What's the proper name for that other, arguably even more well-recognized, BIC pen, that looks like Cristal except its main body is opaque orange, and is generally cheap garbage that breaks in your hand if you squeeze it it too hard, and doesn't even write half the time?
(And yeah, I remember the taste of it, too. I've "eaten" through my share of these pens as a kid. It's the one pen you can't bite on, unless you like having shards of orange plastic everywhere.)
It's also magical in a big way - it's almost as if it were enchanted with a "handwriting: -10" debuff, because that's what happens when you try writing with it, relative to anything else (including pencils and crayons). To this day, I occasionally wonder, how did they manage to achieve that distinct effect.
In my circles, BIC as a brand is basically the stuff you don't buy unless as a last resort, whether that's ballpoints or razors or anything else.
dole · 27m ago
BIC lighters are more of a first resort than a last resort.
TeMPOraL · 17m ago
In the same sense their vacuums, if they made them, wouldn't suck.
Symbiote · 1h ago
It's the fine (thin line) version of the normal one.
I've never noticed any difference other than the line width. Either barrel can shatter if you bite hard enough. They both seem to survive long periods of little or no use better than other brands.
> made to last with enough ink to write for an average of 3,5 km
measuring ink capacity in km makes total sense but I find it hilarious
quietbritishjim · 40m ago
The box at your link calls it "Cristal fine Orange", so it's still a type of BIC Cristal like a sibling comment says.
ashton314 · 12m ago
There's an old article from The Atlantic [1] that makes the case that the ballpoint pen killed cursive: they require much more pressure to write with compared to rollerball or fountain pens. Like the author, I started using a fountain pen and it makes so much more sense why you would write in cursive with that thing.
If you like taking analog notes, I highly recommend getting yourself a starter fountain pen and some good paper (emphatically not Moleskin—those work best with pencils; too much bleed with fountain pen ink) and enjoy hand writing as it was meant to be. ;)
> Some such details are very humbling, such as the exquisitely beautiful design study for Zapfino-like capitals intended for use with Firenze shown with the 49 cent Deluxe Fine Point Bic ballpoint pen used to render the letters (pg. 43).
jhoechtl · 16m ago
My favourite is actually the BIC M10. Fell totally.out of fashion but I dislike the idea of detachable cap which gets lost all to easy.
It's such a versatile product. I bet everyone here who's older than 45/50 have at least once used a Bic pen to rewind a cassete tape.
I also used the plastic clip as a stapler remover.
There were many other uses for it, for sure.
cogogo · 1h ago
Never tried myself but I know they were used to defeat older U locks for bikes.
creaturemachine · 1h ago
For that job you needed one of the opaque round ones with a more flexible plastic. It had to friction fit over the centre of the keyway so it could deliver some torque as you were working the tumblers.
brunoarueira · 1h ago
I'm not that older, but I had learned this trick, mainly when the device goes wrong and we need to fix the tape :)
luismedel · 5h ago
The clip is also a superb stress-reliever by biting it :-)
williamdclt · 46m ago
cassettes were still popular 20y ago, you can probably take 15y off your estimate!
ghc · 19m ago
At least in my area, cassettes were still popular 30 years ago during the transition to CDs, but by 20 years ago we were in the midst of the transition from CD to iPod. I don't remember seeing new tapes for sale anywhere after about 2000, and we were definitely burning CDs full of MP3s before then instead of making mixtapes. Personally, I bought my last cassette around 1995. Your point still stands, however...I think cutting 10-15y off the estimate would be reasonable.
prmoustache · 8m ago
In my own case CD's, MP3 and cassette use have overlapped. MP3 players were expensive, Discmans were too big to fit in a small pocket. So walkmans were still useful. I used to record tunes and mixes from the radio at the time too as it was super quick to hit record on the ghettoblaster when listening to the radio provided you had a tape ready. So yes I was still using and listening to cassettes in the early 2000's.
