Tuesday, August 17, 2010

OptiFlow Rollerball by Staples

A colleague emailed me about a new pen she found in, of all places, the office supply closet and asked if I'd tried it out, the OptiFlow Rollerball pen by Staples. As I'm just as skeptical as her, I ran and grabbed a blue one to doodle with and can see why she's surprised and in love.

This is an excellent, inexpensive rollerball that has superb ink flow (maybe a little too much) and a wide, clean line. Two tips are available, the rollerball and a needlepoint; the line width is the same for both, 0.5mm, which may be a bit too wide for a needlepoint but that happens to be my preferred line width. Whichever you want, these are available at Staples for $7.99 plus tax for a dozen which is a good buy for an awesome gel ink pen. It's a bit of a wet writer and drying time may be an issue, but the design allows you to check ink availability and it's an interesting "space age" design that's not too wacky or hard on the eyes.

The one issue I had was the barrel length. For some reason, this just seems shorter than my other pens. It is definitely shorter than the posted fountain pens I use, but is actually a tad longer barrel than my Zebra Sarasa gel ink pens. So for whatever reason, my fingers need some time to get used to the barrel. Other than that, a great pen and you should definitely consider adding the OptiFlow to your rotation.

(The notepad used is a Rhodia dotPad No. 19, 8 1/4" x 12 1/2")

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