Posts filed under Highlighter

Zebra Justfit Mojini Line Highlighter

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter.)

A new semester is starting! It's time to pack away the holidays, dust off the textbooks, and re-stock the school supplies. Whether you've got a mountain of studies on the horizon, or just need to color-code your calendar or planner, highlighters are essential. The Zebra Justfit highlighters have impressed me in the past, so I was excited to give the Mojini Line Highlighters a try.

When you're in a study crunch, a highlighter is just a highlighter--but this one has a few features that might help make things go more smoothly.

The chisel tip has a very narrow profile and flexible felt, so it glides a little extra smoothly across the page. And the flex means you don't have to line the tip up with the text perfectly to get straight, even lines. It will bend itself into a neat 4mm line, even over curved pages.

The construction of the marker is really good. It feels solid and durable--almost too nice to be disposable, but, alas, it is not refillable. There is a fair amount of branding and text on the white plastic of the pen body. There is a color band on the body and on the cap roll-stopper to indicate the ink color. The cap closes and posts very well. I wish the roll-stopper was a clip. I tend to use my highlighters as bookmarks and clip them to the pages I'm studying--but most highlighters do have clips, so I suppose it's nice that there are some without, for those who prefer that.

The ink is the main feature of this particular highlighter. The colors are standard fare. This 3-pack has yellow, green, and pink. Blue and red are available separately or in the five-color pack. The ink isn't too bright, doesn't bleed, dries very quickly, and doesn't smudge. All great things, especially if you're highlighting on both sides of thin paper or on notes written with liquid inks.

While I didn't notice any significant smearing, there was some discoloration to the tip of the marker, so not all the ink stayed put. That discolored area did then leave a dingy line when I used it next. I've yet to find a felt-tip highlighter that entirely dodged that issue, though.

This 3-pack is priced at $4.95, and individual highlighters are $1.95. It's a fair price, I think, for the quality.

Now that we've had this little diversion, I think it's best we get back to our studies.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on January 10, 2019 by Sarah Read and filed under Zebra, Highlighter, Pen Reviews.

Tombow Mono Edge Dual-tip Highlighter Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

Highlighters may not be the most exciting category of stationery, but they're extremely helpful and useful tools. Like any tool, most people like to use the best ones available to them. With the Tombow Mono Edge dual-tip highlighters pack, your highlighting bases are covered.

The Tombow Mono Edge pack contains six different highlighters that all pack two different tips on either end. In the set, you have a wide range of color options, from golden yellow, pink, purple, red, sky blue, and yellow green. These colors provide a lot of contrast when marking up pages, and they seem to play nicely with most inks (fountain pens excluded).

The main selling feature of these highlighters is the dual tip action. On the top of the pen, there's a cap with a clip that houses the larger of the two highlighter tips. This tip is about 4mm wide and has a nicely chiseled shape. You can also turn the tip on the end to get a fine line, and you can also orient the chisel sideways to draw a thinner line.

The bottom cap houses a small 0.8mm highlighter tip. In my experience, this has been great for underlining passages. This requires less ink but still does a great job of calling out the text later. The bottom tip is a plain round shape that doesn't offer much flexibility.

Both ends of every highlighter move across the page with ease, and I have had zero issues with ink delivery. On the other hand, I haven't had any bleed issues either. The tips and ink used in these pens is top notch.

Each cap can securely post onto the other cap while you use the pen. Since they're made of plastic, the pens are very lightweight, but they don't feel delicate or fragile. These have held up great in my daily carry without any other protection.

When testing these highlighters, I was pretty happy with the results. They caused bleed and smearing with most of the fountain pens I tried, but that's the nature of the inks when they mix. Anything non-water-based did fantastic.

I tried several types of paper, and it didn't make much difference with these highlighters. The short poem I used as a demonstration was printed on cheap 20# copy paper from Target, and it performed well.

Whether you're a student, artist, like keeping a journal or daily planner, or anyone who enjoys bright colors, the Tombow Mono Edge highlighters are excellent. They're also a great value. For just under $10, you get six double-tipped highlighter pens that cover the spectrum of colors. No matter your ink combo, you can find a highlighter color in this pack that contrasts well.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Posted on October 31, 2018 by Jeff Abbott and filed under Tombow, Highlighter, Pen Reviews.

Pentel Fitline Highlighter Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter.)

The Pentel Fitline set of highlighters includes the standard basics--yellow, pink, orange, green, and blue. They're double-ended, with the classic chisel tip at one end and a 1 mm bullet felt tip at the other. They're designed to work both for highlighting and quick note taking, though that always baffles me a bit. Generally, ink bright enough to highlight is terrible for reading notes, and ink dark enough to read is terrible for highlighting. Still, the design persists across a number of brands, so maybe I'm missing something.

These are, in nearly every way, just your standard highlighters. They've set themselves apart with two features, though. One is a notched neck which allows the chisel tip to flex a bit for easier highlighting over curved pages. It's an interesting feature in theory, but I didn't see much flex in my samples. In order to get any bending, I had to press hard enough that the tip was getting squished and there was a risk of ink bleeding. It's possible they'd become more flexible with use. And due to their other unique feature--they are refillable--it is actually worthwhile to break them in. The refill is for pigment only and does not include a replacement tip, so eventually the tip will move past the broken-in phase and become worn out--at which point the whole pen will have to be replaced.

These are on the pricier side for a standard highlighter at $1.75 apiece. And refills are $1.40--quite high for pigment alone. That cost would make sense if you were getting a replacement tip, and I wonder if the felt tips will last more than a few fillings.

The tips do write smoothly and well. The ink distributes evenly and there are no issues with bleeding or show-through, even on cheap printer paper. There was some slight smearing on rollerball and gel pen ink, but surprisingly none with fountain pen ink. It also did well over pencil, ballpoint, and printer ink.

The clips are sturdy and have enough space between them and the body to be clipped to a book cover. The caps snap securely and both can be posted to the other, but the fine-point end caps are very small--so be careful not to lose them.

Overall, I think these are a good quality school supply, if a bit on the pricier side. They work very well, but fall short of being anything particularly innovative. For highlighters, though, my only real expectation is that they be practical, and these do that very well.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!