The Tul retractable gel pen is a popular option from Office Max/Office Depot’s in-house brand. One of the top pens in the line is the retractable gel pen, which is a competitor to other mainstream, office-focused gel pens, like PaperMate InkJoy Gel and Pilot G2.
The pen is sometimes called the Tul GL1 retractable gel pen, but that model number is not always used.
The Tul Retractable Gel pen is sold in black and blue ink and medium (0.7 mm) and fine (0.5 mm) sizes. The medium version uses a standard conical tip (Tul calls this their “bullet point”) while the fine uses a thin needle point tip.
Tul Retractable Gel pens are not sold as being refillable, but they are in fact refillable with a compatible refill. They are generally sold in packs of 4 and 12 pens.
Tul Retractable Gel Pen Review
The thought of Office Depot using all their sales data and insights to produce a pen that’s better than that of their partners seemed intriguing to me, but that’s not the case with the Tul gel pen. This is an OK, but not great, gel pen that is jumping into a highly competitive class. With all sorts of incredible gel pens sold today, there is no reason to go with the Tul.
This assessment might seem harsh, but a deeper look into the pen will make it understandable. The Tul pen has an outdated appearance — it looks like a Uniball Vision Elite — a grip that isn’t very comfortable, and gel ink that isn’t quick drying. Selling for about $1.50 a pen, depending on the size of the pack you buy, they aren’t too expensive but they aren’t too cheap either.
The colors are quite vibrant, which makes them good for art purposes, but that’s not the goal of the pen. The Tul medium is quite wet, almost like a 1.0 mm. This means it’s heavy for many paper types (like a Rhodia) and slow to dry. In fact it’s much slower to dry than a comparable Energel or Sarasa gel pen.
If you are looking for pen in this class and are interested in in-house brands, Staples did a nicer job with the Tru Red gel pen.
So in this video I wanted to take a quick look at some pens from a company called Tul. That's T U L. It's sort of the in house brand from Office Depot and OfficeMax, which are like, I guess, office supply superstores here in the U. S. Much are there other places as well? But it's kind of a big box retailer, and a lot of these guys have started to released their own in house brands. Tul is, I believe it's Tul is one of them. This is the gel retractable pen in medium of sort of very standard pen.
I bought in this four pack, I think was like six or $7 these were mostly sold on uh means through OfficeMax, which is the company but through Office Depot, Office Max stores, whatever. But you can buy them online. Amazon, obviously from office depot dot com. A few others, so not impossible to find. But I've been coming increasingly aware that a lot of people buying pens in stores and I'm mainly online shopper, so I figured I wanted to pick some up. This is very similar to the the Tru Red line off pens, which are so let Staples the two being, you know, Staples and OfficeMax, our Office Depot, whatever being competitors.
Okay, So, back to the Tul retractable gel pen sold in a bunch of different packs. Again. I bought a four pack for, like, $8. You could buy a 14 pack for $21 online stuff like that It's sold in 0.5 mm. I bought it in 0.7mm retractable. Pretty normal gel pen with a retractable tip. And the body is nothing really to fancy. Kind of reminds me of a like a you nibble signal, signal type. You have a gel or a rubberized grip. Then you have, ah, metal tip plastic body with a sort of aged grady in't here. You know, again, it's looking like a vision elite or one of those definitely, Maybe a Signo. Something kind of older, you know, maybe from 5 to 6 years ago. Maybe even more medium again. That's the r metal clip. It says Tul on it to you. Well, it doesn't say OfficeMax, which is the parent corporation or office Depot. Anything like that anywhere on it, just that all the branding is his Tul, and there's a little piece of plastic here that makes that clip have a little bite to it and fine clip works.
Well, I think it kind of looks cool. The plastic there we see the top button has, ah, this plastic shell around it, and it just makes it look a little cooler. We've seen this a fair bit, Uh, some other manufacture do that. I think, like maybe some jet streams I'm trying to recall off top my mind that I'm not quite sure. Let me see. Ah, no, not zebra, but it's similar. A few people do that. Just a nice little design tweak You can see the blue piece inside is actually doing the work. This outside pieces, just a shell that looks cool. There you see it. Now it's functional. A CZ, really, all there is to it, and reasonable grip. It's kind of a harder plastic. All right. This is a rubber, but it's hard like a plastic, and it's it's not quite a soft touch material. It's rubberized, but there's no road give to it. So and this piece is a little short. It's not tapered around it anyway, so I'd say it's reasonably comfortable, but not very special. Uh, the nose piece is obviously quite blunt. I'm not quite sure why they made it so short. I guess they wanted to look different from kind of amore. Tapered knows, but, uh, it's fine. It's functional. If you open this off, you see the newest piece it comes off, and it's just this tiny little metal thing, very squat looking inside.
