The pen itself is a Japanese exclusive in Pearl white that I found on Amazon. I picked it up because it accepts Parker G2 refills, and there are a lot of different g2 refills that could potentially be awesome. I picked up a Schneider Viscoglide extra bold blue in 1.4mm.

Here are my thoughts. The Zebra g-750 I picked up for half the price has about the same build quality, same heft, and virtually no rattle compared to the Rotring. the Zebra uses gel ink and writes like a dream. No skipping, no bleed through. The Rotring writes like a bic, but is probably 20x the price. The cartridge itself doesn’t matter as it can be swapped, but the Rotring pen is rattly. I have a few Zebra Sarasa Grands, and they’re about $11 a pop and they also don’t rattle.

The Rotring is like made in Germany, so I would expect precision, especially with a tool that’s designed for technical drafting and other professional use.

The Schneider cartridge is too bold. I mean damn I do love a bold pen, but seems like I hit the wall at 1mm.

I tried the Schneider hoping it would be on par with the Uniball Jetstream which is a very slippy oil hybrid ink. It’s not really even close. After a few minutes of writing I decided I do like it, and it is document certified, but I think I’ll look for 0.7mm next time.

The TLDR on inks, gel based inks are not as durable, they fade over time. Even 2-3 years for some water based inks will cause it to fade.

Oil based inks are thick, sticky, and sit on top of the paper. Uniball’s Jetstream ink is close to writing with a gel pen, but it’s actually oil based with higher viscosity.

At the end of the day, I guess I’m a gel ink guy.