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Comment by kstrauser | Hacker News Reader

I've had quite a few nice pens over the years. For me, Lamy Safari with its triangular grip is peak ergonomics, and its price-per-usability is fantastic. I tend to have a claw-like grip, and the Safari forces me to hold it in a way that my hand doesn't cramp after 3 minutes. It's great. I love it.

But for quick jotting, like making shopping lists or bullet journal notetaking, I'm on board with this list's top ballpoint pick, the Uni Jetstream. If all ballpoints were this smooth and pleasant to use, I never would've bothered investigating fountain pens. I think they're fantastic, supremely reasonably priced, and rugged enough to lose in the bottom of a bag without leaking all over stuff.

I love my Safaris, but when I need to jot something down, I reach for the Jetstream.

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I'm also a big fan of the Jestreams, in particular the "Uni Jetstream Standard Ballpoint Pen - 0.5 mm". 5-6 years ago on a similar thread here or elsewhere, found a pointer to them and got a few, and I really like the precise line it makes, so I can do (what one of my coworkers called) "microwriting" between other lines of text. I use them mostly for note taking and bullet journaling. I've since gotten a few of the dozen packs, they are reasonably priced.

I wish I had a better solution for todo lists though. For a couple years I used a book and pen for managing my todo list, but always felt like an automated solution would just be better. I tried a Kindle Scribe and used that for around a year. It was a good "basic" writing experience, but really brought very little over just pen and paper (except that I never had to struggle with keeping the pages laying flat). I decided to try an Onyx Boox Note 3 as a "better Scribe", but shortly after that I abandoned the todo list entirely. Tried taskninja, but never stuck there either.

Any pro tips?

Not really. I have a Travelers Notebook with their own lined paper. I got that for the goofiest of reasons: so I could feel like Indiana Jones when I was taking notes for my Diablo game. I’ve started using it for bullet journaling as an experiment.

> I got that for the goofiest of reasons: so I could feel like Indiana Jones when I was taking notes for my Diablo game.

Nah, that's the coolest of reasons \m/

The stock nib is also excellent when inverted (writing with the pen rolled over so that the “top” of the nib is now the side touching the paper). This is extremely useful when annotating diagrams, for example, as the writing is hyper fine.

I wanted to love TWSBI but our honeymoon period ended when nearly all of my barrels developed hairline fractures.

That's amazing and it never occurred to me to try it!

I've had good luck with TWSBI. They're so pretty! I haven't used them too heavily or outside of a desktop environment though.

I've had a few TWSBIs over the last 5 years or so and I love them. Haven't had any hairline fractures yet - any idea what may have caused them? Am curious now

Three Vac Minis purchased between 2022 and 2024 and all three have developed longitudinal micro fractures on the threading between the grip and the body, and the threading around the pump-cap and the body-end. On two of them this eventually led to an ink leak.

The pens travel with me during ~3h of weekly bicycle commuting between my home and my work, store in a pen case in my backpack. They’re not being babied, but I’m hardly kicking them down a mountain either.

My Vac700R, ECO, and Diamond580 are all doing fine but they definitely are deskbound and haven’t seen nearly as much much field use.

I love Safaris too, but unfortunately I handwrite very seldom and the Safaris tend to dry out quite quickly in my experience. I've got the Kaweco Sport, which sends to last much longer, probably because of its tight screw-top seal.

Oh, very nice. I tended to use the Safari enough to use it before it dried. Having the option to not to is nice.

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