The Pentel Kachiri is a 1.0mm ballpoint pen available in black, blue, red and violet. The barrel matches the ink colour. It costs 80p in the UK. It’s a retractable pen: Kachiri means click.
I find reviewing ballpoints difficult because although I know lots of people like them, I don’t. However, being purely objective for a moment, this is still a bad pen. It’s gloopy and it skips. It’s possible for cheap ballpoints to be better than this.
It does look fun though. The transparent barrel looks great and the black and blue combo is fab. The “Pentel KACHIRI” on the clip is great if you ignore the very obvious moulding line but why put the model code on too?
The grip is also fine. It’s soft rubber and triangular (but can be turned to suit your grip).
I feel bad about being so critical of a pen that costs so little (and was in fact sent to me for free). Maybe it’s been made to appeal to one of those young people I see all over the place these days but if so it’s doing them, and us, a disservice. What a pen needs to do above anything else is write nicely. This one doesn’t.
This pen was sent to me for free by Pentel for review purposes. I’ve tried not to let that influence my opinions.
It is not that I think you have ill intent. But, the tension between “I feel bad about being so critical of a pen that costs so little (and was in fact sent to me for free)” and “This pen was sent to me for free by Pentel for review purposes. I’ve tried not to let that influence my opinions.” is pretty hard to miss.
I don’t follow what you mean.
That one feels badly about giving a negative review of a product provided for free strongly suggests that one’s review *has* been influenced by the free provisions of the product under review.
If you read the sentence you quoted you’ll see I was referring to the cost of the pen. It’s a cheap pen and so one shouldn’t expect so much of it. In the interests of complete transparency, I also point out that cheap though this pen is, I didn’t pay for it myself. But you’re free to draw whatever conclusions you wish.