Papermate 33311 Stick Pens Review

After I ran out of those cheap BIC Round Stic ballpoint pens I went ahead and decided to order the Papermate Stick 33311 to see if they were any better. So I visited Staples.com and ordered about five (5) 12 pack (black) boxes of these for the mechanics; it should hopefully last us for a month if we are lucky. It cost me $0.99 for a box of twelve; for this price, we are not hurting at all even if the mechanics eat them for lunch.

DESIGN & DESCRIPTION

These pens are exactly 6 inches in length and a little more than a little less than a 1/4 of an inch in width (with the cap on). The ball pen point by itself is about a 1/4 of an inch in length. The cylinder in which the ink cartridge goes is black and circular. There is not much that is special about these pens, but all that matters is they can write. One other thing that attracted me to these pens was the thin design and shinny look.

There are no rubberized finger grips like the Pentel R.S.V.P. ballpoint pens, so if your hands and fingers are slippery, you might have a hard time maintaining your grip on these pens especially when the exterior is shiny and extremely slippery. As for our mechanics, they all wear gloves so when they have the need to write, they take the gloves off and wipe their hands dry, but these pens often slip out of their greasy hands.

There is no cap on the other side like the Pentel R.S.V.P. ballpoint pens and the BIC Round Stic pens. Basically, you can never open this pen up to replace the ink cartridge (but why would you for the low price tag). There is also a clip on the cap of the pen for clipping onto a shirt pocket, binder, book, etc…

PURCHASING

Staples.com sells a dozen of these pens for $0.99 which is about 8 cents for each pen. I bought about 5 boxes of these; all of them are black since our mechanics only like to use black. You may find better deals than these from other retailers, but since we have an account at Staples.com I always use them for all our office supplies needs. Another thing to keep in mind is that sometimes staples.com gives discounted prices if you order multiples of a certain item; although this may be the case with other retailers also (I cannot say I have experience with other retailers).

EXPERIENCE

I was browsing Staples.com one day when I came across these pens and decided that I would like to give these a try. Since I already had the BIC Round Stic pens already in stock, I was in no hurry to switch, but I did purchase about five boxes to let our mechanics try them out. The problems they had with these pens were that they do not seem to last very long and they often slip out of their hands. And after a while of storage, they seem to need a lot of stimulation to get started again. But for our mechanics that go through boxes of these pens very quickly, I think these are not perfect but an option. I personally like the sharp point and vibrant color of the pens, and unfortunately, these pens are not my type, so I will let the mechanics digest these.

The color of the ink is a bit dull even after retracing my own writing once or twice; it is not as bright and vibrant as I would like it. Our mechanics use these black pens for almost all of their writing they do like filling in their daily time-sheets, writing work orders, etc…

I like to put the cap on the rear end of the pen when I write because it puts some weight on the pens for better handling (this is not the case with these pens as they are very light). Putting the cap on the rear end also keeps it from getting lost in this jungle of a shop that we have here.

It would have been a motivation for me to use these pens if they had finger grips to help keep the pin in place and to provide a smoother writing experience. Sometimes my hand’s sweat (in hot weather) so I need something that would not slip out of my hands. But it is unfortunate that these do not have grips, and I do not expect these to have grips either because I would not want the price tag to increase.

I am not saying that these are the worst pens, but whenever I use these pens I think my handwriting is the worst ever (by the way, my handwriting is not one of the best either). Or maybe it is the same and these pens make it look bad. Who knows?

FINAL THOUGHTS

These Papermate Stick 33311 pens are one of the worst pens I have used to write at work, school, and home. The fact that the ink is dull, the handwriting is sloppy, and they easily slip out of my hand are enough reasons for me to dump the idea of replacing the BIC Round Stick pens for our employees. I have stopped ordering these pens but my boss often buys these when he goes to the Staples store. I would not recommend these for your daily office use, but if you have a shop like ours and your employees use a lot of pens then get these cheap pens.