Pilot Petit1 Fountain Pen in Apple Green

Being a big fan of Pilot, the color green and cute appearance, it was a love-at-first-sight when I saw Pilot Petit1 Fountain Pen (at Jetpens ...where else). Since I already have a few other items in my to-buy list, I went ahead and ordered it immediately. After all, it's a 3.8-dollar fountain pen and it's green, what can possibly go wrong? It sort of did...and I am not even certain that if I call it a fountain pen.

Pilot Plumix Fountain Pen with Italic Nib

I wanted something thick and stylized (to add title to some of my stupid drawing) so I picked up Pilot Plumix at  because at the time, it seemed easier than ordering a broad 78G from Hong Kong (and let the US custom hold it for a whole week).  I mean, the nib on the two are supposedly the same...or not. 

If I am not mistaken, Pilot Plumix is a range that's available only in the west (found it on Target's site but didn't see them in store yet) as I have never seen or heard about it in other Chinese discussion boards or even on Pilot's main page. So far, I have only seen them in medium italic nib personally but I have seen double broad on Youtube (the person is based in Poland).

As soon as I received the pen, my first impression is that the pen looked and felt (still does!) rather cheap, as the plastic is lighter and thinner compared to their ink gel pen. Small internal crack appeared within one day of use, which didn't really surprise me...

The ergonomic grip section of Plumix is exactly the same as that of the Penmanship (love that one, will review later). With a good nib, it's comfortable and lets everything fall into places naturally but becomes somewhat of a nuisance on this particular pen. The drier-than-usual nib requires harder grip and the distance from the center of the grip to nib is a little long so it just feels awkward. (The ink flow on Penmanship is so good that I can just resort by holding near the thread).

 The Plumix's medium italic nib was very dry, requiring a lot of force for any ink to come out (semi-consistently) and I only get that bit of consistency when I write in a up-and-down vertical motion. Since I naturally write thing slanted, it's awkward and make my handwriting uglier (to me, defeats the purpose of a fountain pen and broad nib)...The flow has gotten better after several pages of (uncomfortable) note-taking but it still is an awkward writer to me. Maybe I shouldn't complain this much, consider it's actually smoother than the Lamy Safari FF nib (after 3 whole months of breaking in).

A writing sample of Pilot Plumix with J. Herbin Poussiere de Lune (the pretty ink distracts me from the hideous writing a little)- done when I was literally digging on the paper. If I use my standard writing pressure, this would be much uglier...

Overall: Maybe it's just my bad luck the quality control or my writing style but I dislike almost everything about the Plumix :  the design (always thought the squid body is alien-like and in a completely non-cute way), construction, material (light and cheap), nib (dry and inconsistent) ...I should have gone for the 78G in Broad instead.

P.S. I bought it at Jetpens, where you can also read other (negative customer) reviews (that are similar to mine).