I wanted a cheap fountain pen to carry everyday because pens I carry have a habit of getting lost. This pen generally sells for under $10 and you can even buy 4 pens for under $20 if you shop around. Even though each pen comes with a converter for bottled ink, I also ordered some Jinhao black International Standard sized ink cartridges. International Standard sized cartridges are available from other manufacturers and they should work too, so you are not locked into a proprietary ink cartridge. I like that.
The X750 has a medium nib which is a bit more fine than my Pilot. The X750 uses a common #6 nib so you can upgrade it.
Got pen, installed cartridge. The cartridge is very rigid so you can’t squeeze it to start the ink flowing so you have to do some jabs to start off. Once I got the ink going there was some dripping but I just test wrote through it and the flow seemed to settle down to a normal flow in a short time.
Then I wrote a journal length test page, and the Jinhao X750 wrote very well. Some small skipping every so often but nothing to put me off. It writes more like a $20 pen and does not feel cheap. This could be a good starter pen if you are on a budget.
My Pilot Metropolitan glides a little bit better with a slightly broader line, but my first impression is I could write all day with the X750.
Jinhao Ink
The ink cartridges themselves seem sturdy. One complaint about Pilot cartridges is leakage during shipment. The Jinhao cartridges look and feel like they might take more abuse in a padded mailer envelope. They are reasonably priced.
The ink flows well and gets the job done. In my limited test I have no complaints. My observation is the black is more translucent than black Pilot ink, but it writes just fine.
Here is a professional review of the Jinhao X750 by Goulet Pens.
You can find Jinhao pens from various online pen retailers like Goulet (above) and also on Amazon and eBay.
Keep in mind, I have not started to carry this pen everyday so I can’t speak to things like leakage yet. I don’t even know if I will like carrying a fountain pen. I’ll update when I know.
