OfficeSupplyGeek®

Cool Office Supplies and Pen Reviews

  • Pen & Pencil Reviews
    • Brush Pens
    • Ballpoint Pens
    • Calligraphy
    • Gel and Roller Ball Pens
    • Felt and Plastic Tip
    • Fountain Pens
      • Beginner Fountain Pens
    • Highlighters
    • Liquid Ink Pens
    • Markers
    • Multi-Pens
    • Pencils
      • Erasers
    • Stylus Reviews
    • Tactical Pens
  • Fountain Pen Ink
    • Black
    • Blue
    • Brown
    • Gray
    • Green
    • Mixed / Multi Color
    • Orange
    • Purple
    • Pink
    • Red
    • Special Purpose
  • Notebook Reviews
    • Book Style Binding
    • Comb Binding
    • Disc Binding
    • Graph Paper
    • Planners
    • Levenger Circa Notebook
    • Spiral Binding
  • Desk Accessories & Office Tools
    • Cutting & Shredding
    • Labels & Storage
    • Paper Fasteners
    • Pen Storage
    • Presentation Tools
  • Office Electronics
    • Communications
    • Flash Drives
    • Laptop Accessories
    • Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
    • Tablet and Phone Accessories
  • Deals and Sales
Home / Pen & Pencil Reviews / Highlighters / Pen and Highlighter in One: Bic Duo

Pen and Highlighter in One: Bic Duo

Bic Duo Highlighter Pen Combo

Single Pack of the Bic Duo Highlighter and Pen Combo

I’ve been meaning to review this Bic Duo Highlighter for a while now, but Amazon only had them in bulk quantities so I kept holding off on buying som.  I finally gave in and picked up a pack of them because I was so curious to see how they worked.  Lets take a look at Bic’s pen and highlighter in one and see if there are truly any efficiencies gained by combining these two writing implements.

Pen and Highlighter in One, the Bic Duo

Pen and Highlighter in One, the Bic Duo

The body of the combination pen and highlighter has a fairly thick body, however it is not overly large and bulky.  I am a big fan of the black body with the shiny pearl white cap, although it might seem kind of dull, I like the contrast of the two colors with the subtle accents of the yellow and orange markings.

The Bic Duo Uncapped

The Bic Duo Uncapped

With the cap removed you can see that the grip section is white and the same hard plastic as the rest of the body, and has slight dimpling which I assume is to give a little added grip to the pen.  Posting the cap on this pen highlighter combination was reassuringly firm, which is always welcome because I hate when a posted cap doesn’t feel like it’s firmly attached.

Bic Duo Pen and Highlighter Point

The Bic Duo Pen and Highlighter Point

The really cool and interesting thing about this combination pen highlighter is pictured above.  I’m still getting used to the new camera so please excuse the slightly dark and not so great photo.  If you click on the photo for the larger version, it is really easy to see how this pen and highlighter works.  The highlighter tip is actually a tube that has a ball point pen running through it.  A simple twist of the grip section extends the highlighter tube out over the ball point pen tip.  The ball point itself never moves and is always extended.  Before I even wrote or highlighted with this pen, I wanted to open it up to see how the highlighter refills worked.  Once I had inspected the inner workings, I was kind of upset to realize to see that when I twisted the black tip back on to the pen to seal up the cartridge chamber, I immediately stripped the plastic threads.  I don’t think I applied all that much pressure, but sure enough I quickly found myself trying to twist the tip back on, only to have it kep spinning around.

Bic Duo Highlighter and Pen Writing Sample

Bic Duo Highlighter and Pen Writing Sample.  Please note the highlighter is actually much brighter than it appears in the scan here.

Writing with the Bic Duo pen highlighter didn’t quite go as great as I had hoped.  My gripe with this attempt at a highlighter pen combo doesn’t have anything to do with the dual functionality, it is actually just the design of the grip that makes this pen so difficult to write with.  The grip actually makes the writing experience very tiring on your hand because there is no rubber and there is no taper or lip to help reduce the amount of pressure needed to hold onto the pen while writing.  The smooth perfectly straight grip section had me applying way too much pressure to hold onto the pen, and after only a few words my hand started to get tired.  A simple rubber coating or vase-like shape to the grip would have made a huge difference in the writing comfort here.

The writing and highlighting capabilities of this pen highlighter function pretty nicely, although I have read some other reviews that indicate that the highlighter ink runs out kind of quickly.  In doing the writing sample I was impressed by how quickly I was able to highlight over the ballpoint text without having it smear.

Overall, I like the concept here, but I think that with some minor adjustments to the grip, and by making the highlighter and the ball point pen refillable it would be a much more comfortable and effective pen and highlighter combination.

©2021, Brian Greene. All rights reserved.

Filed Under: Highlighters Tagged With: Bic, Highlighter

Want Our Latest Posts Delivered to you via Email?

Get notifications of new posts right to your inbox. Keep in mind you will only want one of these, not both. The weekly summary is a compilation of the daily email.

About Brian Greene

Brian Greene is the founder and editor of OfficeSupplyGeek the Blog about Cool Office Supplies. You can also find more cool office supply related stuff that Brian shares via Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter

By Brian Greene

« Winner of the Sharpie Pens and Stainless Steel Sharpie
Recycled Paper and Sugarcane Journal by Tree-Free Greetings »

Comments

  1. 1
    Albi says:
    November 5, 2010 at 5:54 PM

    Im not sure if you got my comment on your article on the Zebra M-701, but it said something like this: I just started reading your blog when i was doing some research on the Zebra M-701. I came across this article which helped me decide that i should order one! i now have my M-701, and im really happy with it. Thanks for your in-depth review and amazing quality pictures.

    Anyways, i hope you get to read this comment, i subscribed and now i am a big fan!

  2. 2
    ccorrada says:
    November 5, 2010 at 11:52 PM

    I bought this pen after a long research (obsessed, who me?) because I wanted the convenience of the highlighter and pen in the same pen, since I use a highlighter fairly often. However I was disappointed on the quality of the pen, basically a cheap rollerball. Well… we got to keep trying….

  3. 3
    OfficeSupplyGeek says:
    November 7, 2010 at 1:18 PM

    @Albi – I did, thanks. Glad that the review was helpful for you!

    @ccorrada – Yeah, that is a good point that I neglected to mention. Nothing fancy here about the pen portion, just your typical bic ballpoint.

    @Daisy – It is actually much brighter in person, scanning a highlighter always poses problems for me as they always seem to come out so dull like this. I’ll go back and update the post to reflect that. Thanks!

  4. 4
    Broadview Innovations says:
    April 28, 2011 at 5:58 AM

    Promotional items are one of the best business gifts available. Excellent post I must say.. Simple but yet interesting and engaging.. Keep up the awesome work!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search

Connect

Site Sponsors

imgimg
img
  • About / Contact
  • Advertise on OSG
  • Disclosure
  • Privacy Policy
  • Archives
  • Office Supply Friends

Facebook

Google +

Social Media

Search

Copyright © 2021 · OfficeSupplyGeek
Website by The Stiz Media