QuercusMax · 54m ago
I always just used a pencil.
pansa2 · 1h ago
> Cristal became ubiquitous around the world
Not quite; in New Zealand they're surprisingly rare. I've never seen them for sale there, even though they're common in Australia.
rsynnott · 1h ago
My favourite thing about Bic's origins:
> Marcel Bich bought the patent for the ballpoint pen from Hungarian – Argentine inventor László Bíró
Presumably beating his rivals John Pencil and Wolfgang von Fountain-Pen to it...
dcminter · 1h ago
I remember a skit in a (terrible) British sketch show a zillion years ago where Biro tells the details of his secret invention to someone with an aside that there was nobody else in the house except "the butler Bic, the housekeeper Pentel, and the chauffeur Platignum" :)
shawabawa3 · 1h ago
the word "biro" didn't exist until Biro invented the ballpoint pen, which came to be known after its inventor
lionkor · 5h ago
I bought a pack of 100 of them for super cheap a few years ago, and a pack of 200 or so pencils with erasers from amazon basics. They carried me through all my exams in university, I have some in every backpack, purse, everywhere. Never had to worry about not having a pen ready, or a replacement if I lost one the morning before the exam. That is truly a buy-it-for-life level investment.
jwagenet · 1h ago
I’m not sure I can get behind buying 100 of a disposable pen as “buy it for life”.
lionkor · 20m ago
The box (with its contents) will probably outlast me, and I've only ever thrown away, like, maybe one of them?
nancyminusone · 8m ago
They are only disposable if you throw them away.
dehugger · 24m ago
Buy them for life?
imtringued · 9m ago
I didn't use it for exams, but I once went to a regional clothing store known for being extremely cheap and poor quality and I bought a 1€ mechanical pencil there. Surprisingly, that mechanical pencil had an amazingly well engineered metal collet instead of the usual plastic ones. I've used that pencil for years and my only complaint is that if you don't tighten it enough, it'll unscrew itself and snap your lead.
pmg101 · 5h ago
It's the perfect product. I pick it up, I use it, it functions perfectly without thought.
It's a lifelong mission to find any such tech product.
Al-Khwarizmi · 5h ago
Ever tried writing a few pages with it?
It requires too much pressure compared with gel pens, rollerball pens, let alone fountain pens (although the latter are not for everyone). It soon creates fatigue. And at least in my case I also make uglier handwriting with them that with gel pens, rollerball pens, let alone fountain pens.
It's an extremely reliable product to do what it does, as well as extremely cheap, but far from perfect IMO. I see it more as a last resort if nothing else is available.
Spartan-S63 · 2h ago
So true. I hated using BIC ballpoint pens for this reason. I found the Pilot Rollerballs are my favorites to use. The 0.5mm size writes really smoothly.
I picked up a couple bolt action pens for some more heft and put the Pilot rollerball fillers into the pen to get a really pleasant writing experience.
paradox460 · 32m ago
I used to put some pilot pens in some Geocaches I maintain. No longer, they always get stolen. It's now pencils cut in half. Used to be Dixon, but I'm looking for a new pencil maker
jonhohle · 1h ago
Did you know the inserts would fit prior to buying the pens? I love the Pilot V5 RT, but constantly have stains around my pockets from them deploying as I move. I don’t carry Precise V5s because I’ve had one too many explosions with them.
wiredfool · 1h ago
I like them. Don't use pens much, used to be a bit picky, either fountain pens or roller balls or gel, but they'd always leak or be dry or not be ready to roll when I needed them.
I had one Cristal pen that I managed to hold on to and use through at least three moves and 8+ years, until I finally ran it out of ink. It didn't get lost, destroyed, eaten (by puppies or humans), or quit working -- until there was nothing left of it. It was a small accomplishment, but one that I'm absurdly proud of.
WillAdams · 5h ago
My Newton MessagePad was like that --- just the friction of charging/replacing the batteries and the physical friction of the resistive stylus got to be too much for me --- I'd give a lot for its functionality on my (stylus-equipped) phone.
Bluestein · 5h ago
I used to have one of those - so so way ahead of its time.-
PS Also, the handwriting recognition was way ahead of the game.-
loloquwowndueo · 4h ago
Newtons were enormous, having to lug it around was awkward, so I stopped bringing mine everywhere.
chrismatheson · 3h ago
`man cat` don't think i've ever been upset at its functionality (or ever read the manual to be fair)
christophilus · 4h ago
There are some amazing drawings done with blue Bics.
