The Ultimate Pen Showdown - Ballpoint Hybrids

I received a few interesting pens recently, including a batch of Uni Ball (Uni Mitsubishi) pens which seem to be from 20+ years ago, the new Monami Zenith 7 which is a pen I have not seen reviewed anywhere yet, and a Tombow Airpress which I couldn't resist trying after seeing it in a shop on discount. Let's get to the reviews. Monami Zenith 7 - I was excited to see that Monami released a new pen, because in my earliest set of reviews the Monami FX4000 refill in 0.7mm ranked very high (the 1.0mm wasn't as good), and I was also very impressed with the refill in the Kokyuo ME which has a Korean-made gel refill (not sure if it's made by Monami, but there's a decent chance). The Zenith 7 looked quite striking, and for 5000 Won (about 3.50 USD at the moment) I had to give it a try. The design is one of the highlights, and I'd say it's somewhat based on the Ballograf Epoca with its retro look, faceted top part of the body and rounded grip section. The faceted part ...

In my last round of testing, I narrowed my refill candidates for the final round to Uni Jetstream SX-10 and Pentel Vicuna BXS7J , with the intention of testing the Pentel GlideWrite as well. Since then, I managed to test various other low viscosity and lubricated inks as well, including the Zebra Blen NC-07, Faber Castell CX7, Stabilo Performer, Pilot Multi Ball, Parker Quinkflow, Uni Signo (and the RT version), Engerel Permanent, Sailor IC Liquid Hybrid, Sarasa 1.0, and the 0.7mm refills for the Pentel Vicuna and Uni Jetstream SXR-600 among many others. Before getting to the final winners, I’ll mention a few words about the others. Zebra Blen - Very well designed pen, but the NC-07 emulsion refill has the same issues mentioned in the last review with the EQ emulsion refill. Faber Castell CX7 - I went through dozens of Faber Castell ballpoint models before finding one that was worth mentioning. Most of them were not very good. The CX7 definitely felt like it had a much better and s...

The purpose of this review is two fold. First off is to find the ultimate every day carrying pen that will last a lifetime. This means a refill that's incredibly smooth, dark, can write on a variety of papers, can dry quickly (I'm left-handed), doesn't skip with excellent reliability, and with writing that has a feeling & appearance of quality. It should also be available in a very high quality and attractive looking pen body. The other criteria would be for the pen and its refill to be made by a company that has a big presence in a major market. Further to that, for the purpose of this review, my preference is for the refill to match the pen body (pens that are sold pre-loaded with a particular refill, rather than matching say a Uni refill with a Pelikan pen). Of course many refills are interchangeable, especially in standard sizes like the Parker G2, but I want everything to fit like a glove. I tried to buy the highest-of-the-range pens available for each of these ref...