I’ve been wanting to write a review about this (presumably fabulous) pen for quite a while now. Whenever I have come across an exemplar of it anywhere, I admittedly had a quite hard time passing it by. This short personal note shall suffice as a quick introduction. Having disclosed my pre-existing sympathies, I have still done my best to keep the review kind of ‘objective’.
Before we dive right into things, I would like to use this space here to also thank the kind people of my partner The Pen Company for making this review possible by generously providing me with the sample of the Faber-Castell E-motion Rollerball Pen (dark brown, pear wood) that I am going to review here.
Let’s get started.
The Faber-Castell rollerball pen comes in a distinctively minimalist and, hence, extremely elegant white cardboard box with the Faber-Castell logo printed on (or embossed – I can’t really figure it out) in silver. A small brown leather strap that is attached to the sides of the box serves for pulling out the slider that will then, presumably, contain the pen itself.
And: Bingo! Upon opening the box, the content in form of the pearwood dark brown rollerball pen is revealed. Personally, I do love rollerball pens – they are my favorite writing instruments (however, presently there is a chance for me to at least partly convert to fountain pens – but more on that on another instance). For those that can not really get warm towards rollerball pens, the E-motion is also available as a fountain pen, ballpoint pen (I know, right) and as a twist pencil.
It also comes in a variety of finishes: while I have the extremely beautiful dark pearwood here, it is also available in light brown and black pearwood as well as in a white satin resin with an engraved rhombus design and laser engraved, polished resin, in two designs – crocodile or parquet in three colors. I bet you’ll find one you like!
I noticed three things straight after taking the pen out of the box: First, the extremely beautiful shape and wood-structure of the barrel. Second, the massive cap, which is about half the pens size. And third, the nicely balanced weight of the pen. The E-motion is a fairly short pen, I’d say though. My hands are rather large and I can fit the pen (it has a dent on the cap and trim) comfortably in between my thumb and middle-finger. With the cap on, the pen has a length of about 13,8 cm.
The cap itself has the Faber-Castell-logo engraved and, as said, a smooth dent on top. It is slightly bent on the bottom and has some grooves around. The clip has sort of a tilt mechanism (supposedly with a spring inside) and is easy to operate while feeling firm. The clip exercises enough pressure to not let go of where it bit without you ordering it to do so.
Without the cap the rollerball pen has a length of about 11,6 cm. The grip (and thread) is chrome and has two sections. First, I thought the chrome might make the pen slightly slippery to hold in lengthy writing session, but this somehow seems to not be the case. I suppose it is also due to the pens length – the pens end perfectly snuggles into the space between my thumb and forefinger, where it seemingly feels comfortable enough to just stay where it is.
Then this cap. Well, the cap is probably one of the reasons why the pen once was part of the Red Dot Design Award-winning range. It has a length of about 6,2 cm (as I said about half the size of the pen!) and is chrome plated with and articulated clip. Look at those perfect, elegant lines!
So sorry that I had to take another photo of that clip, but I guess I could be happy by just staring at it for like an hour or so :-).
As pointed out above, the distinctively chunky barrel of the E-motion just makes that pen very comfortable to hold – and I think it really is part of its appealing design. The barrel measures about 1,4 cm in diameter at the thickest part just below the thread.
This is a kinda weird shot of the pen laying on one of my Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks, but I somehow like it. I love the way in which the dark brown color of the pearwood melts in with the off-white paper of the notebook. Isn’t that a dream!
When posted, the pen has a length of about 14,6 cm. The cap posts pretty firm on the pen. I do prefer to use the pen without the cap posted, however. Just took the shot for you to see how it looks when having the cap posted.
Here’s a photo of me holding the unposted pen to put it on paper. I hold it a bit weird, though, due to the camera in my other hand probably. I would normally grab it a bit deeper, just below the thread, when writing with it. As I said above, the pen is not too big and my hands fairly large, and even by holding the pen a bit off-grip, it still perfectly lays in my hand.
When posted, it would look something like this. Same weird way of me grabbing the pen, however. Anyway, as mentioned, I do prefer to write the pen when not posted, because I do think that it tends to get pretty top-heavy with that massive cap posted. Plus I like putting the cap beside the notebook, so that I can look at it when taking a pause from writing :-).
The E-motion accepts standard rollerball refills. The one it comes with is black (0.7) and has a perfectly smooth stroke.
All in all, for me personally, there really is nothing to complain at all with this pen – and the part of Germany that I originally come from, people say that “no reproach is praise enough” (sounds like a place one has to have seen, I can imagine) :-). Joke aside, that pen is a design-masterpiece and a dream to write with, and after having recently crowned the Queen of Notebooks, I guess I have now found it a King of Pens. Happy togetherness!