What are the best writing pens?

When I started going to school, selecting a comfortable writing pen wasn‘t my greatest concern (I didn‘t even care about what could be the best writing pen). It just had to be cheap and write - that‘s all! Eventually it had to be labeled with the name of my favorite sports team, a Walt Disney character or it had to make annoying noises when dis- and reassembled so we could make funny noises during boring lessons. Nobody cared about pens really as long as they wrote in blue or black ink as the teacher wanted it...

But as the years passed and college approached it started to be more and more important to choose the right writing equipment! In college finally I had to write a lot! So it finally was very important to have a comfortable pen because I couldn‘t just use any pen I wanted. Most of them gave me blisters after a while, or the ink was cheap and didn‘t dry fast enough (that‘s a problem If you want to mark text in a book and don‘t have the time to wait 10 minutes for the markings to dry before turning the page). So I asked myself what is the best writing pen? From then on I started looking for the perfect writing pen - and trust me, I have tested a lot of them!

First of all - there are a great number of different pen types. But i don't want to go into the theory of how they're called and their history etc. What i want to tell you is which pens are the most comfortable to use and increase your productivity.

Most of us started writing using a fountain pen. Fountain pens can be very beautiful when signing an important contract. But that‘s not an ideal pen because it can be very messy dealing with liquid ink (not to mention the time it takes to refill some of them). Then again the good ones are very expensive and I tried the more expensive ones but when you have to care about your 100$ (and upwards!) pen all the time you won‘t be writing fast but always worrying not to apply to much force or when to refill the liquid ink as it starts to loose its color. And you‘re also not likely to own several expensive fountain pens, which is crucial if you go to an exam and suddenly the pen malfunctions. So what you need is a comfortable, yet cheap pen, that is easy to refill (or needs no refill at all) and is also durable! Writing fast means not thinking about the pen but rather just transferring your thoughts on a piece of paper as fast as you can.

There are 4 pen categories I‘d like to take a look at:

-Ballpoint pens and rollerball pens (they aren‘t the same but most people and even shops you buy them don‘t know the difference or just pretend to do, telling you all sorts of stuff).

-Pencils (they are the best tool for sketching something during an exam and the best when it comes to ease of erasability)

-Highlighters or text-markers (the most important pen if you have to read a lot!)

-Precision-pens (if you need to write really exact or small!)

1. The best everyday writing pen

This is the most used pen in everyday life, and you need it all the time not only during lectures also at work when taking notes or during a break when solving a crossword.

What I found to be the most comfortable pen after trying out hundreds of pens is the SLIDER Memo from the German manufacturer Schneider. It‘s a ballpoint pen that uses a special writing ink called ViscoGlide®-ink and trust me, you‘ll write dam fast (gliding over the paper with literally no friction), and its comfort is a dream due to it‘s ergonomic rubber pen barrel. It also dries within seconds making it wipe-proof. The black ink is very beautiful and the pen made my (ugly ;)) handwriting look a lot better (maybe due to the small amount of friction?)

2. The best pencil

This clearly is the Tikky from rotring, it‘s extremely comfortable and available in different line widths but 0.5mm HB turned out to be the best pencil lead to write and sketch (that is also true for any type of pencil)

3. The best Highlighter

This one‘s crucial because when reading books most of the more famous highlighters you would find in every store take ages to dry and working with them is just time consuming.

So what I found to be the best text-marker is the KORES bright liner from KORES. Not only does it dry within a fraction of a second due to it‘s water based, solvent free ink (which is also an ecological plus) it‘s also very ergonomic and compact.

4. The most precise Pen

These pens are especially important if you need to write small AND exact! In certain subjects you're allowed to write cheat sheets but often just 1-2 pages so you want to get them as full as you can! So here I would recommend using a "pigment liner" from STAEDTLER. The smallest pen they offer is a 0.05mm fine pen! Imagine that! But they also have 0.1, 0.2 and upwards sizes if you don't want to go THAT small ;)

O.k. and why pigment ink? Simple: it's lightfast, waterproof, and does not bleed which is important when writing on a small scale (normal Fineliners would give you a huge painted spot when you try to write small!).

Using these pens you should be able to write more and faster which makes you a lot more productive! Trust me when I say once again that I have tested pens for years ordering new ones over the internet from around the world every month and those are the best pens I have found so far. But if you have any suggestions or favorites please let me know :).