Battle of Purple Gel Pens

I love gel pens, I use them on my note-taking now in residency, and I love different colored gel pens since they're more fun to see the different colors. More than I realized, I've accumulated a lot of gel pens and I thought why not review these brands as well.

I'll be reviewing the purple gel pens below.  I'm still deciding if I will review other colors, but for now, let's start with the purple ones.

The following gel pens in purple color will be reviewed:

1. Pilot Frixion Ball Clicker Pen (0.5)
2. Muji Retractable Pen (0.5)
3. Pilot Juice (0.5)
4. Papermate Inkjoy Gel (0.5)
5. Pilot Sliccies (0.5)
6. M&G Office G (0.5)

As you can see I'm a big fan of clickers or retractable type with springs.

Let's begin:

Dot Test

Here's a picture of how they write.  Also on the right side, you can see 2 dots per pen.  This is what I call the "dot test" (I invented this), I push the pen in the paper for 10 seconds without lifting it op, to see if it will feather out.  I'm using HP everyday bond paper by the way, 80 gsm.

From the picture above you can see that in order of feathering:

Papermate > M&G > Frixion > Muji > Sliccies > Pilot Juice.  with Papermate feathering the most and the Pilot Juice feathering the least.

Smoothness / Gliding

Here, I'll rank which one glides more smoothly than the others.  Sometimes I term the "friction" of the pen on paper as "tagging". 

Papermate Inkjoy > Pilot Juice = Muji > Sliccies = Frixion = M&G

Papermate Inkjoy is the smoothest of all the pens, with Pilot Juice and Muji being equal after which Sliccies, Frixion and M&G all three being with most tagging of all.

Highlighter Test

In this test, I'm using Stabilo Boss Pink Pastel highlighter, the purpose of this test is to check if the ink will transfer or spread to the right with the movement of the highlighter.

As shown in the picture, in order of transfer by highlighter:

Papermate Inkjoy > M&G Office G > Pilot Juice > Muji Retractable > Sliccies = Frixion

Papermate Inkjoy had the most transfer to the right and Sliccies and Frixion having the least.

Bakat Test

This one to check how much ink "bakats" or bleeds to the back.

On HP everyday paper, with 80 gsm, 8.5 x 11 inch

Papermate Inkjoy >  M&G Office G > Pilot Juice > Muji > Sliccies > Frixion

With Papermate Inkjoy with the most bleed to the back and Frixion being the least.

Price & Availability

Muji Retractable pen - P65, available in Muji stores, and also online, refill so far only seen on black, blue, red

M&G Office G - P9 available in National Bookstores, no refill, disposable

Pilot Juice - P45 available in some National Bookstores, and online, not sure if refillable

Papermate Ink Joy - P74.75 available in National Bookstores, not sure if refillable

Pentel Sliccies - I got this from HK, and some refills I bought from Japan roughly P80-90

Pilot Frixion - P83.25 (You can find the black, blue, red in National Bookstore), but for the purple and other colors, I bought mine from Japan (sorry I can't remember the price), you can buy refills for this also.

Overall, my personal comments:

Pilot Frixion Pens - I love these, because I really love the idea I can erase if I made a mistake, I even buy refills of this in Japan, that's how much I love these pens.

M&G - because it's relatively more available, and a whole lot affordable.  This is actually my 3rd purple M&G pen!!

Pentel Sliccies - I recently purchased the refills, and I use these in my journaling because I put them in 3 corlor barrels and they're more travel friendly.

Muji Retractable - together with my Frixion pens have been a staple of my notetaking, actually this is my 2nd Muji purple pen already.  I love of its smoothness actually.

Pilot Juice - I actually don't usually reach out to this, but after this test, I found that it's as smooth as Muji already so I think I'll use this more often now.

Papermate Inkjoy -  This is a recent discovery of mine, I actually bought this just weeks ago, I like that this is smoothest of all, although I'm not a fan that it bleeds to the back.  And relatively I find this the thickest even if all of them are 0.5. Don't you think also??