Better than a Parker! (Lamy Alstar Graphit Fountain Pen)

Member Name: Gemma1990

Product:	Lamy Alstar Graphit Fountain Pen
Date:	02/08/08 (343 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smooth writing, comfortable grip, lightweight, ink lasts ages

Disadvantages: none!

I got this pen a couple of years ago, and I've used quite a lot of pens for all of my college work, and I must say that this pen has been my all time favourite.

I have used many parker pens, and I have to say, that compared to this pen, they don't write smoothly at all! This fountain pen writes extremely smoothly on all surfaces, and makes your writing look professional and neat all the time, which for me is a very good bonus!

It's very comfortable to hold, as it's got a good size hand grip, and a good width to the pen itself. The grip depends on what type of Lamy pen you buy, mine (Alstar) has a plastic grip that's smooth to hold onto, however some of the grips for example on the Safari make, the grips are made from the same type of plastic as the rest of the pen, and aren't as easy to hold onto in my opinion.

The paper clip looking grip on the lid is very useful for clipping it to things and it doesn't break easily at all, as it's made from metal, so unlike other pens this doesn't snap.

I'd never heard of this make of pen before I bought this one, so I thought that the ink cartridges may be hard to get hold of, but they are as easy to get as the parker ones! They cost around a fiver, if not a bit more, but the price does tend to vary from place to place.

It takes the long cartridges, and the ink lasts a very reasonable amount time. I had found that with other pens, I would get through endless amounts of cartrdiges, but this pen seemed to make the ink last longer!

This pen is available in a variety of different colours, however, I've only ever seen a silver or black pen in the shops, the other colours seem to be quite hard to get hold of, however amazon.co.uk has a good selection!

It is available in roller ball as well, but the ink pen is my favourite!
These come in black or blue ink.

One warning with this pen, DONT DROP IT! I unfortunately dropped it not that long ago, and one of the tips bent slightly, and it hasn't written the same since... Which is why I bought another one!

Overall this fountain pen is so much better than a parker, and is totally worth the money!

Summary: Much better than a Parker pen, definitely worth a try!