Plumix Fountain Pen Review

The Pilot Pen Company has an affordable fountain pen called Plumix. Recently, I decided to try the pen out to see if it's any good. I'm old fashioned I guess in that I like fountain pens even though they're expensive and can be messy to work with. The Plumix pen is pretty affordable as it'll cost you under $10 at Target stores that sell them. Unlike Pilot's disposable Varsity fountain pen, the Plumix is refillable and takes Pilot/Namiki cartridges. Pilot states that there are only 2 colors of ink available - blue and black. This is wrong. You can also use Pilot/Namiki green, red and purple ink cartridges in the pen. I tested the pen with one of the purple cartridges and, it wrote fine. However, the red, purple, green and black only come in 6 cartridge boxes whereas the blue cartridges also come in 12 cartridge boxes. The 12 cartridge box is cheaper per cartridge than the 6. The Pen Boutique store (http://www.penboutique.com) in Columbia, Maryland sells the 12 cartridge box for $4.60 while a 6 cartridge box will cost you $3.30.

Writing wise, I found the Plumix didn't write as well as the Varsity. It seems to scratch the paper whereas the Varsity seems to glide across it. Like the Varsity, the ink does bleed through the paper you write on. This can be a problem if you try to write on both sides of a sheet of paper. At times, the pen would poke through the paper where I'd written on the other side with it. The pen uses a standard medium stainless steel (I believe that's what it's made of) nib.

The pen comes in single pen and 3 pen packs. It has 3 colors - a translucent purple, translucent blue and translucent black. This can be handy as it enables you to see if you have a cartridge in the pen. I don't know if you can use a refillable ink cartridge with the pen.

Overall, it's a decent cheap fountain pen though I'd recommend the disposable Varsity as it seems to write better. It does have the advantage over the Varsity in that it's refillable and, you can better see just how much ink you have left in the cartridge. Varsity has a window where you can see this somewhat but, I don't think it's as good as being able to look directly at the cartridge. Another problem you may encounter with the Plumix is being able to buy one. Fountain pens aren't easy to find if they can be found at all. Pilot does sell the pen on its website http://www.pilotpen.us/ which can be the easiest way to buy the Plumix or Varsity. Happy writing all.