Uni-Ball Grip Roller

Another Uni-Ball. Again, I'm a Pilot and Uni-Ball guy, but Pilots aren't easily found here, so I use UB mostly.




UB-247 BLUE
UPC/EAN 4902778747001

This is a nice pen, the first and last one that I owned was back 5 or so years ago and if I recall correctly, they were different. They had a grey barrel, the cap was slightly different, and the color was indicated by a small cap in the cap and the grip too I believe.
I hadn't used a roller pen with a foam/felt reservoir (all were liquid ink stored in a tank) and they feel good, this is a bold/medium point, so glides really good on bond paper. It does exhibit some bleed, but for me it doesn't represent a problem, since I rarely write on both sides of the paper.

I don't know how long does the ink last, not much I guess, I've left the pen uncapped for hours, and I do recall leaving my old 247 completely dry.


Color availability isn't huge, black blue and red, and your choice of medium or fine point. The grip is a nice offering, I believe that none of the Visions are available with a grip (except for the Vision Exact if it's still made and maybe the Vision RT -Haven't seen one ever). What you do lose with the UB-247 is the ink window, so you can unexpectedly run out of ink, but that's pretty much normal with most pens that have a similar ink storage system.




EDIT:
I just found the old ones I'm talking about. I found in a Turkish website both models, and the old ones are called UB-145/147. Below are the UB-147 (0.7mm) ones. I was wrong on the grip, it's dark grey in all colors.

Pilot VBall Grip Extra Fine

Ok, so I'm finally reviewing something that's not Uniball. I got these V-Ball at a Target back in February, I was away from home, so I just tried them that night on a notebook provided by the hotel and found them quite scratchy, I first thought that I had wasted by money, but back home I tried them and found them to be nice. I never used them widely because I still had a large stock of G-2s for school use, but I've been using them more recently.

On Bond paper it doesn't feel scratchy at all, I have tried an Office Depot brand yellow pad (OD Mexico, so it might not be the same paper as the US one) and feels scratchy, not to mention the notepads provided by Fairfield Inn by Marriott, it feels like you're writing on sandpaper, but on bond paper it feels excellent. Of course, it doesn't glide like the Vision Elite 0.8mm, but it saves ink, and for being Extra Fine, they don't feel bad at all.

Pilots are still hard to find here, you can go to a particular store and maybe find 2 packs of V7s, a pack of Precise Grip and that's if you're lucky, and their parking sucks, so you rarely go there. Office Depot doesn't carry them, none of the supermarkets or drugstores do, and our local wholesale retailer, PriceSmart, only sells G-2s in a large pack (like 10 or 12 blacks, 3 blues and 1 red or something like that), so for Pilot I rely on my own imports or stuff that friends/family bring/send.




The grip on the VBall Grip is really comfortable, it's not just a simple piece of rubber, it does provide excellent traction and feeling, while it's not a gel grip like the one on the UB 207 Premier, it does an excellent job. This pen is available in 3 sizes, Extra Fine, Fine and Medium or Bold (not sure of the name), and you can identify them by the text on the barrel and the barrel colors (they become darker with the tip size, the thickest one get's a dark grey instead of white).


An interesting detail on the VBall Grip is that you can unscrew the ink cartrige (in the same way that you do with the UB Vision Elite), the difference is that I haven't really seen the cartridges for sale, so that could have been done just in case you need it in the future, to let you have your favorite tip size on your favorite barrel color, or to let you see how much ink you have left. I don't know, but it's an interesting detail.

About the packaging, I got mine in a black 3-pack, but I recall seeing a pack containing 2 blacks, 1 or 2 blues and 1 red, Pilot's traditional KRGB packaging (black, red, green, blue) (they should consider CMYK too) plus some stores appear to be carrying dozens, when I'm in the US I normally shop for writing instruments at Target or Walmart, so I'm quite unfamiliar with Staples/OfficeMax/Office Depot offerings (The multi-color pack I mentioned was seen at Office MAx, I was in a place that had an Office Max conveniently placed next to a Target, so it was really nice). I don't recall seeing numbers on the cardboard packaging, so you might have to do some research to find the size in mm (I think it's 0.5/0.7/0.9 or 1.0 but don't quote me on that).

For those who are interested, I'm using Doane Paper, www.doanepaper.com

Uni-Ball Boxy Micro

Ok, I promise, I'll show a different brand next time.

This time I'm reviewing the Uni-Ball Boxy Fine, an interesting pen that isn't sold everywhere, seems like an Asia/ME/Pacific model that somehow found their way to certain stores here (a different drugstore than the one that normally supplies my needs). This pen is pretty much like the Vision and Vision Needle (and the Eye too), it's just different in the body paint and caps, the top cap (tip) is a Fusion cap but in black (it's also a normal Vision cap but with a different clip), which means the clip is plastic, translucent black, and the end cap is a Vision Needle cap (which happens to be the same as the Fusion cap, but in black). Just like the Vision, the Micro version has a darker shade of gray on the body and black caps, while the
Fine has grey caps and a lighter shade of gray on the body.





The barrel also has a product code "UB-150G", a Google search revealed that UB-150 is the normal Eye micro (not US version, it comes with color coded caps), which is also sold in Asia, and the UB-150G is the Boxy. Likewise, the UB-157 is the Eye fine and UB-157G is the Boxy fine.



This pen has been with me for only a week and hasn't seen much use, however, from my observations I can see that is just an Eye micro, feels the same, writes the same. It feels good, not too scratchy, but it depends on the type of paper, works good on normal bond paper, but on some notepads it does feel scratchy.

One thing is that I'd love to see this one looking more like the US market Vision / Vision Needle, I simply like the barrel paint/decal design more, but the caps look nicer on this one. There's also the problem that the clip is made of a plastic that doesn't look too durable.

I will review the fine one later