Staedtler 422

This is a review of the Staedtler 422 ballpoint pen. It is an economic range of ballpoint pens from Staedlter. I got a pack of 5 from Popular for $1.80. It looks simple with a standard mechanism – you press the button at the back to extend the pen tip, and push the pocket clip down to retract it. However, one drawback about this mechanism is that after long usage, the plastic clip usually falls off. The whole pen is a tad too boring as it looks, feels and operates too similarly as many other types of ballpoint pens. There is hardly any effort in trying to differentiate then pen from others, apart from having their logo and “STAEDTLER 422” printed in white on the plastic body of the pen. However, I feel that it is quite ineffective. I only bought it because I thought I would do a comparison or review on it.  If I were a regular customer just looking around for some budget pens, I would not even consider the Staedlter 422. Truthfully, they are a little pricey and even the design of Popular’s house-brand pen look more interesting. Moreover, Staedtler are well known for their pencils rather than pens.

That’s the marketing side. But is the 422 better than others in terms of functionality? Firstly, other than all the fancy sales gimmicks, a budget pen’s most important goal is to provide a good writing experience. All other functions count for naught. The Staedtler 422 does that well, perhaps too well in my opinion. There are no leaks, no sudden stop of ink and it can be considered as moderately smooth in writing (Grade B). It does get addictive after a while. Very rarely there were some ink blots and line splits. Such incidents are only few and far between.

In conclusion, the pen is alright, but I feel that they should try to differentiate their products a bit more. As for the functionality, although it does the job well, many others also do the job alright. Although other budget ballpoint pens perform not as well as the 422, they certainly cost much cheaper. After all, the main considerations for a budget pen are probably more on price and an acceptable performance. No one would really take too much care about the functionality as long it is acceptable and it is the cheapest. Unlike me, hardly anyone would do a comparison or a review on a budget pen.

Specifications
Length: 14cm when retracted, 13.8cm when extended.
Balance Point: 7.5 cm from tip when extended
0.7mm ball (from my experience)
Materials: Transparent plastic body, plastic mechanism, metal spring, typical ballpoint pen inerts (rubber tube with ink, metal point)

Get it if:
1. You are going budget, but there is nothing cheaper.
2. The Steadtler brand means something to you in the pen market
3. You want something cheap that provides just a little better writing experience (almost negligible in terms of smoothness but a better in terms in number of times the ink blots and have split lines), but you are willing to pay a bit more.