I brought both this black pen and a blue pen.

Both are very usable but how well they work is dependent on what sort of paper you are writing on.

I found that 80gsm slightly shiny paper worked the best with standard photocopy/printer paper being the worst as it seemed to wick the ink out of the pen causing ink blobs and smeared words.

The blue pen I received was the worst offender for this but that could be just the particular unit I got.

And if you have large hands you will want to have the cap on the end of the pen whilst in use as the pen itself is repetitively short (approx 2cm shorter than a standard BIC pen).

Fantastic pen.

If you want a grab it quick and take it with you fountain pen to bundle with your journal so you don't lose your good pen while you're out and about, – this is the one for you. This is my second black Pilot fountain pen having managed to successfully lose my first one through no fault of its own (see previous sentence). The nib on this one seems to be a little finer than my last pen and it writes very nicely somehow managing to make my usual beetle track handwriting look better than it really is. I've mainly been using it in spiral bound notebooks with a reasonable grade of paper, but I don't think it would do so well on cheaper grades, but that would be about the same for any fountain pen no matter how good it might be.