Such a crappy pen design, guess it proves mediocre designs sometimes prevail. The logical backflips that people use to justify its success are a little annoying though
southernplaces7 · 3h ago
Care to specify what makes this thing that sold 100 billion copies and is instantly, reliably usable in nearly any conceivable context so crappy? Why not also explain your superior design that you think would work so much better.
pickledoyster · 2h ago
Other comments note how it creates fatigue within an hour of writing, which is also my experience. Whether that's a result of low quality ink holders, tips that force overgripping, weight or something else, I do not know.
I have a pen cup for when I need to jot something quickly and can't be bothered to get my primary pen from another room, and I've noticed that I rarely, if ever, choose the Cristal. Granted, it is far from being the worst pen out there, but I wince at the thought of using it as my daily pen.
Furthermore, I don't think that selling 100 billion copies of a thing is a sign of quality, e.g., see Microsoft's product line.
As for superior design in a similar price category (i.e., get it free at every conference room), hands down, it's the Schneider K15. Solid ink holders, comfortable tip, a nice weight balance (albeit I find it too light overall), with an imo beautiful modernist design as a cherry on top.
dale_glass · 1h ago
I've had a few of those leak ink over a bunch of my school stuff over the years.
I think it's just not very solidly built, and in some set of circumstances (certainly not always) it's prone to making a mess.
stockerta · 2h ago
I guess compared to a "high end" pen its crap, but its like saying that the Citroen 2cv is crap compared to a semi truck if we talk about cargo capacity.
xyzzy123 · 5h ago
The bic clic (not cristal) is the iconic pen of my childhood.
It's hard to explain how popular they were in NZ, if you asked kids to draw a pen that's what they'd draw.
codedokode · 5h ago
I use gel pens, because they leave thinner and more black trace. I think ballpoint pen belongs to history.
kreco · 5h ago
I don't think ballpoint pen belongs to history only because you don't use them.
I use BIC ballpoint because they are the only ones who don't die when I carry them in my backpack.
All others just cease to function for unknown reason or leak.
abtinf · 5h ago
Try a Uni-Ball Jetsream, especially the capped version.
It’s a ballpoint, with all of the advantages, that writes smoother than any gel.
There is a bit of a learning curve as it glides so freely across paper.
soupfordummies · 1h ago
They’re so good. I was always a pilot g2 guy but I picked up one of the jetstreams at a 7-11 in Japan for like a buck and it’s just the perfect pen.
thaumasiotes · 4h ago
> It’s a ballpoint, with all of the advantages, that writes smoother than any gel.
Gel pens are ballpoints. What do you mean by "ballpoint" here?
> Try a Uni-Ball Jetsream
I would never choose to use one of those, since they aren't available in 0.5mm. 0.7mm is too thick.
“Gel pens” are technically ballpoints, true, but when one says “ballpoint” it’s usually taken to refer to an oil based ballpoint like a Bic, whereas gel ink writes quite differently.
jackstraw14 · 3h ago
Jetstreams come in a lot of forms, including 0.5mm and 0.38mm I believe.
thaumasiotes · 1h ago
Not according to Uniball's official website they don't.
The Jetstream Edge pen uses the same SXR refill size as the 4 colors of refills for the SXE3/MSXE5 multicolor pens; while their website only lists 0.28mm and 0.38mm refills as compatible, the SXR-80-05 refills are also compatible. But I suspect the reason they’re not formally listing 0.5mm support is because the lower-capacity SXR runs out of ink too rapidly when used in single-color 0.5mm, and so that’s why they cap the pen at 0.38mm. Recommend avoiding these as an option.
However!
The SXN-150 and SXN-155 lines deliver normal capacity 0.5mm Jetstream pens; and their SXR-5 refills deliver single-color 0.5mm Jetstream through the SXR-5 refills.