We have the very standard looking gel refill, kind of looks like a pilot g to size gel refill. And there's really there's no branding everything on here. It just says, I guess that is a D B 106 I'm not sure is that there's aren't any of the like. They're not manufactured codes that I'm familiar with. So none of it really is like, Oh, that's obviously from paper made or pen tell. That's not really clear. So it's just a very standard looking gel refill. Obviously, uh, depends are refillable. So there's that.
The pack I bought has the standard colors Blue, red, green, purple. Obviously it's sold in black. This doesn't include black, for whatever reason, but pretty nice little kit about $2 a pen, and it'll drop down to like a buck 75 if you spend more as far as the look and feel goes outside. Nothing special, definitely kind of dated to me writing. I've found them to be like, fine, like not anything special, but it's an okay gel pen. I've found that I've been using a lot of gel pens, lady, So I've gotten very interested in comparing them, and this one's OK. I found dry times on this seam on the high side. Like watch this. That's not okay from Ah, Lefty. At least in my mind, I really prefer, uh, Sarasa and the enter jealous tends to be the winner.
This paper is a little bit, uh, resistant, so it's not an ideal, but let's just see what happens. See no problems there, and this is a little thinner. Is two point 5,000,000 in reverse the 2.0.7? But this is not in my mind, at least in my experience. It's not quick drying gel, but it does have a nice, bold line in a really nice blue color. So you're writing on him or acceptable, like a paper that accepts the anchor soaks in more cotton paper or office type. You know, if a printer paper, then this will be fine but watches. Ah, little bit smearing there, but not too bad. It's basically a little slow on the dry time. It's not ideal, but it writes nicely. Rights consistently, and I will say solid colors.
They do come with the tip dipped. I know technically with this cult, but it's this little waxy thing here. I don't normally have it in the video of us. I didn't writing with depend, but they do come with this so they will not dry out in the package, which is nice to see you. The green again. Same situation, nice, vibrant color. They're not a smooth that smooth as I would like to see from a gel pen. It just fine. I thought they would. I guess. In my mind, I didn't think they would be anything special, because these in house brands tend not to be the best. But I know the companies are focused on improving the quality for the last couple of years with your in house brands. So how I had high hopes for the Tul and again it's fine. It's definitely on the wet side for 0.7 millimeter, and it's definitely a low dry time. So I would recommend getting the 0.5 millimeter close comparison to this would be again a cheaper energy l but that's better on. And there's the paper meant enjoy, which I think would be probably the closest comparison or true red, but probably a paper made enjoy. And this is the Paper Mate, Ink Joy Gel.
This is also a 0.7 millimeter, clearly not quite as wet as a Tul, and I think that's comparable. So this one is definitely drying Maur quickly than the Tul, which for me as a lefty is a huge advantage. So keep that in mind. Uh, I think that about covers it. That's the Tul. Retractable medium point. So 0.0.7 millimeter gel pen, I would say they're fine. Not advisable for lefties. From a price standpoint, they're probably a little pricey, but not that bad for an office. Tenet's pretty okay, but I would not recommend them overall, Get paper, mate. If you want something on the low end, or if you want to be nicer, get a nice Sarasa MarkOn. Any two straws is We're solid Zebra obviously makes them. Obviously, the energy l is quite good as well. So that about covers it.
Thanks for watching. And if you have any feedback, please let me know. Really? Helps me decide what I will be covering in these videos. Thanks.
Tul Retractable Gel Pen Information
| Street Price | Check Price |
| Manufacturer | Tul |
| Pen Type | Rollerball / Gel |
| Rating | |
| Barrel Color | Silver |
| Barrel Material | Plastic |
| Body Diameter (mm) | 10.0 |
| Grip Color | Black |
| Grip Material | Rubber |
| Grip Diameter (mm) | 10.0 |
| Country of Origin | China |
| MSRP | $2 |
| Still Sold | Yes |
| Similar To | |
| Refills | |
| Capped? Retractable? | Retractable - Top Button |
| Clip? | Metal |
| Length Capped / Retracted (cm) | 14.9 |
| Weight (g) | 11.8 |
| Ink Color Shipped | Black, Blue, Red, Purple, Green |
| Writing Sizes | 0.5 mm, 0.7 mm |