Before I left my day job to focus on The Pen Addict full time, I was in the IT field. I was with the same company for around 15 years, 12 of that in the same facility. I knew a lot of people there, and a lot of them knew me as the pen guy.
For the few that were interested past the “oh, that’s nice,” phase, there were two pens that were their favorites: the Pilot G2, and the Zebra F-301.
I understood the love for the G2. Still do. It’s a rock solid gel ink pen that writes smooth and has dark ink. Wide availability on store shelves expanded its popularity. If you liked school supplies when you were a kid, you were prone to grab a pack of G2’s when you saw them, and sung their praises once compared to the general office supplies you were stuck with at work.
The F-301 was different. There is no doubt that it looked cool, and while not near as ubiquitous as the G2, it was reasonably available at office supply stores, if not grocery stores. And F-301 fans? The ones I met were passionate about this little pen. I’m never one to yuck someone’s yum, but let’s just say my feelings were not as strong about this pen as the G2 at the time.
The biggest failure with the design of the F-301 is the grip. It looks great on the shelf, but once you unpack the pen and hold it, it becomes evident how uncomfortable the plastic ridges are on your fingertips. For a quick note it is passable, but any longer writing is out of the question.
Still, the F-301 proved to be popular due to its construction. It is a durable pen, and the refill was good enough. And I’m happy that this pen has been a success for Zebra, because they took what worked well with the F-301 and improved on it. There is a softer grip model in the F-402, and they eventually added gel refill options in the various G-series models, including the two I’m going to talk about today.
The G-450 and the G-750 are a continuation of the F-301 family tree, and pretty darn good ones at that. The G-450 is the shorter of the two pens by just under a half an inch, and features a rubber grip. The G-750 features a similar full-metal exterior, with the addition of a knurled metal grip. It also has a subtle triangle-shaped upper barrel, while the G-450 is essentially round. The G-designation on both pens mean they use gel ink, 0.7 mm black gel ink to be specific.
Comparing these two pens is difficult because there is not much that separates them from each other. The G-450 rubber grip is the superior of the two, which is hard for me to say as a knurled grip fan. The G-750 knurling is so fine and tight that the grip feels smooth. That’s not how I ever want to describe knurling. There has to be some grab in there, and there isn’t.
I will say that the nose cone design of the G-750 catches my eye. It has four angled steps down towards the tip of the pen, which allows for a great view of the tip and the page you are writing on. There’s nothing wrong with the front-end shape of the G-450, but the G-750 had me inspecting it, wondering why I liked it so much.
With matching 0.7 mm black gel ink refills, there is obviously no difference in writing performance between the two. The ink is dark, and the tip is smooth on the page. There are minimal swappable refill options for these pens, but JetPens does list a few, including 0.5 mm choices. I don’t think you will be successful hacking refills into either of these barrels, as the interior barrel opening for the refill is narrow. In fact, I had a hard time putting the refill back in one of the pens when I removed it for inspection.
Between the two, the G-450 is the clear winner. The grip is more comfortable, and combined with the shorter length, it felt better in my hand while writing. Plus, it is $7.00, while the G-750 runs $9.50.
If you like gel ink pens with upgraded metal barrels, I think you will be happy with either of these options from Zebra. Myself, I’m happy that they keep building and iterating on an interesting product lineup that differentiates them from the competition. I hope that continues.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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