Zebra Z-Grip Retractable Ball Point Pen Medium

Zebra Z-Grip Retractable Ball Point Pen Medium Package

The good folks from Zebra sent over a batch of their Z-Grip Ball Point Pens (via Amazon) in assorted colors.  They don’t seem to be available directly from the Zebra Website but they do have some other sale and clearance items there worth checking out.  Lets take a closer look at them now though.

Zebra Z-Grip Retractable Ball Point Pen Medium Clear Bodies

As you may have seen on the photo of the package above these Zebra Z-Grip Retractable Ball Point Pens come in a medium tip which translates to 1mm.  I actually felt like they write slightly more narrow than that, but it was a good size line overall, although I generally prefer smaller tips.  I do like the metal clips with the plastic color coordinated accents for these as the metal gives a nice contrast to the pen instead of it being color coordinated and plastic as well.

Zebra Z-Grip Retractable Ball Point Pen Medium Grips

I think my favorite thing about the Zebra Z-Grip ball point is the grip itself.  Although they look rather understated I found them to be really comfortable and highly effective in terms of getting a good hold of the pen.  I think part of it comes from the fact that the ridges you see there feel like they are more raised than any other grip surface I’ve used before.

Zebra Z-Grip Retractable Ball Point Pen Medium Writing Samples

So although I found the grip really comfortable and effective, I did have one issue overall with the Zebra Z-Grip ball point, which was the light weight of the pen.  Normally I write with heavier fountain pens and gel ink pens, so using a lighter weight ball point pen threw me for a curve since.  Ball point pens tend to have a more tacky feel to them as the tip rolls across the page so I find myself putting a little more pressure down when I write with one.  Magnify that with the fact that these pens are super light and I suddenly found myself pressing pretty hard for some reason, and tiring my hand out pretty quickly.  This isn’t to say the pens are “bad” though, as they wrote with a very consistent line and didn’t skip or clump like many other ball point pends have the tendency to do.  Each of the colors also dried very quickly at about 1 second on the Doane Paper that I mostly used them on.

Check out the Zebra Z-Grip Ball Point Pens (via Amazon).  Although they have some characteristics that don’t fall in line with my personal preferences, they still write well and offer great quality for the price, or you can always check out all their other offerings over on the Zebra Website.