You can search for the often-dehyphenated SXR-5 compatibility to see what pens they fit besides the official SXN-150 options (like, for example, the Pentel Energel body); MP’s own website isn’t listing the options properly on the refill page — they only list the SXN-155 and not the SXN-150, for example — so some footwork would remain to identify precisely which official model numbers are associated with the 0.5mm refill.
(Note that I found it rather difficult to locate the SXN-155 by model number for shipping to the United States; the UPCs for whichever models you want, e.g. 4902778040737, were much more efficient.)
toss1 · 1h ago
Just checked, their website lists 0.28 mm, 0.38, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0 mm, with examples of each. [0]
What pens do you find best and what is your use-case?
> Just checked, their website lists 0.28 mm, 0.38, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0 mm, with examples of each. [0]
Except that you forgot to check their website. Jetpens is a reseller.
Uniball only acknowledges 0.5mm for Jetstream pens that include multiple ink tubes in one cylinder.
My use case is that I carry a pen around in my pocket in case I need to write something down. More rarely, I might actually write something down. I don't like writing in thick lines.
> Except that you forgot to check their website. Jetpens is a reseller.
I'm not sure what's your point. Uniball doesn't sell 0.5mm on their website, fine, but jetpens does. Is your point that Jetpens are selling fakes? Seems pretty unlikely.
FridayoLeary · 1h ago
I agree that gel writes better but you are wrong about ballpoints. It's like saying i don't write spanish so that means it's useless.
Thick gel pens soak through the paper so they're not great and the thinner nibs break easily or they pierce the paper.
Most times you pick up a pen it's to jot down a quick note or number, a ballpoint makes more sense for that.
somewhereoutth · 1h ago
My thinking tool, along with a ream of 80gsm blank white printer paper.
As well as being ubiquitous, reliable and cheap, you can also vary the line weight it produces with pressure. This makes it great for sketches and diagrams, as well as straight writing.
ubermonkey · 2h ago
The Cristal is the front-runner in my brain for "most iconic consumer product of the 20th century."
That said, it's weird how they've completely vanished from my personal landscape. The opaque white Biros are more common now. But I think I'll go seek out a Cristal later today, just for nostalgia's sake.
and for disassembling the gamecube (in the days before easy access to non-standard screwdrivers)
roelschroeven · 5h ago
And for rewinding cassette tapes.
crtasm · 5h ago
Yes, though this link is AI slop.
FridayoLeary · 1h ago
It really is great at being a pen. It writes well and doesn't break. Shout out to the bic which has 4 colours (rgb&b) for being so useful and high quality.
But if you want to know what the best cheap writing pen, it's the clear pilot pen. Everyone around me uses it. There is also the opaque pilot v5 which was the gold standard when i was in school.
Traubenfuchs · 5h ago
It's not very comfortable, its hard edges are unpleasant for the fingers and it feels too thin.
The flimsy cap gets lost easy and there is an endless amount of ballpoint pens you can click, that don't even need a cap in the first place.
Average clicking ballpoint pens have a plastic that's more comfortable to suck, lick and bite.
I always hated them.
dmd · 5h ago
agreed, agreed, … wait what
TeMPOraL · 2h ago
You never bit on your pen? Especially back in the school days?
Ballpoint pens are the OG stress relief / concentration / "fidget spinner" toys. Except the BIC ones, those would easily shatter; suddenly finding your mouth to be full of sharp, orange or translucent shards of plastic, is the opposite of calm and focus.
SeanDav · 5h ago
100 Billion sales means there are some things to like ...
garbagewoman · 3h ago
Ok, and? Coke bottles have sold more than that
southernplaces7 · 3h ago
Because they're useful in so many ways too. Have you not seen "The Gods Must be Crazy"?
Bluestein · 6h ago
Love BIC!
From pens to ChatGPT. What a ride.-
arccy · 5h ago
Every feature Google / Apple releases gets millions of users in days.
ChatGPT is but a fad that has no moat.
Bluestein · 5h ago
A fad valuated in the billions ...
loloquwowndueo · 5h ago
Plenty of overvalued fads during bubbles (see the dotcom bubble).
bgnn · 5h ago
Current valuation is not relevant in the context of history, yet.
stockerta · 5h ago
For now...
