Pentel Slicci .25 Gel Ink Pen Review

An array of Pentel Slicci...or is is Sliccis?

The fine folks over at Pentel of America asked me if I would want to review some of the .25mm Slicci gel ink pens, and since I’d never turn down the opportunity to try out some new office supplies, here they are.  Before I continue though, what is the correct plural form of Slicci?  Is Sliccis correct, or is it just Slicci?  Anyone?

The long skinny stems and bright colorful tops of the Pentel Sliccis remind me of a bouquet of flowers.

One thing that always jumps out about the Pentel Slicci pens of any size are the bright and vibrant colors of the body and caps.  I guess that is why the picture of Woody above with his hand full of pens reminds me of a bouquet of flowers.  This version of the Slicci that they sent me to review is the .25mm, which is drastically different from the .7mm Sliccis that I reviewed before.  Pentel sent over 8 different colors of this pen: Baby Blue, Purple, Blue, Pink, Black, Orange, Green, and Red.

Writing with these pens was surprisingly smooth, not as smooth as the .7mm version, but to expect a .7mm and .25mm version of a pen to feel the same when writing is probably a bit unfair.  Depending on the brand of pen, anything below a .5mm tip has the potential to be very scratchy or spotty when writing with it, but that is not the case with the .25mm Sliccis.  They definitely just as smoothly as some of the other pens that I have tried in similar sizes, and they also lay down a very solid line of color with virtually no skipping or white spots.

Comparison of the Pentel Slicci points. From left to right is the .25mm, .3mm, .4mm, and .7mm.

The above picture shows a comparison of the Slicci points which go up in size from left to right.  One of my only complaints about this pen is more just regarding my personal preference of having a thicker barrel and tip to hold onto when I write, but that certainly shouldnt stop you from buying this pen if you are comfortable writing with pens with a thinner barrel.

The Pentel Slicci .25mm writing samples done in my Whitelines graph paper notebook.

The writing sample that I did with the .25mm Sliccis, was done in my Whitelines graph paper notebook, and they did really well on this paper.  The pens skate over the paper very smoothly for a point of this size, and the colors are really bright and solid.  When you look at the full size picture of the writing sample you can really see that these pens dont skip a beat when you write with them.  Im not sure why, but next to the black ink swatch I wrote the Japanese characters that I “think” mean black….they were on the back of the cap really big where the other pens had the color written in English, so Im just guessing there.  I also dont know why I thought it was funny, but on the back of the cap it says “Use upright/gently” which I assume means if you dont do both you might get a poor writing experience…I just appreciate Pentel telling me to be gentle with their pens because nobody should mistreat their pens.

On the bottom of the writing sample I also did a comparison of the other size Slicci points that I have.  The text below the words “Size Comparison” were written with the different size pens indicated, and I tried to draw solid lines that transition from size to size slowly getting larger on the horizontal and vertical sides of the actual text.  Hopefully having the lines run into each other like that is helpful in getting a feel for the size of the lines.

Overall I think the Pentel Sliccis are great to write with, and these .25mm versions are similar to what I currently use for marking additional notes in my daily planner.  I think I’ve mentioned it before, but when I write down my daily “to do” items, I like to use a very fine point pen to update the status of it like writing “waiting for response to email” or something like that in the margin next to or on the top/bottom of the line.  Having such smooth writing and bright color pens with such a fine and precise point are ideal for this task for me.    Check out Pentel’s site or you can also pick up the .25mm Pentel Slicci from Dick Blick Arts if you are interested in buying these pens, they are a great addition to Pentel’s Slicci line if you are looking for a quality fine point gel ink pen.

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