I seem to have recently started my own Parker fan club having owned 4 pens in the last few months, I'll admit it's the vector rollerball that's been getting the most use from myself. Costing just £1.99 from the works when I got it, the pen has a “street map” graphic across the barrel which ... Read review
Advantages: Cheap, Parker, Quality Disadvantages: Mine looks unprofessional, MArks through the paper
...have recently started my own Parker fan club having owned 4 pens in the last few months, I'll admit it's the vector rollerball that's been getting the most use from myself. Costing just £1.99 from the works when I got it, the pen has a “street map” graphic across the barrel which seems rather childish but yet likeable, even more so when you realise you're getting a Parker at that sort of a price. It's not the most professional of the Parker's out ... .../>
When compared to other Parker pens it's incredibly light, mainly down to the fact that the bulk of the pen is a light plastic with a steel but and steel arrow logo on the lid (as well as a metal cartridge) unlike the others which seem to be heavy plastic or metal with a spring loaded structure. It's a simple “stick” style pen, with no twisting or clicking to get it to work, just whip the lid off and you're ready to write.
I seem to have recently started my own Parker fan club having owned 4 pens in the last few months, I'll admit it's the vector rollerball that's been getting the most use from myself. Costing just £1.99 from the works when I got it, the pen has a “street map” graphic across the barrel which seems rather childish but yet likeable, even more so when you realise you're getting a Parker at that sort of a price. It's not the most professional of the Parker's out there, pens like the jet black M2 are much more “business” modelled than this one but it's hard not to like it's charm even if it does look more like it'd feel at home in a 13 year old girls pencil case. The pen, as all Parker's with lids seem to have, posses a metal “butt” to place the lid on when the pen is in use.
When compared to other Parker pens it's incredibly light, mainly down to the fact that the bulk of the pen is a light plastic with a steel but and steel arrow logo on the lid (as well as a metal cartridge) unlike the others which seem to be heavy plastic or metal with a spring loaded structure. It's a simple “stick” style pen, with no twisting or clicking to get it to work, just whip the lid off and you're ready to write.
So onto actually using the pen, which as we will all be aware is easy and a relative pleasure usually with Parker's. As this is a roller ball for some reason it seems easier than normal Parker's to write with, everything comes out smoothly and easily and it appears to be even more of a pleasure than usual. A problem with some ball based pens (biros and rollers) is that the ink decides to stop working at random points during you're writing here however the ink just flows and flows and flows, it's never in the 3 months I've had it decided to be a bit of a nuisance. Though with it being 3 months I may end up needing to buy new ink for it as it won't last much longer.
This brings us to the ink of the pen which is what the company are selling by the name of “quink” which I'll happily suppose is short for “quick ink”, an idea that is sublime and helps the device no end to do what it needs to do. The ink is almost impossible to smudge (unless you deliberately draw a larger mess deep with ink then try even then it's very little actual mess) and dries almost immediately. Though this came free with the pen I'm not sure on it's stand alone price. Though it needs to be said the ink can mark through 80gsm paper which isn't very pleasing.
The pen is (as previously said) refillable with Parker cartridges, though it came with a blue medium point roller ball one when I bought it, I've yet to need to refill it.
Overall it's a delightful pen to use, one of the cheapest Parker's on the market and although it's not the most business like who cares when you are getting a very top quality pen for less than £2? Of course they don't all come with the silly pattern on that mine did so it's the only vector I've ever seen for less than £2.
