Pentel Hybrid Gel Roller Gold

This gold Pentel Hybrid Gel Roller was part of my massive thrift store haul of pens that I posted about a few weeks ago.  I suspect this is an older version of the pen.  A very similar pen called the Pentel Hybrid Gel Grip (looks basically the same as this pen, but with a grip) is still available, and, while the gold Hybrid Gel Roller is shown on Pentel's website, it is marked as out of stock.  Regardless, I thought this pen would be worth a quick review anyway.

The design of the Hybrid Gel Roller is very basic.  The pen is long and slender, and reminds me of nothing more than the classic Bic Cristal ballpoint - a pen that I do have fond childhood memories of.  It has a faceted clear plastic barrel with a basic cap.  Branding is minimal.  The newer Grip version is essentially identical in appearance except that the colour of the cap is matched to the ink colour and it has, of course, a basic grip.

I wasn't expecting this pen to write very well, but it ended up being better than I thought it would be.  It does not write as smoothly as I would expect of a 0.8mm pen, but it does lay down a relatively consistent line of ink.  The consistency of the ink reminds me a bit of that of the Sakura Gelly Roll (although the Gelly Roll is way smoother), but the Hybrid Gel Roller writes with a slightly finer line.  I'm not sure if the "Hybrid" in the title refers to some property of the ink, but the ink is apparently water- and fade-resistant.

My favourite part of this pen is the ink colour.  It's warm yellowy gold colour with a definite metallic sheen.  A good metallic pen can be almost as difficult to find as a good white pen, but this one is really not too bad.  As you can see in the photo above, the ink also shows up equally well on both white and dark paper, which is an added bonus (the white ink in the photo is that of the Uni-ball Signo Broad, just for comparison).  I expect that I will get a lot of use out of this pen in my art journal and for craft projects.

While I doubt that I would ever specifically recommend this pen, you could give it a try if you ever run across one of these or the Grip version and if it seems like something that you might be interested in.  It is an okay pen, but there are also better ones out there.

Related review: The Pen Addict.