The Well-Appointed Desk

Pilot has made so many different variations of the Frixion line of erasable pens. Its a little bit confusing. There are highlighters, needlepoint “Point”, gel pens, markers and the “Color-Pencil-Like” pens. For you, my fine readers, I was willing to try these Frixion markers with the very weird description.

I purchased the 6-color assortment pack of the Pilot Frixion Color-Pencil-Like 0.7mm erasable gel pens ($13). The pens are plastic and have a faceted body to appear and feel a bit like a hexagonal pencil. The caps do not have clips, just a little nub to make it easier to remove the cap. The erasers for each pen are mounted on the end of the cap so that, when posted, the eraser is still accessible. The set came with yellow, red, blue, green, tea brown and black pens.

My first mistake was probably buying a pre-selected set of six since several of these colors I never would have purchased individually. Nine times out of ten, a yellow pen is useless for writing of any sort and the yellow Frixion is no exception. Because its a 0.7mm rollerball gel pen, its doubly true. The yellow is not wide enough to be used as a highlighter so it really is not particularly useable.

I would have much preferred trying an orange, purple, or one of the more unusual colors likt the gray, ultramarine blue or purplish red pens over this uninspired assortment.

If what you’re looking for with these pens is a pretty smooth, pretty quick-drying  0.7mm rollerball pen that erases, then these might be perfect. If you were genuinely hoping to have a uniquely “pencll-like” experience, then you will be disappointed.The pens did not seem to lend themselves to coloring large areas like I might do with a colored pencil so I’m not sure what Pilot was hoping people would do with these pens?

The product is described as “vibrant colors” but this particular assortment is very dark and solemn in tone. The red is the most vivid color in the set. The green is an evergreen color and even the blue is more blue-black than a bright royal or true blue. And the yellow is a total waste.

All of the pens in the set erased as well as any of the other Frixion products I’ve tried. The erasing is far superior to any other erasable pens I’ve ever used so if that’s a key feature for you, then these might prove useful.

In the end, I may have been more disappointed by the color assortment in this set than the actual writing experience. These are quite smooth and, even for a lefty, I had no smudging issues or false starts. Also, the writing experience was not “color-pencil-like” so I was disappointed by the sales pitch. They are just gel pens.

There is no cost benefit to buying a set of these pens rather than buying the pens individually ($2.15 each) so if you’re interested in trying these, I’d recommend building your own color assortment and avoiding the yellow altogether. There are other yellowish hues like the mountain yellow and yellow ochre available that might be a darker shade and more useable color than the yellow.

If you’re interested in trying some of the Frixion line, I prefer the Frixion Point 04 line and the Soft Color Highlighters. See my full review here.

DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to me free of charge by Jet Pens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.