I actually forgot for a while that I even had this Uni-ball alpha gel HD ballpoint .7mm pen until I was straightening out my desk a bit last night and I came across it again. I had initially purchased it from JetPens.com a few months ago and used it for a little bit before writing this review. For the most part, I don’t usually buy ballpoint pens to use unless there is something particularly unique about them, and this pen fits that criteria because of the extra “squishy” grip that it has. If you check out JetPens.com you can find this pen there for $9.00 and it comes in 7 different grip colors including Black, Blue, Green, Orange, Pink, Rose Pink, and Royal Blue. There are also multiple other versions of Uni-ball Alpha Gel pens that JetPens has available on their site.
The grip on this pen is made from a very cushy and comfortable silicon material that is very soft to the touch. When I first gripped the pen I was impressed by how soft and comfortable the grip was, while not being overly squishy and too soft. Once I started writing with the pen I did struggle a bit to find a comfortable writing position with it…I found myself gripping it as tight as I normally would , which was comfortable, however to be able to enjoy the cushy grip I was forced to hold the pen higher than I normally would. I figured this would be OK and that I would get used to holding it slightly differently. With this new adjusted writing position I went about my business of taking some notes, but I quickly found that holding it higher was making my hand tired much more quickly than if I had been holding it in my normal writing position.
As far as a ballpoint goes, this onedoes write pretty nicely, I feel that Uni-ball always manages to crank out some very smooth writing ink, even if it is not in my favorite delivery method…ie. the ballpoint. As you can see from the writing sample above, the pen wrote very well on the Doane Paper, showing virtually no skipping or light spots, and as I said before it worked across the paper very smoothly as compared to other ballpoints I’ve used. I think that if you like ballpoint pens, and if you tend to not hold your pen very close to the point like I do, this is probably a great pen for you…it just doesnt seem to work well for my personal writing style and preferences. This pen is definately going to make it into my next giveaway so if you have gotten this far through my review and are still interested in this pen, you will have your chance to get it for free soon.
