Sunday 24 May 2009

Bic Triumph 537R

So a couple of months back I went to Staples looking for nothing in specific and found some somewhat expensive Bic pens. I decided to think about them and come back later, mostly because of previous dissapointment with Bic pens (including the Z4 leak back in 7th grade). I grabbed a 4 pack a few days later and tried it out.

This is one of the few refillable Bic pens (probably the only one unless you consider the 5 cents a piece stic pens, which are indeed refillable, but refills aren't sold -they must be sourced from another pen :|) and after trying it out I decided that it wasn't bad after all. It doesn't have the nice feel of Pilot or Uniball pens, but it doesn't feel like a Bic either.

Some people complain of ink bleeding, I was using them on regular bond paper (20lb 92 brightness, 30% recycled, Staples brand) and didn't notice anything bad, but if you are using 20lb notepads things might be different.

I still have to try the 730R ones, but that will be later, once I throw away some 3 or 4 (and an upcoming trip home means I will come back with ziploc bags full of pens)

In conclusion, not a bad pen, a departure from what we think when we hear "Bic". I'm not sure if I would buy another one though, I like more Pilots and Uniballs, so I might just go thru this 4-pack, maybe try the 730R and that will be it.

On a side note, there are many pens advertised as refillable, but aside from the Pilot G2 and Uniball Signo (regular, 7mm ones), refills are hard to come by unless you order them online, possibly in a big order (to avoid paying $2 for a refill and $7 for the shipping) and selection is sometimes limited.

Pictures will come once I find a pen (3 of them are sitting inside a box in my storage unit, the remaining one has been flying around my truck for the past week after I wrote down some coordinates while traveling on a dirt road and didn't put it back in my pocket