Speaking of him (Judge Dredd, not the Pope), have you seen the trailer for the new Judge Dredd movie? For some reason they have left "Judge" out of the title. That doesn't make any sense it's like leaving "Warlord of Mars" off the title of a storied science fiction franchise.
That's not the point though. The point is I like to make snap judgments. One of the things I like to judge quickly are pens. If a pen feels light or has more girth than it needs I'm pretty quick to push it aside as an also ran. If you recall, the weight of the pen was featured heavily in my review of the InkJoy pen series. So when a Jetstream Premier from Uni-Ball crossed my desk the other day, I ripped open the packaging, dropped the pen in my pen cup and went about the rest of my day-to-day business. When I had a few moments to think, I went back and picked up the Uni-Ball Jetstream and it didn't pass my completely subjective size-to-weight ratio test (not a good sign). In the interest of fairness to the people at Uni-Ball I thought I'd give it a quick test run and see just how poorly it compared. I clicked the clicker and HOLY CUSS!
Much to my shock, the pen has an almost silent click. I don't know if you've ever sat in on a meeting with a obsessive-compulsive-pen-clicker and an anti-pen-click-stick-in-the-mud but the fireworks fly. This pen could potentially solve all the pen click-related problems that have been keeping the United Nations from actually making progress toward ending famine and getting Bono's plan for world peace off the ground.
I was sure that the silent click of the pen was just a gimmick and that it would be a standard ballpoint pen, but I was wrong again. The black ink from the Uni-Ball Jetstream surpassed the much loved InkJoy. The lines were smoother and darker. It had me intrigued... what else is there to know about this pen?
I went to Uni-Ball's page, since I had thrown away the packaging, to see what they had to say about their pen. They identified the silent action and smooth ink, but also touted its quick drying ink. As a right-handed person who writes small I rarely run into the problem with smearing ink when a portion has yet to properly dry. So I had to setup a test to give it a run through. I'll draw a circle with my right hand and immediately drag my left pointer finger through it to see how it smears. True to their word the Uni-Ball Jetstream Premier does dry faster than the competition. The difference between the Jestream and the InkJoy was almost negligible, but I'm sure it makes a difference to somebody. Just for the sake of argument I performed the same test with a Gel pen and they just got ink all over my finger.
Is the Uni-Ball Jetstream a nice pen? Most definitely.
Is the Uni-Ball Jetstream worth the premium price? Maybe if you are left handed or are a compulsive pen clicker, but not to me.
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