are good except for the injection nub on the rubber grip, and the ink is the best I've found in a cheap disposable today. In the 1980's I preferred Uniball pens. Back then they had unreasonably high construction quality for a disposable p…

Unfortunately I find Pilot G2 to have loose tolerances between the refill tip and pen body. It's like 1.5-2 thousandths of an inch, compared to 0.5-1 thousandth for Uniball and Pentel bodies. It makes your writing a bit sloppier and more effortful.

I believe the Uni-ball One is a better pen body in every way. Tight tolerances. Well-built, hinged steel clip that provides superior fidgeting. Nicer clicker haptics too. I don't love the ink that comes in them, but they take Jetstream SXR-7 and SXR-5 refills. You can get both of these from JetPens.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#79

Post by blackoil »

pyrophane wrote: post #21

I ignored fountain pens for a long time because I'm not a calligrapher or artist and I mostly want writing to be easy and convenient. On a whim, I finally ordered a LAMY Safari and was really surprised at how much better the writing experience was. I noticed my penmanship improved and I was able to write more easily on parts of the page that I normally struggle with, such as near the binding in some notebooks. I attr…

What were you using before? Curious if they are better than Uniball and Pilot.
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