I picked up the Pilot V5 Hi-Techpoint Refillable Rollerball (via JetPens) quite a while ago and have been using it on and off pretty frequently, but forgot I never wrote the review. As you can tell from the photo, its a variant of the Pilot Precise V5, which has been one of my favorite pens for as long as I can remember.
The major functional difference between the Pilot Precise V5 and the Pilot V5 Hi-Techpoint is the fact that the ink on the Hi-Techpoint is refillable via an ink cartridge unlike the Precise V5. There are several other differences between the Precise V5 and the V5 Hi-Techpoint that I will get into in a moment. Their biggest similarity is that they use the same feed, section, and tip.
Both of the pens have an ink window, however the Pilot V5 Hi-Techpoint has a bit larger of a body in its diameter. This doesn’t impact the writing experience though since as I mentioned, the grips on the two pens seem to be identical and are the same size.
Here is a close up of the section and feed for each of the pens just for the visual although as I said they appear to be exactly the same, at least on the outsides. They seem to perform equally as well so I would assume that the innards are identical too.
Although the bodies share similar designs there are quite a few differences. Most noticeable are is the graphic branding on the two pens, I happen to prefer the look of the Precise V5 but I don’t think the Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint looks bad in that sense, its just bigger flashier looking font. The caps on each of these two pens are where you will find many of the true differences. As with the bodies, the cap on the Hi-Tecpoint is larger than the Precise V5’s more narrow cap and body. The design of the Hi-Tecpoint cap has a “V” cut out on the top and the clip is a soft square strip of plastic as compared to the metal clip on the Precise V5. My guess is that because the Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint is part of their BeGreen series (its made from 71% recycled materials) the incorporation of the plastic clip made it more environmentally friendly.
Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint Writing Sample and Comparison:
Writing with the Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint proved to be just as enjoyable as with the regular Pilot Precise V5. It is a solid performer that never skipped on me, it never left any globs of ink behind, the line was consistently consistent, and the tip of the pen flowed smoothly over all of the paper I tested it on. The only slight difference I noticed was that the ink seems to be a shade darker than the blue ink in the regular V5. Clearly not a deal breaker and you really have to look closely at the writing sample above to even see it. If you like the Pilot Precise V5 there is no doubt you will also like the Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint and its also more environmentally friendly to boot. You can grab yours from JetPens like I did, and you can get the Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint refills there too.
The refill color selection is a bit limited. Would “normal” fountain pen ink work in the new version and could the cartridge be refilled at home.
Mike
You can syringe refill the Pilot proprietary sized cartridges in the refillable V5 pen with fountain pen ink. It works great. The down-side of changing ink colors in the V5 is that the pen is hard to clean. But the pens are pretty cheap, so you can have more pens for more colors.
If you want more color choices in cartridges, do a Web search for “Pilot Mixable Colour” ink cartridges. There are lots of colors to choose from when it comes to the mixable ink cartridges – there’s even a box of assorted color cartridges. The Pilot mixable ink cartridges are meant for the Pilot Parallel calligraphy pen, but they work just fine in the V5. Simply ignore the warning on the box that the mixable ink is intended only for the Parallel Pen.
There’s one thing you should know about the mixable color cartridges: They have a little steel ball inside to agitate the ink and help with flow. The regular Pilot ink cartridges have a plastic ball inside, not metal. I prefer the metal balls, so I refill the mixable color cartridges with bottled fountain pen ink. The metal balls will rattle a bit if you shake the pen though, so if that bothers you then use the regular Pilot cartridges.
Finally, I seem to remember that you can fit a Pilot converter in the V5 pen. The CON-20 squeeze converter fits, but that’s going to be replaced by the CON-40 piston converter soon. The squeeze converter that comes with the Pilot MR/Metropolitan fits, but that’s a crummy converter. I don’t remember if the CON-50 converter fits. The CON-70 converter is probably too big. Note, you will have to take the converter out of the pen to refill it since you can’t really suck ink up thorough the nib. But refilling the converter is (arguably) easier than syringe refilling cartridges.
Have Fun, David