Another one of the great new Lamy products from JetPens, the Lamy Balloon Roller Ball is a very cool pen. The great looking translucent colored barrels sold me, but would the performance keep me around? Would you expect anything else from Lamy?
The Balloon Roller feels great in the hand. The plastic barrel is lightweight, but in traditional Lamy style, it also feels very sturdy. This is no cheap plastic pen here for sure. I love how it writes too, but I do have a couple of minor concerns that keep this pen from being perfect. One, I am getting a little skipping from the ink cartridge. Until I can order a new cartridge, I am chalking this up as a fluke. I either need to give this refill a good writing workout, or try another one to compare. I have marked on the review where you can see the skipping. From past experience, this seems like an outlier.
Secondly, I love the look of the clip, but I wish it was a little tighter. That is an extremely minor complaint, but being used to how snappy the clips are on the Safaris and AL-Stars, this one is a bit of a let down. It is by no means a deal breaker though. It's just if I was making the perfect pen I would make it tighter.
In the big picture, I like the Balloon Roller more than the AL-Star roller I reviewed recently. It feels better, and I am enjoying the blue liquid ink more than the black. It doesn't seem as wet, and if I can get past the skipping it will be great.
Click here for the XL review.
Products used:
Lamy Balloon Roller Ball Pen - Blue Body from JetPens
Writing Pad from Doane Paper
