26 Excellent Everyday Pens — Best 5

Here's 26 pens to know about and my favorite FIVE pens (listed below with double asterisk **). LINKS BELOW:

0:00 Intro

2:03 BALLPOINT PENS

10:08 CHEAP ROLLERBALLS

14:16 Plastic/Fiber Tip

16:06 FANCY ROLLERBALLS

21:57 FOUNTAIN PENS:

24:02 Conclusion

Chase Lynks:
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*
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[ThePikachu]

This review was so in-depth and beautifully curated.
From one pen snob to another, thank you.

[Bombatta]

Chase, One of my favorites is the Uniball Signo 207. Beautiful writing instrument. Nice to hold. It is disposable but it is lovely to use.

[Jesusismyonething]

Oh goodness. I just watched your 30+ minute notebook video and now here I am watching you deep dive into pens. My credit card is going to start crying in a couple of minutes…

[Misterion]

I recently got my first "expensive" pen and pencil from Tactile Turn. Something satisfying about using a writing utensil with some weight. I have enjoyed using them and now I just need to get over the anxiety of losing them. Bellroy Pencil Pouch FTW to keep them safe :)

[Koruptr]

My favorites are Uni-ball Signo 307 and TUL needle point medium. Both really smooth, comfortable and never skip!

[ChrisCarries_EDC]

Great selection of pens, here are a few brands that I think are also worth considering:

- Stilform
- Namisu
- Rotring
- Zebra
- Faber Castell
- Bastion
- Cross
- Waterman
- Machine Era
- The James Brand

Going more expensive (but absolutely worth the money IMO):
- Tactile Turn
- Smooth Precision Pens (formerly Urban Survival Gear)
- Bigidesign
- Nottingham Tactical
- Fellhoelter
- Wingback
- Billetspin

[Gillysaurxx]

I cant get enough of the Pilot G2. Writes really well, comfy for long time use and you can find them every where. Also the Zebra G301 is a smooth operator as well. Just a little too thin for long use.

[samwebb]

Fun story behind the brand Caran D'Ache - in Turkish, pencil (functionally, not literally) is kara tash. In Russian, karandash. A French cartoonist took that and came up with Caran D'Ache as his moniker, and the brand was named after him in 1924.

[diman]

Always been a fan of Parker jotter, can’t beat that classic feel/look

[Electromanx]

Great video! Btw, the Lamy Safari is the standard pen German schoolchildren use (at least it was when I went to school). That's also what it's built for: it's a workhorse first and a fine writing tool second.

[PP_the_flyer]

Im a airline pilot an when a fill my flight plan, I love to do it with a Sarasa from Zebra, the smoothness is something special for my writing. Thanks for the great review Chase kudos for you !!

[InktronicsBlog]

A long time fountain pen user here, I enjoyed your video. The Lamy Safari is the Tonka truck of the fountain pen world. You really have to purposely want to break it to actually break it. I have several. The Studio was actually too heavy for me to use. A nice compromise between the two is the Lamy Al Star. It’s in the shape of the Safari but the barrel and cap are made of aluminum and the grip (section) is smoked transparent plastic to let you see your ink.

[Crazytesseract]

You need to identify different tip sizes of the same pen. 0.28, 0.38, 0.5, 0.7mm and 1.0mm are some of the tip sizes (ball diameters) in ballpoint, gel and liquid roller ball pens.

[Jays-Days]

My everyday work horse pen that exceeds my expectations in comfort and writing smoothness is the Pentel Energel liquid gel ink in 0.7 (medium) and 0.5 (fine).
My next favorite go to pen is the Uni Ball Vision Elite capped pen. smooth, comfortable and ink flow is amazing. 0.7 (medium)
The gold standard of pens (which I'm surprised didn't even make your list) is the Pilot G-2 click pen. 0.7 (medium). It's not my preferred pen due to how large my hands are but it's quality is undeniably great.
Great video. thanks for all the pens you did review. may have to check out one or two of them.

[Gaspiaguilera]

Don’t know if you would read this but get a Lamy roller pen, just like the safari but a roller. Same body, same texture, same clip, lots of colors and one of the greatest writing experiences out there for sure. The default refills write soooo smooth and so well. Also the ink dries instantly so that’s a plus

[arguchik]

Ink types - quick overview:
Ballpoint: oil-based ink, comes in the old school thick and skippy/gloppy variety and the newer low-viscosity ballpoint inks (Uni Jetstream, Pilot Acro, etc.), which really nice to write with. At some point Parker started using low-viscosity ballpoint ink in their refills, and they're like a whole different writing experience now vs. what I remember as a kid. Also, the Caran d'Ache (pronounced like "karen dash") refill has a low-viscosity ink in it as well.
Gel: water-based ink but still thick. Very smooth, tends to come in a wider range of tip sizes. My favorite is the Pilot Juice Up - it has a semi-conical tip that comes to a needle-ish point, and the ink is glorious. The Juice Up refills are the same size and shape as the Pilot G2 refills (which is different from the Parker G2 refill - IDK they both call it "G2") FYI - the Zebra Sarasa is a gel ink pen.
Rollerball: water-based, liquid ink, very much like fountain pen ink but less prone to feathering and bleeding. (In fact, you can buy a rollerball pen body that comes with a converter you can fill from a bottle, which means you have virtually limitless ink possibilities.)
Fountain Pen: water-based, liquid ink. Comes in cartridges or bottles; there's a wide range of different filling systems for using bottled ink - converter, piston-fill, vac-fill, and eyedropper fill (you literally fill the body of the pen with an eyedropper). There are even more varieties of filling systems when you get into vintage fountain pens - that's a huge rabbit hole. IMO fountain pens offer the best writing experience of all, though it's not great for every situation. You need better paper for most fountain pen inks. If you have tried a fountain pen and hated it, it's probably because you used it on paper that's fountain pen unfriendly - the ink will feather and bleed and the nib might also grab fibers from the paper surface. FP ink also takes more time to dry, and sometimes you will get ink on your hands. In my experience it's totally worth it, but YMMV.
Markers / Fineliners / etc: I don't know very much about these because I don't enjoy using them. I think the main distinction is between dye-based alcohol inks and pigment-based non-alcohol inks, but don't quote me.

[linusroekaerts]

I always carry an Parket Jotter XL monochrome with black gel ink and a parker Mechanical Pencil. So happy with this setup

[leslieryan]

great list . love the recommendations. Two of my favs are the Pentel Energel 0.7 RTX and the Zebra Sarasa 0.7 and Gelly Roll for art journaling or artwork.

[lightwavvves]

Love how you're watching a video about pens or bags or whatever and then toward the end Chase drops some life wisdom, just cuz.

[NeilBaileyF]

My wife tells me the girth of your pen is not that important…..what you do with the pen, is more important.