by Mike Shea on 30 November 2003
I broke my Sensa Stylist pen over Thanksgiving trying to stick in a refill that was too big. With my favorite pen broken it was time to shop again. I picked up four pens in the last week and two of them have quickly become favorites.
The Waterman Phileas rollerball is a nice classy pen that isn't real heavy but holds well while writing. It runs about $20 and is quite a good deal if you want a sleek fancy executive pen. It fits a Pilot G2 fine point gel archival ink refill perfectly.
The Rotring Core rollerball is known as a kids pen but it's the best rollerball I've used. It fits the fingers perfectly, has a nice set of transparent dots that lets you check your refill without opening it up, and has a great strong clip. It is a big pen and looks like something that fell off Darth Vader's suit, but it is a well engineered and inexpensive pen. It also runs $20 and included a free Rotring Core mechanical pencil for free when I bought it from the pen shop. If you can handle the wacky style, it is the best pen you can get. Like the Waterman, it fits a Pilot G2 refill perfectly.
If you can't stand the idea of buying any pen over $10, the Pilot Dr. Grip Gel is still the best pen you can pick up in any supermarket. It uses a Pilot G2 archival quality ink and runs about $6. For even less money, get a pack of the Pilot G2 retractable pens for about a dollar each. A wiser man than I once said "it isn't the pen, its what you write with it". Don't get as hung up about the pens as I did.