Traubenfuchs · 5h ago
...Apple sold less than a million Apple Visions.
loloquwowndueo · 5h ago
It’s a service not a product.
Bluestein · 5h ago
Just thinking out loud - in terms of adoption might be up there regardless. But, fair point.-
irjustin · 5h ago
It's not an apples-apples comparison. Logistics and physical sales is a massive barrier.
shit_game · 5h ago
Not to mention, ownership.
Bluestein · 5h ago
Granted granted ...
loloquwowndueo · 4h ago
Ah, I see you edited your original comment which read something like “ChatGPT might be the most successful product, millions of users in only a few days”.
(And yeah, I remember the taste of it, too. I've "eaten" through my share of these pens as a kid. It's the one pen you can't bite on, unless you like having shards of orange plastic everywhere.)
It's also magical in a big way - it's almost as if it were enchanted with a "handwriting: -10" debuff, because that's what happens when you try writing with it, relative to anything else (including pencils and crayons). To this day, I occasionally wonder, how did they manage to achieve that distinct effect.
In my circles, BIC as a brand is basically the stuff you don't buy unless as a last resort, whether that's ballpoints or razors or anything else.
I've never noticed any difference other than the line width. Either barrel can shatter if you bite hard enough. They both seem to survive long periods of little or no use better than other brands.
https://www.amazon.com/BIC-Orange-Original-Ballpoint-Point/d...
measuring ink capacity in km makes total sense but I find it hilarious
If you like taking analog notes, I highly recommend getting yourself a starter fountain pen and some good paper (emphatically not Moleskin—those work best with pencils; too much bleed with fountain pen ink) and enjoy hand writing as it was meant to be. ;)
[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/08/ballp...
- https://www.penaddict.com/blog/2016/1/17/bic-cristal-ballpoi...
- https://www.jetpens.com/blog/How-the-Ballpoint-Pen-Changed-t...
a book which has a bit on the usage of this and similar Bic models is:
https://www.paulshawletterdesign.com/2012/12/blue-pencil-no-...
(ob. discl., I received a copy (which I gave to my daughter) to write the review: http://ftp.tug.org/TUGboat/tb34-2/tb107reviews-zapfhallmark....) which has the line:
> Some such details are very humbling, such as the exquisitely beautiful design study for Zapfino-like capitals intended for use with Firenze shown with the 49 cent Deluxe Fine Point Bic ballpoint pen used to render the letters (pg. 43).
https://fr.bic.com/fr/bic-m10-original-stylos-bille-retracta...
I also used the plastic clip as a stapler remover.
There were many other uses for it, for sure.
Not quite; in New Zealand they're surprisingly rare. I've never seen them for sale there, even though they're common in Australia.
> Marcel Bich bought the patent for the ballpoint pen from Hungarian – Argentine inventor László Bíró
Presumably beating his rivals John Pencil and Wolfgang von Fountain-Pen to it...
It's a lifelong mission to find any such tech product.
It requires too much pressure compared with gel pens, rollerball pens, let alone fountain pens (although the latter are not for everyone). It soon creates fatigue. And at least in my case I also make uglier handwriting with them that with gel pens, rollerball pens, let alone fountain pens.
It's an extremely reliable product to do what it does, as well as extremely cheap, but far from perfect IMO. I see it more as a last resort if nothing else is available.
I picked up a couple bolt action pens for some more heft and put the Pilot rollerball fillers into the pen to get a really pleasant writing experience.
I had one Cristal pen that I managed to hold on to and use through at least three moves and 8+ years, until I finally ran it out of ink. It didn't get lost, destroyed, eaten (by puppies or humans), or quit working -- until there was nothing left of it. It was a small accomplishment, but one that I'm absurdly proud of.
PS Also, the handwriting recognition was way ahead of the game.-
https://mymodernmet.com/paulus-architect-ballpoint-pen-drawi...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Favorite_Thing_Is_Monster...
Very amazing.
I have a pen cup for when I need to jot something quickly and can't be bothered to get my primary pen from another room, and I've noticed that I rarely, if ever, choose the Cristal. Granted, it is far from being the worst pen out there, but I wince at the thought of using it as my daily pen.
