Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Review: Uniball Jetstream RT 0.7mm Blue

Running a pen blog lead to some unique situations.  One unique situation is hearing about a certain pen, in this case the Uniball Jetstream, and not being able to find it.  All over the internet, specifically the office supply are of the internet, the Jetstream is spoken of with reverence.  My problem was getting my hands on one.  Driving around one day I made a random stop at a Staples I had never been too before, and to my surprise they had a nice offering of Uniball Jetstream's available.  I snagged a couple and went to work testing it out.


The body of the pen is really cool looking.  It's simple but doesn't look plain.  The Jetstream also does something I love, they match the barrel of the pen to the color of the ink.  In this case the Jetstream I bought was a 0.7mm with blue ink, and a blue barrell.  There is a lighter strip of blue around the clicker.  The tip, a Jetstream logo, the clicker and the clip are all silver colored plastic.  I think the silver and blue combo looks good.  The grip isn't anything special, but it's not bad.  It's the same material as the rest of the body but it has little indents in it.  When writing a lot your hand does not get fatigued so even though it isn't the fanciest grip it does the job well.

What had gotten me excited about the Jetstream was the hype around how smooth it was writing.  I felt like I was gliding across the page.  It didn't matter whether I was writing on my 17 cent Marble Composition book or my 15 dollar Black n Red notebook, the pen just glided across the page.  The ink is a really dark blue which I love.  The only problem that I noticed is a little bit of white space when writing.  But it's not so bad  as to completely ruin the writing.  Honestly I am just nitpicking at this point, because this pen is great!

Obviously this pen has a ton of positives and is a great all around pen.  Despite the positives it still doesn't have the WOW factor for me. It seems to me as above average/good, but not great.  It's hard to explain, there is nothing technically wrong with it, but to me it just isn't a great pen. I prefer .05mm pens or lower, so a pen that's smallest tip is 0.7mm tip is going to limit how well I like it.  So for me I have to say that I like it, and I would write with it again.  I wouldn't worry about lending this to a friend though.

8 out of 10 mummies.