Office Supply Review: BIC Round Stic Ball Pen

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Perfect ink flow and comfortable to hold

Cons: Disposable

The Bottom Line:

Comfortable pen

Ink flow is always perfect

Hands off!  Get your own

Good Luck Getting My Grip off This Pen

I am a brand loyalist.  When I find something I like, I stick with it forever, and only switch if I absolutely have no other choice.  (Imagine the reaction I got when I bought a different brand of shoes after wearing the same style for 10 years.)  But I don't normally care about pens.  I'll use whatever is handy and buy whatever is cheapest.  So you can imagine my surprise to find a pen I really like.

And I'd love to say it was because of awesome research, but that's not the case.  We started using the BIC Round Stic Ball Pen at work.  As a result, I use this pen every day, and I am pretty happy with it.

The pen itself isn't that different from a normal pen.  It's a four inch long clear cylinder made out of plastic.  A cap fits snuggly on both ends, so if you aren't writing you don't get ink on things but when you are writing you don't lose the cap.  If you push the cap on too hard, it can be rather hard to take it off again, but there's really no need to do that.  The cap stays on if you've put it on with any effort at all.  At the writing end of the pen is a rubber grip to make it easier on your hand to hold the pen.  I don't use the pen enough to know for sure if it helps or not, but it does feel nicer than standard plastic when I grab the pen.

These pens come in multiple colors like red, blue, and black.  At my office, we stick with boring old black.  We also get the fine point pen, which I love.  My hand writing is small as it is, and if the tip of the pen I am using is too big, it tends to make my already sloppy penmanship even worse.  (Really, it's the pen's fault.)

I use my pen in bits and pieces throughout the day, and the ink is always ready to flow.  It comes out perfectly with no globs or messes.  I don't even think about it like I do fancier pens; I just grab it and write.

This pen is absolutely disposable; in fact, I'm not sure you can get the little stopper off the back to get into the pen.  In these days of environmentalism, it does bother me a bit to just throw away a pen when I'm done with it.  On the other hand, since you can buy 12 packs for roughly 20 cents a pen or less, I don't feel too badly about it.

Now I'll admit most of my writing is done on a computer these days, so I'm probably not the best just of how long the ink will last.  But I do use the pen at least once a day and usually more.  I am on the same pen I've been using for the last year.  Obviously, there's plenty of ink here no matter how much you use this pen.

I've actually started buying the BIC Round Stic Ball Pen for home and my car as well.  They work better than anything else I've found.  So maybe I do have a brand loyalty for pens now, too.