Furthermore, I don't think that selling 100 billion copies of a thing is a sign of quality, e.g., see Microsoft's product line.
As for superior design in a similar price category (i.e., get it free at every conference room), hands down, it's the Schneider K15. Solid ink holders, comfortable tip, a nice weight balance (albeit I find it too light overall), with an imo beautiful modernist design as a cherry on top.
I think it's just not very solidly built, and in some set of circumstances (certainly not always) it's prone to making a mess.
It's hard to explain how popular they were in NZ, if you asked kids to draw a pen that's what they'd draw.
I use BIC ballpoint because they are the only ones who don't die when I carry them in my backpack. All others just cease to function for unknown reason or leak.
It’s a ballpoint, with all of the advantages, that writes smoother than any gel.
There is a bit of a learning curve as it glides so freely across paper.
Gel pens are ballpoints. What do you mean by "ballpoint" here?
> Try a Uni-Ball Jetsream
I would never choose to use one of those, since they aren't available in 0.5mm. 0.7mm is too thick.
“Gel pens” are technically ballpoints, true, but when one says “ballpoint” it’s usually taken to refer to an oil based ballpoint like a Bic, whereas gel ink writes quite differently.
https://www.unibrands.co/collections/jetstream?filter.v.opti...
However!
The SXN-150 and SXN-155 lines deliver normal capacity 0.5mm Jetstream pens; and their SXR-5 refills deliver single-color 0.5mm Jetstream through the SXR-5 refills.
https://www.mp-uni.com/vn/en/product/jetstream-sport-sxn-155...
https://www.mp-uni.com/sg/product/refill-sxr-5/
You can search for the often-dehyphenated SXR-5 compatibility to see what pens they fit besides the official SXN-150 options (like, for example, the Pentel Energel body); MP’s own website isn’t listing the options properly on the refill page — they only list the SXN-155 and not the SXN-150, for example — so some footwork would remain to identify precisely which official model numbers are associated with the 0.5mm refill.
(Note that I found it rather difficult to locate the SXN-155 by model number for shipping to the United States; the UPCs for whichever models you want, e.g. 4902778040737, were much more efficient.)
What pens do you find best and what is your use-case?
[0] https://www.jetpens.com/blog/Uni-Jetstream-A-Comprehensive-G...
Except that you forgot to check their website. Jetpens is a reseller.
Uniball only acknowledges 0.5mm for Jetstream pens that include multiple ink tubes in one cylinder.
My use case is that I carry a pen around in my pocket in case I need to write something down. More rarely, I might actually write something down. I don't like writing in thick lines.
The pen I'm currently carrying is one of these: https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i3/682114580/O1CN01nP4t8J1jh...
I'm not sure what's your point. Uniball doesn't sell 0.5mm on their website, fine, but jetpens does. Is your point that Jetpens are selling fakes? Seems pretty unlikely.
Thick gel pens soak through the paper so they're not great and the thinner nibs break easily or they pierce the paper.
Most times you pick up a pen it's to jot down a quick note or number, a ballpoint makes more sense for that.
As well as being ubiquitous, reliable and cheap, you can also vary the line weight it produces with pressure. This makes it great for sketches and diagrams, as well as straight writing.
That said, it's weird how they've completely vanished from my personal landscape. The opaque white Biros are more common now. But I think I'll go seek out a Cristal later today, just for nostalgia's sake.
https://postureinfohub.com/how-to-pick-a-tubular-lock-with-a...
But if you want to know what the best cheap writing pen, it's the clear pilot pen. Everyone around me uses it. There is also the opaque pilot v5 which was the gold standard when i was in school.
The flimsy cap gets lost easy and there is an endless amount of ballpoint pens you can click, that don't even need a cap in the first place.
Average clicking ballpoint pens have a plastic that's more comfortable to suck, lick and bite.
I always hated them.
Ballpoint pens are the OG stress relief / concentration / "fidget spinner" toys. Except the BIC ones, those would easily shatter; suddenly finding your mouth to be full of sharp, orange or translucent shards of plastic, is the opposite of calm and focus.
From pens to ChatGPT. What a ride.-